Jason Yuk-Fai Lau, University of Western Ontario, Canada
ABSTRACT
In exploring my experience of living with chronic depression, I delve into a collection of self-portrait
photographs spanning the past decade, and critically analyze my embodied performances depicting the
experience of depression in front of the lens of a camera. Through analyzing representations, interpretations
and broader cultural ideas communicated within these photographs, I engage with them using photo memoir
as an autoethnographic research method. By doing this, I aim to bring to light facets of how depression has felt
like to me personally, but also to broader public feelings and experiences of depression in larger sociocultural
contexts.
KEYWORDS
Visual, Anthropology, Trauma, Depression, Mental Health.
