Restless chafing, 2015

Photography | The Fourth Wall

By Saaiq’a Ebrahim

“The day of birth for every human being is the start of a lifelong battle to adapt himself to an ever-changing environment. He is usually victorious and adjusts himself without pain. However, in one case out of 20 he does not adjust himself. In U.S. hospitals, behind walls like [those] shown here, are currently 500 000 men, women and children whose minds have broken in the conflict of life.”

• Excerpt from LIFE Magazine’s 1939 article and photo essay, “Strangers to Reason: LIFE Inside a Psychiatric Hospital”.

From left to right: Untitled, 2015 and Ephemeral, 2015

The Fourth Wall series is an exploration of the psychological realm of today’s man. As conscious, sentient beings we negotiate pain our entire lives, it is a lifelong battle.

We find ourselves adapting to an ever-changing environment of experience, which evokes both joy and pain.

Suspension of Disbelief, 2015. Found still life within a still life. Suspension of Disbelief is a term coined in 1817 by the poet and aesthetic philosopher Samuel Taylor Coleridge, who suggested that if a writer could infuse a “human interest and a semblance of truth” into a fantastic tale, the reader would suspend judgement concerning the implausibility of the narrative.

Untitled, 2015

Through this project I wish to explore this negotiation with life, by bearing witness to the human condition and man’s existential state. I will also be exploring intensely the unwavering power of the mind and psychosis.

In addition, throughout my project I will be employing the image of the theatre as a poetic device — by juxtaposing the theatre and the mind. I will be looking at the mind as a space where a performance of sorts occurs.

“The Fourth Wall” is the imaginary ‘wall’ at the front of the stage in a traditional three walled box set in a proscenium arch theatre, through which the audience sees the action in the world of the play. The concept is usually attributed to the philosopher, critic and dramatist Denis Diderot. The term itself was used by Moliere. The fourth wall illusion is often associated with naturalist theatre of the mid-19th century.

Untitled, 2015

The restrictions of the fourth wall were challenged in 20th century theatre. Speaking directly to, otherwise acknowledging or doing something to the audience through this imaginary wall — or, in film and television, through a camera — is known as “breaking the fourth wall”, as it is a penetration of a boundary normally set up or assumed by works of fiction, this is considered a meta-fictional technique. In literature and video games, it occurs when a character acknowledges the reader or player.

Left: Neurosis, scan of original Rorschach made by a psychiatry patient. The Rorschach Inkblot Test is a projective psychological test created in 1921 with the publication of Psychodiagnostik by Hermann Rorschach. During the 1940s and 1950s, the test was synonymous with clinical psychology. Right: Suffer well, 2015

Left: Rorschach, self made. Right: The Mad Scene, 2015

SAAIQA11.jpg. ‘Penance I’ & ‘Penance II’, Pastel transfers onto cleaning paper, created by wiping a table in a psychiatric hospital, 2015

Untitled, 2015

Find more of Saaiq’a’s work on instagram: @acollaredwoman