Bethlem Museum Trip

In today's session we took a nice educational trip to Bethlem Museum of the Mind. It was a very fruitful trip and I gained a lot of knowledge especially about how people with mental health issues can create fascinating art work.

The first thing that surprised me was how clean and normal the place looked. I expected it to be dark and very harrowing; instead we were greeted by a friendly tour guide and nice open spaces with white walls. One of the first things I noticed in the actual museum part was this open window out looking the picturesque greens of the grounds. This made me consider how this mental hospital might not be prison, maybe in fact it is a sanctuary - a safe haven where people with mental disorders were free to live away from persecution and torment. However next to that section was an exhibit showcasing the various constraints and shackling devices. This created a conflict in my mind. In this place they had some element of freedom but also none at all. I feel like this juxtaposition is very prevalent whenever we talk about issues dealing with mental health.

There have been many studies into links between creativity mental health problems (see article *) so it was really interesting to see art work created by some of these people. There was one piece of work that really caught my eye titled "It has not worked". The words have quite a hopelessness to them like the artist has given up. The facial expression is filled with melancholy and the exaggerated open palms give off a sense of baring all, this open gesture shows how this woman isn't hiding her problems from the world. It also makes the painting look even more distressful. I think this also makes a comment about how treatment doesn't always work and not every mentally ill person can be helped.

I can use what I've learnt from Bethlem and apply to my character I have been creating over the previous weeks. I definitely want their to be a sense of conflict within the character. A switch between melancholy and madness.

https://www.theguardian.com/science/2015/jun/08/new-study-claims-to-find-genetic-link-between-creativity-and-mental-illness)