Saria Pastorek
studio artMental Capacity
“Mental Capacity” is a piece representing my own experiences with ADHD. This is a piece that required me to surpass my struggles with its symptoms. The direction I chose to take this project was to recycle several dry erase boards and cover it in chalkboard paint. This is meant to represent the struggles with diagnoses, medications and “masking” required to function in society as a neurodivergent person, rather than being made a functional chalkboard, or neurotypical, from the start. Throughout the semester I challenged myself to fill out these chalkboards with my research and personal experience on a particularly challenging part of my ADHD; brain fog, shared through a set of visual poems, combined for an overwhelming effect. Brain fog is a range of symptoms that cause cognitive impairment and is common in inattentive type ADHD, where one regularly shows signs of confusion, fatigue, forgetfulness, slow reaction times, and difficulty in communication. Lately this has become prevalent in symptoms of long Covid as well as other cognitive disabilities like dementia.