SchitzoFREEnia

“Are there not times in which we feel disconnected from the world? Being far away from home, feeling distant from loved ones, and being out of our comfort zone can generate a sense of alienation that may reduce social engagement and emotional expression. This and auditory hallucinations with other symptoms are generally associated with schizophrenia. The origin of the term schizophrenia, from the Greek skhizein (meaning to split) and phrēn (mind), however, does not imply a split personality or multiple personality disorder as it’s often wrongly confused in public perception. The term means a splitting of mental functions. In SchizoFREEnia, a both physical and vocal experience, I explore ways of using the body and the voice as expressive tools where mind and body are connected and disconnected, one and two separate entities, freed from social cognition”.

For this work Cassola spent time at Casa das Palmeiras (Palms House), a clinic for former patients of psychiatric institutions, where they could freely express their art and be treated as outpatients on a daily basis. Casa Das Palmeiras was a revolutionary project created in 1956 in Rio de Janeiro by Dr. Nise Da Silveira who devoted her life to psychiatry and was never in agreement with the aggressive treatments of her time such as commitment to psychiatric hospitals, electroshock, insulin therapy and lobotomy. In 1952 Da Silveira had already founded the Museum of Images of the Unconscious, a study and research center that collected the works produced in painting and modeling studios. Through her work, Nise da Silveira introduced Jungian psychology in Brazil.

The research on occupational therapy and the understanding of the psychotic process through images of the unconscious gave origin to SchitzoFREEnia, a performance that explores and shares different ways of using the body and the voice sound as expressive tools. The experience is both physical and vocal: the artist composes the piece live on stage. With the support of live loop recording she replays a sound that she has been previously produced and recorded in studio, using her most bizarre voice sounds. Once the sound is replayed in front of the audience as an element of disruption she comes out of a box, reacts on it, thus creating movement while navigating herself from order to chaos. The result is a subconscious natural release of tensions that generates energy and leads to a sense of infinity and freedom.