Cycology of the Ride

One in four people will be affected by a mental illness at some point in their lives. By sharing my own story of depression, I hope to open the conversation about mental illness and change the negative stigma around depression. My work shows my journey with battling depression through my own therapy method of cycling. I tracked all of my bike routes during my process of recovery, which can be seen, highlighted in green in the center of every mandala. The mandala is a form I decided to work with because it signifies meditation, peace, and spiritual and personal enlightenment; all relating to how I felt after every ride. I chose to do twelve mandalas because it took me twelve months to openly talk about my past struggles with depression. Also, it took me twelve rides to recognize a positive change of moods, thought, and action.

Through this work, I visualized my own process of recovery from the first wheel to the last. The amount of time I spent designing each mandala was the amount of time I rode that particular route. The design of each mandala is stemmed off the shape of the route while the colors are what I focused on during that particular ride. This positive change within me can be visually seen as the designs get more complex and colors get more vibrant as each ride passes.