Since 25 January 2022, I have been on 10 mg of Lexapro, an antidepressant medication used to treat my general anxiety disorder. As a result, most of my anxiety has resolved and is no longer manifested in ways that disrupt my everyday life. However, it has come with other changes in my brain chemistry that make it difficult to decide if they are worth taking. In order to make a decision like that, I would have to assess what is most important to me. Through this project, I hope to make that more clear for myself as well as other people going through a similar experience.

Diluted explores the version of myself that I have became, somewhat less of the person I was before. It dives into three main aspects of my life where I have felt the most dissociated: sex, relationships/friendships, and my own body and consciousness.

Dissociation and indifference toward the people and experiences in my life has been the most noticeable result of the medication, even more so than the lack of anxiety. It has began to affect the people in my life and be prominent to others apart from myself. I have also dissociated from sex in a more emotional sense as well as my body and consciousness. With relationships, I am lucky enough to be open with the people I am closest to. This allows them to try and understand the way I have been acting. This helps to alleviate some of the guilt I have been experiencing. The two aspects that only involve myself are far more difficult because it is something I have to face alone, which has been isolating.

These emotions have been the foundation on which Diluted has emerged. My own performative act of having to convince myself that I can still have fun and enjoy living, feel something, mirrors the need to use performance as an instrument to achieve authentic emotion.

Bio: Lindsey Curabba (2000)  is a multimedia artist specializing in photography and design based in New Jersey. She works with both mediums, sometimes blending the two and other times keeping them separate. In her recent artwork, she uses film photography so as to tell a story and a process in and of itself. Recurring themes include; identity, sexuality, and her own feminine and queer experience. Her art aims at creating a safe environment for open and honest conversations. She hopes to make relatable work and create shared experiences with her and her viewers.