The new Bethlem Museum of the Mind

I've been looking forward to writing this post, just as I was looking forward to seeing the new Bethlem Museum of the Mind. It has been closed for a couple of months, moved building and undergone a considerable transformation. It is still housed in the grounds of the hospital, the South London and Maudsley NHS Trust. 

I went with friends, the same friends who I visited the old museum with last December just before it was about to close and we loved it. You can read about that visit here. The old site was tiny, and what we remember most was that it was full of artwork by patients depicting their stories and experiences of their own mental health.

Things have changed.
You're drawn into the museum by this compelling portrait, Numb by Lisa Biles.
Looking at it, I felt anything but.

In this new incarnation of Bethlem Museum of the Mind, there is more of a focus on the history of Bethlem Hospital, told through the 'lens of mental health issues'. But that is slightly misleading, leading you to believe that this is all about the past. For me it was all about the now, as every object, quote, painting and photograph evoked the most powerful of emotions right here in the present. I couldn't just situate things historically, and think, 'that's OK, that's what happened in the olden days' and leave it there, parked in my 'olden-days' file. Throughout this exhibition we were asked what we thought, asked to contribute, contemplate and decide.

 The first thing I had to think about was my language.

Labelling and diagnosis.

The language surrounding mental health has changed over centuries. Some words are now acceptable, some can cause offence. These words are being collected and you are encouraged to add to the collection. I didn't. I felt uncomfortable, quite rightly, challenged by the insensitive words I have probably used over the years, particularly as a child. I don't think that this was intentional, to make me feel uncomfortable, so it was reassuring to read that in recent years the words 'mad' and 'bonkers' have been reclaimed for positive use. 

In the 19th century, it was believed that facial expressions and physical appearance provided clues about people's mental states. With this in mind, these photographs were commissioned to document different states of mental health, I assume to help with future diagnosis. These two individuals were noted to have chronic melancholia (above) and acute melancholia. We now know that the camera 'often' lies, but imagine having your photo taken for these reasons. I'm struck by the fact that they are patients, this is for real, they're not modelling melancholia.

I feel uncomfortable looking at much of the treatment from the past. But I'm in no position to criticise, I've never worked in this profession. I can only think about it from the perspective of a potential patient, thankfully not an actual patient.

The walls of an isolation room contrasted so beautifully against the tree outside.

Physical restraint.

ECT Electro convulsive therapy.

Not all therapy made me feel uncomfortable. Occupational therapy, time spent doing something 'useful, purposeful and worthwhile'. I know how it feels to be involved in something, to do something, useful, purposeful and worthwhile. Good for the soul and my self-esteem, rewarding.

Here I read about sewing, carpentry, ceramics, music and gardening.
There's a place for these therapies in most of our lives.

Then there's social therapy, talking.
Finding the right person to talk to.

This portrait is a testament to mutual respect. The individual who painted this was reassured, thinking his social worker was "crazier than he was". I liked the hope in this painting. He dedicated it to "friends, family and mental health professionals who... have given me perspective on a journey through to the other side where there is hope in being able to cope with my illness".

More opportunities to contribute, to have your say. But these are decisions not to be taken lightly. After hearing from a girl with mental health issues, her family and the healthcare professionals in this film, you get to have your say, to experience the weight of decision making. In making her decision, one of these students faltered and turned to my friend for reassurance, had she done right by the girl?

Not all stories end well,

but for some they do.

With this in mind, I found it it important to reflect on the World health Organisation's definition of mental health, which is

'a state of well-being in which every individual realizes his or her potential, can cope with the normal stresses of life, can work productively and fruitfully and is able to make a contribution to her or his community'.

Who ticks all these boxes, all the time?

The Bethlem Museum is aware of it's impact and the need to reflect. It provides a space right in the heart of the museum to do this. In this space you get a chance to reflect on some of the artwork made by patients that has been produced to explore their own state of mind or to provide a chance to escape.

Visitor comments, what you think, is important to Bethlem Museum. Your voice will be heard and displayed on the museum walls.

Bethlem has hosted visitors for centuries. In the 17th century the well-to-do came to see the 'lunatic poor'. Coming to the Bethlem myself, I was not only inspired and challenged, but had questions about my place here. Were we like those 17th century visitors? Well meaning onlookers? The Bethlem Museum says not, they tell us their work at the hospital and the museum is for everybody, it is 'important, not only for the future of mental healthcare, but for the future of us all'. 

Bethlem Museum of the Mind is open to the public Wednesdays to Fridays, and the first and last Saturdays of the month. details on the website, here.

I urge you to visit, there is so much more than I have mentioned, including an art gallery.

