Lola Magenta

Ansuya Blom’s area of work lies at the transition between the body and its environment. The artist concentrates on the clash between the human mind and the external world. In drawings and films, she presents a radical and idiosyncratic representation of the first-person perspective. Words and images seem to refer to shared experiences, but ultimately they're never entirely comprehensible. Lola Magenta is about a famous name in psychiatric literature, Lola Voss, who was diagnosed as schizophrenic by Ludwig Binswanger, a contemporary of Freud. Nonetheless, Blom chooses not to use Binswanger’s words, but the writings of Voss herself. In letters to her doctors, she lucidly describes her situation and attempts to gain control of her fears. Excerpts from the letters are interspersed with lines from the Greek tragedy Agamemnon and the play 4.48 Psychosis, the final work by playwright Sarah Kane before she opted to escape her depression by committing suicide. (International Documentary Film Festival Amsterdam)