Neuromantic

My name is Ana and I am a love addict. Neuromantic dives into my trauma related to intimacy and is an interdisciplinary scrutinization of dysfunctional relationships.

My name is Ana and I am a love addict. All my life, I have been consumed by anxiety and trapped in a loop of rejecting the partners who want me and obsessing over the ones who don’t.

In march 2020 the Covid 19 pandemic severely hit NY and I was suddenly trapped in my apartment with myself.

This ignited a process of looking inward and creating a visual language to process my traumas around intimacy. I started photographing partners and close female friends and family members with whom I shared similar histories and relationship experiences. My apartment became the stage where I could re signify my inner world.

I exhaustively researched neuro scientific and psychological journals and discovered that emotional and physical abuse makes us develop an insecure attachment style with dysfunctional coping mechanisms affecting the quality of our relationships.

I realized my intense infatuations were a way to dissociate from reality and seek pleasure to anesthetize my life-long emotional pain.

I found studies that suggest that exposure to trauma can change the way genes express stress in our brain, and that it can be passed on through generations perpetuating dysfunctional cycles.

I understood how important the quality of our relationships are for our mental health and to overcome addictions.

(link to project website: https://readymag.com/u632244703/science/)

In 2020 I launched a survey where I asked people to describe how their emotions around romantic love felt.

(Link to curated answers from 100+ participants: https://docs.google.com/document/d/1RusfAcMVsv4t3uMYJZ5LxRslHyY-rZrU7KaNhRcV2c8/edit)

I am currently collaborating with data scientist Andrew Hill, and together we designed an anonymous survey to assess how people experience emotions in relationships according to their attachment style. (Link to the surveys: https://forms.gle/C73DtN9CMNViD8sb9 and https://forms.gle/i8YHZcH6pSBgbYHi6). The surveys provide a safe space of expression which will also give us insight into how people feel and perceive their intimacy.

Through this interdisciplinary scrutinization of relationships, Neuromantic delves into dysfunctional relationships to ultimately highlight why healthy relationships and trauma integration are essential for our wellbeing and mental health.

A grant would be essential for me to finalize the data aspect of the project. I would be able to hire a web designer to visualize the data in the surveys. The web experience would also allow the viewer to filter responses according to attachment styles (secure, anxious, avoidant or ambivalent) or other categories like nationalities and key words.

Financing would also allow me to exhibit the project as an installation where more data could be collected.

Eventually, I want to develop this project into a book as well.