Cirrus@Austlit

'I want to know what it was like to have crossed into the realm of madness. After all, I did it. I went mad. Why can’t I have the secret knowledge that comes with it?

'How do you write a memoir when you have lost your memories? Anna Jacobson awakens in hospital, greeted by nurses and patients she doesn’t recognise, but who address her with familiarity. She decides to untangle the clues.

How to Knit a Human is about the splintering of memory from psychosis and Electroconvulsive therapy that Anna experienced as an involuntary patient in 2011. Through knitting and assemblage, weaving experiences around the gaps of memories that are not accessible, the memory barriers begin to crumble. This book is a reclamation of memory and self.'  (Publication summary)

(Publication summary)

'In this paper I argue that extending the illness/recovery narrative through the transmedial mode allows for more diverse representation from patients and survivors, leading to greater understanding of varied stories and an enhanced version of Narrative Medicine. Using two transmedial case studies – Dakoda Barker’s threesixfive (2015) and my own interactive memoir How to Knit a Human – I frame my discussion through the lenses of Disability Studies, Mad Studies and Narrative Medicine. Threesixfive evokes Barker’s experience of living with a chronic health condition and the daily struggles and choices one must make throughout each hour. How to Knit a Human utilises choice-based digital storytelling to represent inconsistencies in memory and alternative pathways caused by memory-loss from psychosis and electroconvulsive therapy. I explore these transmedial potentials and encourage survivors to take power and agency in their own valuable lived experiences in order to transform the Narrative Medicine field, which usually only draws on traditional forms of storytelling. I assert that transmedial modes grant greater diversity and flexibility when wielded by survivors. Moreover, once these stories are experienced by others, stigma surrounding disability and/or madness will reduce not only in wider society, but in medicine, education and institutions.'(Publication abstract)