Mal gut, mehr schlecht. (Some good, more bad.)
Insights into a world of depression
“You sit in your flat and scan the things surrounding you. The light dims and you see less and less, until nothing’s left. That’s what depression feels like.”
Mareike
Psychiatric illnesses are omnipresent in our society, but most people don’t understand the actual symptoms.
With different media formats, the project enables the disease depression to be better understood – through pictures and words.
For one and a half years, the photographer and project initiator Nora Klein was in a trusting exchange with those affected. Through intensive conversations she was able to find her own pictorial form of expression for the emotional world of depressed people beyond words. With sensitive portraits and abstract imagery, she makes an invisible disease visible. Her photos are haunting insights into the inner world of the depression and are supplemented by the minutes of the project participants’ conversations.
The photo book and the exhibition were published by Hatje Cantz Verlag in 2017.
Since 2018, the project has been supplemented by a Germany-wide series of lectures. The photographer Nora Klein and the project participant Sabine Fröhlich are on the road with a visual presentation and make an invisible disease visible.
“I could – finally! – understand the disease and try to understand it. Thank you“
Extract from the guest book from October 11, 2019
The project “Some good, more bad” enables family members of affected people access to an unknown world and can help to develop understanding. People who have experienced depression feel that they are in solidarity, and therapeutic professionals use the photo book as a basis for communication in the consultation.
It wasn’t just the openness and trust of the participants that made the project possible. Thanks to the extensive funding of numerous initiatives, companies and foundations, the project was able to grow and develop. Our thanks go to the Deutsche DepressionsLiga e.V., BARMER, the Town & Country Foundation, the Eckhard Busch Foundation and the Sparkassenstiftung Erfurt. The book was nominated by the Book Art Foundation for the “Most Beautiful German Books 2017” award.
