What Do You See When You Look at This Bridge? A Real Painter Sits on Sheila Heti’s Fictional Couch

This bridge is one of 21 paper backgrounds Sheila Heti discovered in a 1940s-era paper-doll set for Freudian analysts. On the bridge are three paper dolls chosen at random. Tony, an artist, was asked what he sees when he looks at this scene.

Tony’s apartment is undecorated and spare. He owns little, feeling that life is fundamentally unstable. He hasn’t had a serious relationship in the half decade since leaving university, though he dates. He is an artist whose canvases are full of nightmarish scenarios: mutilation, murder, the fallout of atomic war. He was training to be a biologist, which was his parents’ dream for him, but on the day of his final exams, he simply did not show up. In fact, at many key moments in life, he has suddenly turned in a different direction, never reaching the destination for which he seemed headed. He lives in relative poverty now. His parents divorced when he was 10, at which point Tony immediately began to see his entire life with his family as having been a sham. He claims it is the most defining event of his life: Before that, he remembers having been a confident, stable, and happy boy. Since the divorce, he has felt insecure in the world and mistrustful. As an adult, he is never convinced that the life he is leading is the “right” one, and he doubts his decisions and is wary of any commitments. He is considered very intelligent by the people who know him…