Plagued by Doubt
Book sculpture by Thomas Wightman
"This is the second of my book sculptures for my final-year project. It uses a visual metaphor to convey the emotions of obsessive-compulsive disorder, and embodies my research by visualising an expression used by a sufferer of OCD. The expression was ‘plagued by doubt’, because the person repetitively sought reassurance and kept checking things. I wanted to convey this idea by making a plague of insects. I decided on moths because I wanted to suggest that the book has been hidden and left, and the moths have eaten away at the pages of the book. This shows that if you don’t seek treatment for OCD, it can become both physically and mentally damaging. Also, typography was used to show the idea that these moths have made a nest within the book – representative of the fact that OCD is usually with a person for life. It lives within and is not noticed until the book is opened, releasing the moths and solving the problem to demonstrate that with proper help, OCD can be treated."
