There are these gaps in my family history. Gaps that point to experiences of madness. No one spoke about these experiences, so they’re present as absence. And I think for a lot of people, disclosing mental health disability is complicated.

So I’m curious: How do we communicate about these experiences? What does intergenerational dialogue look like? And these are the questions that Szepty/Whispers emerges from.

There are two parts. There’s an in-person performance which grapples with my family’s silences around madness. And there’s a digital component, where various artists explore the relationship between mental health, language, and lineage. And those contributing artists are mia susan amir, Kagan Goh, Maya Jones, Constantin Lozitsky, Kendra Place, Jivesh Parasram, and Manuel Axel Strain.

Finding words for my experiences has opened the door to unique forms of community. My relationships with fellow Mad, Neurodivergent, and trauma-impacted people have sustained me and helped me understand my place in the world.

“So how do we sit with these silences instead of trying to fill them?”

At the same time, there are things that I don’t have language for. And there are things that I can’t ever know or understand about the minds and bodies of others. So how do we sit with these silences instead of trying to fill them? How can we see them as openings instead of absences?