Madeleine Marg

Changing Ideas Award
"Alarm Bells" addresses the stigma surrounding mental health. It draws on my personal experience with anxiety disorders. From the age of seven, I witnessed my mother’s experience of obsessive compulsive disorder, which at times prevented her from leaving the house. Her compulsions were externally presenting, and shaped my early understanding of OCD.
In my early twenties, I began to experience intrusive thoughts myself through persistent, unwanted and distressing thought patterns that conflicted with my sense of self. I came to realise that anxiety disorders can manifest in many different ways. Compulsions can be more internalised and expressed through reassurance seeking behaviours. This realisation challenged my previous assumptions and revealed the complexity and variation within the disorders. It highlighted how easily more internal experiences can be misunderstood or overlooked.
Through casting a domestic alarm clock in glass, I regenerate the object as a personal embodiment of my anxiety. The transparency of the glass represents the difficulty of recognising mental health conditions that present differently to what is widely known. Through the use of rotating time, I express the consistent cyclical repetition of my intrusive thoughts.
The imagery and title reference my tendency toward catastrophising and fixating on worst-case scenarios and becoming convinced they are imminent, when they are not. The alarm clock will never detonate, yet it holds a constant sense of tension and anticipation. It is this uncertainty whether something will or will not happen, that reflects the ongoing psychological strain of my intrusive thoughts.
By drawing on my own experience, I aim to challenge the stigma surrounding mental health and expand understanding of anxiety disorders. "Alarm Bells" invites reflection on how we recognise illness, and calls for greater empathy toward the complex realities of the mind. - the artist