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E-book Mind Museums : Former Asylums and the Heritage of Mental Health

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Penilaian

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This book is grounded in the belief that there is a need to talk more about mental health from the perspective of both historical and current issues and practices. This is what Catharine Coleborne, internationally renowned scholar in the field of mad studies and histories of mental health and psychiatry, also maintains in her most recent book Why Talk About Madness (2020). Here, Coleborne advocates for the need ‘to imagine new ways of thinking about madness’ (3) and suggests that ‘talking about madness is possible through the archives of institutions, personal stories, the spaces and places of confinement and living histories of these, through exhibition, artworks and through advocacy and community support’ (Coleborne 2020: 53), alias what we could refer to as the heritage of mental health. In this book, I explore how ‘talking about madness’ can be done through such heritage, in museums; more precisely in a specific type of museum, which I call ‘mind museums’. Mind museums are museums hosted in the disused spaces of a former mental asylum whose display focuses on the history of their premise, and on past and contemporary approaches to the care and treatment of mental health. However, a mind museum is not solely a museum of social history or a museum of the history of psychiatry, nor is it simply a former asylum building restored and conserved as a museum of itself. Rather, it is a site-specific and place-based cultural institution whose work taps into the material and immaterial heritage it conserves and exhibits, with the ultimate goal of promoting awareness and dismantling the stigma and stereotypes surrounding mental health today. It is my assertion here, that there is such a thing as the heritage of mental health and that such heritage, although being currently largely neglected and overlooked, holds great potential to offer new and engaging ways to talk and think about mental health. This book focuses on this heritage, bringing museums into sharp focus, with the intent to encourage increased research engagement with mental health and its heritage, especially within critical heritage and museums studies. Whilst there is a growing corpus of studies focusing on the history of 19th-century mental asylums and their afterlife, with contributions from various academic disciplines notably including history, geography and architecture (in particular: Ajroldi et al. 2013; Calabria 2020; Calabria et al. 2021; Franklin 2002a; 2002b; Gibbeson 2020; Moon et al. 2015; Osborne 2003; Topp et al. 2007), little has been said about former asylums as heritage and their memorialisation. On the other hand, while research into the so-called ‘mad studies’ has flourished in recent decades (Coleborne 2020: 2, 73–75), few studies have specifically addressed museums and other forms of public display concerning the heritage of mental health.

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Ketersediaan

Informasi Detail

Judul Seri

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No. Panggil

708 LAN m

Penerbit

London : Routledge., 2024

Deskripsi Fisik

139 hlm

Bahasa

English

ISBN/ISSN

9781003258971

Klasifikasi

708

Tipe Isi

text

Tipe Media

computer

Tipe Pembawa

online resource

Edisi

-

Subjek

Galleries, Museum of Art

Info Detail Spesifik

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Pernyataan Tanggungjawab

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Versi lain/terkait

Lampiran Berkas

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