How does a space change when you are in it? What colour and light do you uniquely bring into your environment? What might your brain look like if you could see your cognitive strengths and challenges in shape and colour?.
Portrait of a Brain is a chandelier-like installation representing a much-loved neurodivergent individual. Their 'spikey' cognitive profile is mapped and translated here without any reference to physical attributes.
Visitors enter a light filled space with slowly shifting, refracted, colorful shapes playing on the walls and surfaces. Suspended from the ceiling is the sculptural form from which the reflected colour and light are generated.
The effect of the piece conveys a sense of Northern Lights, or of a sacred space and gently moving kaleidoscopic forms as if through stained glass windows.
The cognitive profile was mapped by Prof Amanda Kirby of Do-IT Profiler and translated into radar charts that represent skills in cognition and sensation, emotion and feelings, organisation and time management, speaking and listening, literacy and numeracy, and motor.
Represented in this way, the shapes that form from the data points overlap to create a kaleidoscope of colour as they move adjacent to each other. The sculptural forms invite the viewer to consider the ways in which 'thinking styles' can be complementary amongst groups of people.
Total weight: 48kg. Each section is made from fire retardant polycarbonate sheet, 5mm thick.
Suspended using 3 x 1.5mm steel wires, each rated with a SWL of 20kg. Can be attached to a QX30SA truss frame using load rated shackles.
All equipment is transported in bespoke flight cases fitted with wheels. (Wheels are rubber to prevent damage to floors and carpets.)
Portrait of a Brain is approximately two metres high and one metre across. Click the thumbnail to enlarge the technical render of the piece to see the dimensions.
Portrait of a Brain has previously been displayed at the Anglican Chapel in Coventry, commissioned by Unlimited as part of Coventry City of Culture. It was also installed at the Hayward Gallery in the Southbank Centre.
If you are interested in displaying Portrait of a Brain, please contact hayley@alittlebitdistracted.com.
Portrait of a Brain designed by Hayley Williams-Hindle and fabricated by Table Art.
Anglican Chapel photography by Joy Richings.