We’ve been busy at work on the Outside the Asylum project. Having focused first on researching the patients at the asylum, I have now been spending time looking at the collection. I’ve been choosing various items related to Powick Asylum or mental health care in general, in order to give a picture of what patients’ experiences were like, as the lives of the patients are often obscured in historical narratives of lunatic asylums. Whilst the point of the project is to give an idea of the patients’ lives ‘Outside the Asylum’, I think that bringing light to the day-to-day lives of those in the asylum helps to represent them as people, rather than as just as numbers in a register.
There are lots of fascinating items that have been chosen, and you’ll get to see all of them at the end of the project in a month or so, including several things that were used at Powick Lunatic Asylum. We’ve spent this week having the items photographed professionally, so that they will be available for view online. In the coming weeks I’ll be getting the museum display sorted, that will sit inside the Charles Hastings Education Centre.
More updates to come, but here’s a little sneak peek of some keys from one of the female wards of the asylum. Photography by Luke Unsworth.
This project has been supported by public funding by the National Lottery through Arts Council England.