Foray Into Chromatic Zones

Tucked away, up the stairs by the entrance to the Hayward Gallery, South Bank Centre,

is the Hayward Project Space.

Currently Shelia Hicks is exhibiting her work there. Her Foray Into Chromatic Zones. A 'foray' into colour. In this exhibition I can't decide which meaning she's going for. An 'attempt' or a 'visit'? You get to do both, to visit and to try colour out for yourself.

She works with textiles, or 'supple materials' as she likes to call them.

These are pretty supple.

For 60 years Shelia Hicks has worked with fibres.

Producing fibre based calligraphy,

drawing with mohair on rice paper.

And weaving panels on small picture frame style looms,

 incorporating found materials from her travels.

She calls these 'minimes' and describes them as pages of her diary.
Having done weaving at art college,
I know that these are no quick reflections, jotting down thoughts at the end of each day.
Weaving takes a long time.

Before you start thinking, 'yeah, isn't weaving a bit 1970s, not particularly cutting edge?' Hicks was sought after by Modernist architects. In 1967 she was commissioned to make wall panels for the Ford Foundation building in New York. These are not them, but are modelled on replacements made in 2014.

The originals were 'damaged in situ'.

Having read that the building had a 12-storey glass atrium,

I'm guessing that the culprit was light.

Originally produced in the sixties, the design looks so old yet so new.

I say 'old' reservedly, they were first made the year I was born and I'm not old!

Shelia Hicks studied under Josef Albers, a master of colour, who taught about and wrote 'Interaction with Colour'. I've mentioned him before, here, more weaving, rugs at Somerset House, Form Through Colour.

In the Sunset Pavilion, part of the Hayward Project Space,
Hicks provides us with a room full of colour to play with,
in the form of 'bales of pigmented fibre'.

Invited to 'interact with and immerse ourselves in colour', it seemed rude not to.
How often do you go to an exhibition wearing just the right coat?

Me, preferring to be the other side of the camera, I give you,

'Blue'

and 'Red'.

I waited quite a while for that bus.

Shelia Hicks: Foray into Chromatic Zones

is on in the Hayward Gallery Project Space until 19th April 2015.

Details on the South Bank Centre website, here.

If you go, let me know how you get on in the Sunset Pavilion.

It was good fun playing with colour and cameras.

Grant Museum

Going to a museum in the school holidays means two things.

One, they're a lot busier, but

two, they put on special events.

Like at the Grant Museum in half term which put out a table of objects to touch.

The great thing about handling objects is that you get to turn things upside-down.

Very different from seeing them in glass cases.

Like the Horseshoe crab,

 a hedgehog.

 and a Dogfish.

Next time you get to touch a dried Dogfish, try running your fingers up and down the skin.

It is covered in tiny hooks a bit like velcro.

From head to tail, your fingers will run smoothly down the skin,

from tail to head, your fingers will get stuck on all the tiny hooks. We tried this, it worked.

Some things are a little too fragile to picked up, though but you can still get pretty close.

 For those of you that don't know, the Grant Museum is a zoological museum,
part of UCL, London.

We've been visiting regularly for a few years and love it.

Years ago in their old building the Giant Spider crab captured my son's imagination and on first visiting the new building, we had to check it was still there. It was.

There some truly weird and wonderful specimens.

Like the Surinam Toad whose babies burst out through her skin,

and this model of an elephant's heart, "bigger than my head".

Keeping with the elephant theme,
we were truly perplexed by this cast of an Elephant Bird egg on the left. 

So the egg to its right is an Ostrich egg and we know how tall Ostriches are, taller than me. I saw one in the Horniman recently, see it on my previous post, here.

"How tall must the Elephant Bird have been?"

Actually my friends language was a little more flowery than that, expressing sheer incredulity. You can see from our reflections how big the egg was. Sadly we'll never see the real bird for ourselves as they were hunted to extinction in Madagascar in the 1700s.

Back to more believable bird sizes, we chat about penguins.

"Even the eggs are so sweet."

Now what the Grant Museum has got that I have never seen anywhere else, is a collection of slides, 20,000 microscopic slides.

Where you can discover even more about Dogfish, their embryos,

and mice, embryo necks, the left sides.

We're not the first.

But it's a great opportunity for a #museumselfie.

We're not the only ones having a little fun with/in museums.
This jar of moles has its own Twitter account.
@GlassJarOfMoles

But watch your behaviour, surveillance measures have been put in place,

we're know we're being watched.

The Grant Museum is a real treasure.

Open Monday to Saturday, 1-5pm.

Details on their website, here.

Follow the @GlassJarOfMoles on their Twitter account, here.