Wonder: Art, Science and Creative Journeys

In addition to the current exhibitions at the Bethlem Museum and Gallery, there are several events in London from this weekend focusing on the arts and mental health. In mid-February, an exhibition by Core Arts opened in the Hackney Museum, and runs until the end of May. Creative Journeys claims to address responses to mental health in Hackney, past and present: however, it’s the present responses that really resonate. Paintings, drawings, sculpture, video art, music and collaborative installations involving the viewer all form part of the display by artists involved with Core Arts. Each piece is accompanied by an autobiography of the artist. Some choose to focus on their mental health history, others do not, following Core Arts’ aim to refuse to allow artists to be pigeon-holed into psychiatric or “outsider” art.

The artists’ stories are powerful in a different way from their art, offering a collection of unique insights into the individual (and very different) experiences of mental health service users. This makes the historical element of the exhibition, which offers a standardised sweeping narrative of psychiatric “progress” rather jarring, and it’s hard not to wish that the art had simply been allowed to speak for itself. There are a number of art workshops related to the exhibition, all presented by exhibiting artists: see the full list on the Core Arts website.

A very different series of events starts this weekend at the Barbican. Wonder: Art and Science on the Brain recognises that depictions of human thought, emotion, behaviour and expression are common to neuroscience and art. Musical performances, lectures, film, theatre and a street fair offer an enormous variety of ways of interpreting mind and brain, in health and illness. Films include the previously banned Titicut Follies, a documentary by Frederick Wiseman filmed in the Bridgewater State Hospital in Massachusetts in the 1960s. While the hospital authorities had agreed to the film crew’s access, staff and patients appear to have been given no choice over being filmed, and the documentary makes for disturbing viewing on many levels. The series ends with the Wonder Street Fair on 7 – 9 April.

This Saturday, of course, is the Bethlem Museum and the Bethlem Gallery monthly weekend opening. Join us in the Gallery at 2pm, for a talk by artist Liz Atkin on her exhibition, My Singular Fascination, followed by a historical talk in the Museum (moved to 2.45) on Caius Gabriel Cibber’s states of Raving and Melancholy Madness.

In the Frame for November 2012

This month one of our volunteers has chosen Dan Duggan’s Cipher Series 1, which was brought into the Archives & Museum’s collections following its inclusion in the Bethlem Gallery’s 2010 exhibition, entitled Me, Myself and I, as this month’s featured picture. She writes:

“I find the face to appear elfish and earthy; roughly textured, the trails down his cheeks remind me of tree bark. Its severe gauntness and expansive forehead, which disappears out of view, also adds to this slightly inhuman quality. The expression is solemn and his eyes, staring blankly out from heavy shadows feel almost accusing. What is perhaps blood running from wounds in his forehead or tears from his eyes has been left to stream down his face untouched, perhaps because he himself is helpless, or does not notice or care. He does not appear in anguish from his wounds, his lips aren’t parted in a cry but are instead held defiantly together. His expression is in fact surprisingly benign given his horrific state. The stark wounds around his forehead remind me of those that might be inflicted from a crown of thorns, and in turn a Christ-like acceptance of them. The wounds might also be perceived as an attack on his mind, they appear aggressively drawn compared to the rest of the picture.

“The artist, Dan Duggan, who has had a long history of mental illness and has “witnessed the nature of a variety of institutions”, has said he wants “to engage with the vision I have of the conditions under which I have been kept safe”. He does not specify whether his vision is a negative or a positive one, but to me this picture communicates assault and pain, either inflicted internally or externally, where the victim’s emotional reaction is muted. I find this picture incredibly haunting.”

Dan Duggan - Cipher Series 1

Hollow Space and Outgrowth: extended chance to see

The Bethlem Gallery’s Hollow Space and Outgrowth exhibition formally closes to visitors today, and the Gallery won’t be open in its regular hours until 29 August. However, the Archives & Museum will be open as normal throughout the summer, from 9.30am to 4.30pm Mondays to Fridays and also from 11.00am to 5.00pm on Saturday 4 August and Saturday 1 September 2012. For the next month (until Tuesday 13 August), Archives & Museum staff would be willing to take any visitors who ask to see Hollow Space and Outgrowth over to the Gallery for the purpose – subject to their availability and other commitments, of course. In the meantime, we are delighted to publish the comments of our guest blogger Susan Slater-Tanner, Professor of Art History at the State University of New York, Orange, on the exhibition.

“What I found fascinating about Hollow Space and Outgrowth at the Bethlem Gallery exhibition was that the artists did not make ‘literal’ visual responses to the artefacts and objects; rather they took an emotive approach responding to and reflecting personally on incidents, experiences and events of their own lives — without agenda or guile. For example, the “prevention of self abuse; anti masturbation device” literally as an object evokes serious ethical issues of human restraint and control. One even might consider bondage connotations. The artistic response Collar of Shame, an upright anthropomorphized dog, was so unexpected, so lyric, so funny yet not without deep thought, consideration and serendipitous artistic response.

