"Connecting the European Mind"

Our European associates - The agenda - Great challenges, great opportunities - Conference in Prague October 2009

The Museum in Europe

Achitecture by Michael Golieb Bindesböll

Hospital architecture: The characteristic yellow bricks
and gothic stepped gables of the architect,
Michael Gottlieb Bindesbôll are among the details in his
hospital buildings to please the eye and mind
of the sick as well as the healthy.

In June 2009 the Museum, Psychiatric Hospital in Aarhus, Denmark received the good news that a joint European project in cooperation with some of the essential European museums and collections inside the field of history of psychiatry and outsider art/l’art brut had been approved in Brussels by: “Education, Audiovisual and Culture Executive Agency”. This implies a European co-financing of a number of initiatives, locally within the framework of the individual participating cultural institution as well as multilaterally in a series of joint projects. To us at the Museum this marks the preliminary culmination of a cooperation which began in the autumn of 2008.

Our European associates

The cooperation has been named “Connecting the European Mind”, and the responsible coordinator of the project is Museum Dr. Guislain in Gent. Co-arrangers are: The Museum, Psychiatric Hospital in Aarhus, Het Dolhuys in Haarlem and Wellcome Collection in London. Associated partners are: Prinzhorn Collection in Heidelberg and Museele in Göppingen.

The view from Ovartacis’ room:
Here we see the artists’ way of
depicting the hospital architecture.

The project is part of “Culture Programme 2007-13” initiated by the European Union. The present module is of two years’ duration, from 2009-2011. Museum Dr. Guislain and Het Dolhuys also participated in the first phase, 2007-09 under the headline: “Exploring the European Mind”, and subsequently the Museum, Psychiatric Hospital was invited to join.

The agenda

In the course of the next two years “Connecting the European Mind” will mint itself into a series of concrete joint manifestations of the cooperation: A number of exhibitions which throw light on aspects of the European history of psychiatry will “travel” between the participants. Through a series of meetings and symposiums we shall also contribute to the planning of local activities of all the museums involved.
Besides, the cooperation will result in a number of publications. The Museum contributes two, one on the subject of our great artist, Ovartaci, to follow a European touring exhibition of his works.
The subject of the other publication will be art, architecture and the influence of beauty on the psychiatric environment. One of the points of departure is the educational journey in 1847-48 by the physician, Harald Selmer to a number of European asylums to gather impressions for the building of the asylum in Risskov, a.k.a. Jutland Asylum. The Museum will also throw light on the subject in a separate exhibition which opens in the autumn of 2010.

The publications will be published in Danish and English. Authors are Mia Lejsted and Eddie Danielsen.

Great challenges, great opportunities

Great challenges, great opportunities As for resources it is quite a comprehensive task for the Museum to participate in a joint project of this character, but the gain is substantial. It goes without saying that the opportunity of giving priority to a number of relevant activities, which already ahead of this we worked on integrating in our planning for the years to come, is of great importance. Even more important are the European platform that we achieve and the cultural meeting we have already experienced in the preliminary phase. We look forward to benefit by the cooperation and to be inspired into some essential considerations concerning our function and the mediation of history of psychiatry and outsider art. Finally it is an opportunity to establish the fact that the Museum occupies a position as one of the major European museums in its field.