Online Exhibition:
Title: It's all in my Head - in progress (Documentary Series)
Medium: Photography
Year: 2020

By Artist: ETINOSA YVONNE #ARTMAZON_Etinosa
https://www.artmazon.com/etinosa/

Curator: Emilomo  Instagram #ARTMAZON_Emilomo
https://www.artmazon.com/Emilomo

It’s All In My HEAD - in progress

It’s All In My Head, is a multimedia project that explores the coping mechanisms of survivors of terrorism and violent conflict in Nigeria. The project aims to advocate for increased and long-term access to psychosocial support for the survivors which in turn will improve their mental health.

In the last two decades, Nigeria has witnessed varying degrees of terrorism and violent conflicts. Whenever there is an attack, humanitarian organizations, government agencies and others focus on providing relief materials, setting up make shift clinics, temporary housing and schools. Although the aforementioned are very necessary, however, little priority is given to assessing the mental health of survivors.

Relevant authorities in Nigeria are striving to rid the country of all forms of extremism, terrorism and violent conflict, through ongoing peace building efforts, counterterrorism and the likes; however, the survivors of these attacks are often left behind as very little is done to address their mental health and the trauma experienced from such horrific experiences. Without much support, the survivors make strong individual efforts to move past the trauma of the things they witnessed and carry on living their lives.

In the last two years I have worked with over forty survivors of terrorism and violent conflict in Nigeria. It is interesting to know that while these survivors find a way to rebuild and adjust to their new lives, many of them never get to talk about their experiences. Thus, the idea of "moving on” can be considered to be a charade as they are stuck in the past while trying to start over.
A lot of the survivors’ struggle with depression, PTSD, and vengeful thoughts, while others have found solace in their existence and religion.

I started this project to draw the attention of society to the state of mind of some of these survivors.

In It’s All In My Head, I explore how these survivors struggle to move on by using layered portraits (still images & videos) of the survivors and the things that they do to help them move forward or otherwise