“For me, the exhibition and its curatorial theme is not about finding similar shaped objects, or like-minded colours and textures — it is about how we all relate to and cope with our world, our challenges, our fears and our hopes.”

Part of the exhibition. The dog is in the bottom right corner of the left-hand case. The anti masturbation device is above it.

Hollow Space and Outgrowth: New Exhibition at the Bethlem Gallery opens this week

From Wednesday, the Bethlem Gallery will present a veritable cabinet of curiosities showcasing contemporary ceramics made within the hospital’s creative studios, juxtaposed with medical apparatus from the Bethlem Museum’s collection. The exhibition will take the viewer on a journey through the meanings of objects, exploring the possible uses and narratives attached to them. From ECT machines to abstract clay sculptures, the items on display reveal how they came into being and the significance that they held for individuals at the Bethlem – be these magical, fearful or useful.

Artists, patients and staff members delve into the museum’s collection to creatively investigate, interpret and shed new light on the mysterious objects evidencing centuries of existence of Bethlem Royal Hospital, ‘Bedlam’, the oldest functioning psychiatric hospital in the world.

The hospital sits in a 240 acre site in Beckenham, Kent where it was moved from central London in the 1930s. Amongst the facilities available for patients is an impressive set of arts studios including printmaking facilities, a purpose-built pottery and The Bethlem Gallery. Art is an important part of the therapeutic process of recovery for patients.

Katy Phillips, Pottery Therapist, says of the exhibition; “Much of the museum’s equipment was perplexing in its use. The objects are of interest from both symbolic and conceptual perspectives as well as from a functional and craft perspective – examples of this are the silver cup that was awarded for the tug of war and the highly crafted large metal feeding syringes. I was very inspired by Bethlem Artist James Tanner’s contemporary piece of work as it too is like a piece of unexplained machinery, the viewer can decide for themselves what it might have been part of and what its original functional purpose was.

“Engaging people in this project has provoked thought inspiring conversations in the studio. Two of the artists have chosen to respond to the ECT machines, they are both people who have had ECT as part of their treatment and both reported very different experiences. These memories have been interpreted by the artists and given ceramic form, creating powerful testimonials to past experiences, causing reflection and providing a context for current making.”

Some items seem innocuous enough (knives and forks, a nit comb, a pair of bellows, a trophy awarded to the winners of the staff tug-of-war competition) while others come freighted with meaning (a drug jar, a cylindrical patient feeder). Hollow Space and Outgrowth brings multiple perspectives to bear on the challenges represented by these objects and generates new questions.

Hollow Space and Outgrowth will be part of London’s first arts in health festival being launched at the Tate Modern 13th – 20th June 2012. For more information visit: http://www.creativityandwellbeing.org.uk

Opening Event: 13th June, 3 – 6pm

Exhibition continues: 14th June – 13th July
Opening times: Wed, Thurs, Fri, 11am – 6pm

Gallery and Museum open Saturday 7th July, 12pm – 5pm, for the Bethlem Sunfayre.

See Miss X’s “Art in the Dark” as part of Museums at Night this Friday, 5 – 7pm

As part of this years Museums at Night – when hundreds of museums around the country open their doors after hours – Bethlem Archives and Museum will be open until 7pm for a chance to see Miss X’s “Art in the Dark”. The exhibition of intricate red biro drawings is viewed by torchlight, turning the viewer into a voyeur: the torch illuminating the most private and intimate areas of the pictures.

The set of drawings, previously exhibited in 2000, was completed following a six month psychotic episode. “When I came round”, Miss X says, “my delusions offered a clue as to why I was suicidal and why I wanted to sleep all the time and why I felt so guilty. I wanted to draw out the problems before I forgot them. I used biro because it was cheap. I wasn’t drawing so that the pictures would one day be treasured, I just wanted to cure the here and now.”

The densely crowded images thus have a direct and visceral quality, incorporating a complex array of symbols: religious, medical or sexual. Arrows direct the flow, but are also penetrative. Question marks question the artist’s sense of selfhood, while the persistent “z” symbol represents the fatigue caused by prescribed medication and lack of motivation. Seeing and being seen are regular themes, and the voyeuristic nature of viewing the work by torchlight reminds us of the uncomfortable nature these ideas often hold within and beyond psychiatric practice.

As Miss X concludes: “In my psychotic period I had “owned” the world banks and I’d discovered Earth and fire. I was 30 different people. When I came round I wanted to be a nobody, so I chose X as a name.”

The Museum will be open from 5 – 7pm for this special event on Friday 18 May. Items from the general collection will also be on display, and staff will be on hand to give regular short talks on the history of the hospital and its art collection. The Bethlem Gallery will also open until 7pm, for a chance to see Steph Bates’ “Thursday’s Child Has Far To Go”.