Resonance: solo exhibition by Chanika Svetvilas

Resonance is the quality in a sound of being deep, full, and reverberating. When Svetvilas reflects on her memories of bipolar mania and past hospitalizations, news stories of family members throughout the United States calling 911, desperately seeking help for their loved ones, resonate. Through a series of charcoal-text drawings on lined paper, her experiences in the mental healthcare system are revealed as pithy synopses and smeared with fingerprints and resist a sterile and clinical perspective. Materials such as charcoal and prescription bottles, a part of Svetvilas’ lived mental health difference, inform her work.

The site of this solo exhibition was previously a school and center for the Emanuel Lutheran Church’s community development program, which included Open Door, a drug treatment program. Many community groups met here for the wellbeing of their members. In keeping with the history of the space, Resonance incorporates the learning atmosphere of a classroom including writing on a chalkboard, a clock installed on the wall, and a large globe transformed with prescription bottles. The centerpiece of the exhibition is a suspended sculpture of a cage with a brightly lit, red exit sign enclosed within and sitting on a cushion of preserved moss. Encircling it below, prescription bottles cascade with gold chains and a flower garland. Upon closer inspection, strung together are cameo portraits of individuals who have been killed by the police as a result of 911 calls made by family members. The exhibition also features an experimental video, Silent Screaming Siren, with themes of transformation, incarceration, displacement, agency, and hope.

May is Mental Health Awareness Month. Through her art, Svetvilas asks that conversations and discussions go beyond awareness and move towards action for healthcare access and equity and the cultivation of inclusive environments that create sustainable support to prevent future crises.