Your Assumptions Amuse Me

Susan Goodyear's Your Assumptions Amuse Me is a text-based installation that explores one family's experience when besieged by mental illness. The messages were written by Goodyear's older brother, Greg. He is twenty-seven years old, struggles with schizophrenia and continues to live with their parents in St. John's, Newfoundland. In October of 1998, Goodyear started collecting his notes, only to acquire approximately 2000 since that time. The notes are evocative of communication, connection, and continual negotiation. Their assertive capped lettered requests are telling of simple pleasures where the waiting of pleasure is pleasure itself. Referencing family dynamic, the work challenges the boundary between public and private space. Revealing an irrelevance to time and place, the installation is an entrance into the world of someone who is mentally ill. The exhibition also included her brother's drawings of spaceships. All works are affixed to the walls in a manner meant to be immersive to the viewer.