States of Mind: Ann Veronica Janssens. Wellcome Library, London. Wellcome Images
Ethereal, mystifying and disorientating: visually, Ann Veronica Janssens’ immersive coloured mist installation is something of the sublime. “Yellowbluepink” starts off a year-long investigation at the Wellcome Collection into human consciousness, centring around the question of why our objective brains give rise to our subjective consciousness.
Entering and exiting the space is reminiscent of those entryways to space ships or submarine vessels you see in science-fiction films. First you go through one door before it is shut behind you and the next one is opened, as to not let one environment infiltrate the other, except some of the mist has escaped.
Stepping inside this abyss of pink fog feels like diving into a liquid rainbow. Initially you see no edges. The other gallery visitors become apparitions disappearing into the haze. Walking becomes drifting through a clouded void. Time is suspended and a feeling of somnambulance evoked. Empty of a framework, light is somehow made more tactile and the colours appear tangible. Bright pink turns into a desert yellow and finally an ocean blue before you hit the wall. Turning around to go back the way you came, the mist is a murky wolf grey. The colours fade and increase in saturation as the eyes adjust, and suddenly your senses elude you -you become aware that what you see in front of you is just as much in your head as it is there.
States of Mind: Ann Veronica Janssens. Wellcome Library, London. Wellcome Images
Janssens draws our attention to questions of human perception and reality. “By rendering visible the invisible,” she states, “these experiences act as passages from one reality to another. It’s a question of thresholds between two states of perception.” And that’s one of the few strengths of this work – how it produces that feeling of the possibility of limitlessness, which then contrasts with the realisation that you’re actually in an enclosed room.
Sadly, the mirage is tarnished as you gradually become more aware of the space’s confinement, with its windows and ceiling lights. Perhaps on a larger scale with an elliptical form and with less architectural distractions in a not-so clinical environment, this installation could provide the awe-inspiring effect it’s aiming at. “Yellowbluepink” leaves us wondering about the various barriers between spaces, the human behaviours they invoke, and the things we perceive everyday silently and instinctually.
Text by Naomi Ellis
Ann Veronica Janssens: “yellowbluepink” is at the Wellcome Collection, London, until 3 January 2016
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