The poet has created an illustrated poetry collection titled Questionable Cycles, featuring their own poems alongside original illustrations. The collection was written over the course of a year, marking their first full year as an immigrant in Europe. Through these poems, they sought to sublimate the challenges of navigating a new environment while managing unmedicated bipolar disorder.
Each poem is paired with an ink illustration, blending text and imagery on the page. The title, Questionable Cycles, reflects the recurring struggles encountered when entering a new stage of life, as well as the emotional cycles characteristic of bipolar disorder, oscillating between periods of uplift and depression.
The project is part of the subtheme Healing Narratives - Poetry, Mental Health and Collective Trauma.
Author
Alex Girshon
Alex Girshon is an emerging Russian artist, currently studying in the Royal Academy of Arts in the Hague. Through visual arts and poetry, they are dealing with questions of identity, immigration, mental health, spirituality and the place of traditional arts in the contemporary world.
