The State Hospital – The Trauma and Psychological Well being Report


Edward Kienholz, 1927-1994, was an American Set up Artist who used his expertise working in a state-run psychological establishment as inspiration. Kienholz had all the time been distraught by the residing circumstances and degree of mistreatment that had been occurring within the facility, describing it as dehumanizing and degrading.

In 1966, Kienholz had been significantly moved by a affected person named Ed Born, who not solely was a affected person of the psychological facility however was additionally affected by most cancers. In his set up, “The State Hospital”, 2 sufferers will be seen handcuffed to a crushed bunk mattress inside a dimly lit room. Curiously, the sufferers seem to appear to be aliens, with very skinny and frail trying our bodies. The aliens have a sickly trying yellow tint to them with resin dripping over them. There may be nothing else throughout the room however a grimy bedpan that’s situated removed from the bunk mattress. Kienholz really modeled the aliens after Born, who was famous to be too sick to bodily transfer.

The concept behind disguising the sufferers as aliens was rooted in how Kienholz usually felt as if the sufferers had been alienized by the power in addition to the remainder of society. To additional make clear simply how remoted the sufferers should have felt, the set up might solely be seen by viewers by means of a padlocked window with bars. This gave the phantasm that the viewers had been really witnessing the sufferers struggling in an precise psychiatric facility. Through the viewing of the set up, 2 fish had been seen swimming within the heads of the aliens. These represented “loopy eyes” or the shocked/dazed expressions Kienholz would usually see within the eyes of his sufferers.
 Installation, psychiatric facility, mental institution, alienation, mental health professionals, psychiatrists, patients, mental health awareness, isolation, support, treatment, abusive, therapy, depression, anxiety, art, Edward Kienholz  Finally, Kienholz’s installations had been aimed to characterize simply how demeaning and abusive some services had been in the direction of their sufferers. These installations aimed to essentially give viewers an perception of the therapy he had personally witnessed throughout his time at such services.

Picture Credit:
Characteristic Picture: Jon Butterworth, On Unsplash, Artistic Commons
Physique Picture: Edward Kienholz, Public Area



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