Copenhagen 2014
Das Narrenschiff
Technique / Materials: installation, wood, concrete, bricks, cigarette butts, collected objects.

”Renaissance men developed a delightful, yet horrible way of dealing with their mad denizens: they were put on a ship and entrusted to mariners because folly, water, and sea, as everyone then ‘knew’, had an affinity for each other. Thus, ‘Ship of Fools’ crisscrossed the sea and canals of Europe with their comic and pathetic cargo of souls. Some of them found pleasure and even a cure in the changing surroundings, in the isolation of being cast off, while others withdrew further, became worse, or died alone and away from their families. The cities and villages which had thus rid themselves of their crazed and crazy, could now take pleasure in watching the exciting sideshow when a ship full of foreign lunatics would dock at their harbors.”

In introduction to Madness and Civilization, Barchilon

 

The work is engaging with the modern experience of psychiatric institutions and medical industry. Things used in the installation are casts of psychiatric medication and cigarette butts collected in mental health care institutions.