Unmasking Brain Injury
Unmasking Brain Injury on display at the Thunder Bay Art Gallery’s community room
Exhibition Explores Living with a Brain Injury
Story and photos by Sidney Ulakovic
According to Brain Injury Canada, a traumatic brain injury is expected to be among the most common neurological conditions affecting Canadians by 2031, and with traumatic brain injuries afflicting approximately 165,000 Canadians annually, this means that one person is currently injured at a rate of every three minutes.
June is Brain Injury Awareness Month, and in an effort to spark conversations around living with these conditions, the Brain Injury Association of Thunder Bay and Area (BIATBA) is participating in an international art therapy campaign, Unmasking Brain Injury, which is on display in the Thunder Bay Art Gallery’s community room until June 20.
The initiative began in the United States, eventually expanding globally, and involves participants creating masks to represent their experiences with brain injury with the goal of raising awareness and promoting services available to survivors.
“The last time we did it here in Thunder Bay was in 2019. I think COVID kind of got in the way of being able to do group artistic expression sort of events,” says Greg Mahood, chair of BIATBA. “I was really pleased to see [the Ontario Brain Injury Association] reached out and suggested they were going to restart this initiative because I think it’s a really nice exercise for people to express themselves in a way that doesn’t require language.”
I AM SOMEBODY TOO by Rod Pollard
The masks on display at the Thunder Bay Art Gallery were created by both local and regional participants and are highly varied in their appearance and effect, with each mask tailored to the experience of their creators and reflecting that brain injury is not a static or uniform event. Each mask is accompanied by an artist’s statement explaining their work, with many of the statements echoing their frustrations encountered throughout recovery, a desire to be understood, and the importance of perseverance, adaptability, and grace on their journeys.
“I think it’s a good idea with the masks, because it does let out a lot of feelings from people,” says participating artist Wayne Fisher, whose mask entitled North - West - East - South explores the difficulties he has experienced trying to reorient himself in his life amidst the challenges presented by his injury.
Another participant, Rod Pollard, created a mask entitled I AM SOMEBODY TOO, and says the opportunity to channel his experiences through a creative outlet was helpful. “My mask is a conveyance of my hurts, and frustrations, my unhappiness,” Pollard says. “My mask represents people like me, who were the result of an accident, an event, or just someone’s carelessness, and we have to deal with the emotional, the physical, and the environmental stresses, hardships, and ridicule,” Pollard says in his artist statement, adding that despite the hardships of living with his injury, he tries to keep a positive mindset. “Anything is possible if we believe in our path and in ourselves.”
“Sometimes people can feel lost once they exit that initial acute care system,” Mahood says. “And so creating that awareness and tying it to the Brain Injury Awareness month of June creates a really vivid and visual opportunity for people to explore and bear witness to what people are experiencing.”
To learn more about Unmasking Brain Injury and services available to those affected by brain injuries in Thunder Bay, visit biatba.com.