Not Your Typical Tourist - The Museum Psychiatric Hospital

I was planning on spending my Sunday studying; but suddenly, I got a very interesting invitation to visit a museum on a sunny day. At first, I thought it was the big museum that everyone goes to here in Arhus, so I was not looking so forward to it. However, then I heard that it was the Museum Psychiatric Hospital and I became very interested. I love visiting museums that transmit you a feeling of what its like to live in those situations. Don't ask me why, but my favourite type of museums are prisons. I still remember the first time I visited one. It was in Vietnam, in a museum called Hoa Lo Prison. It was a prison used by the French colonists for political prisoners, and later was also used for US prisoners during the Vietnam War. The prison was very old, but all of the rooms were still intact. You could get a real feeling of the size of the cells, the nurse room, toilets, the torture room (I remember they  had some torturing machines), and the play area. For me, it is really a hit in the stomach to see how some human beings have lived and managed to surprise. One interesting detail that I really enjoyed about the museum was that they showed us the cell where John McCain had been held and that there was a little hole on the wall that he used to communicate with his fellow American prisoner. I remember they told us in the beginning they were apprehensive and did not trust the person on the other side since they could not see them. But after a while and some code language, they found their way of coping being held in a foreign country.

Enough about prisons now, because this post has nothing to do with it. I mentioned them, because just like prisons, by going to this museum I got a feeling of what it is like to suffer from mental diseases. As soon as I was approaching the location, I started to feel uncomfortable and tense. Everywhere I looked I saw signs guiding me to the Psychiatric Hospital, to the Children's Psychiatric Hospital and so on. Also, there was no one around, it seemed kinda of abandoned. In my naive mind, I choose to believe that is because there are not actually many patients there. Going there, though, really opens your eyes to another reality, to another world, that I don't usually think about. Even though it is in the city, it felt like it was so isolated. Like they had their little world.

This is a painting of the area from a patient that was there for 56 years. The museum was actually named after him; and the museum provides a lot of his art work and story. So the whole point of the museum is to look at art created by patients of the hospital, and then you also have the opportunity of seeing how the hospital used to be before. You can see that most of the paintings express little hope for the future and that they are upset about something. The colours blue and white were used a lot though. What I understood as well, is that you can tell a lot about a person's state of mind by looking at what they draw. I have always heard the technique used to diagnose children with mental disorders based on what they draw in school, and after this experience, I believe it is a good technique. Even myself, got scared thinking of how my drawings would be interpreted though if I were asked to draw something. 

To conclude, I would like to share a poem again from the patient that was there for 56 years and I would definitely recommend this kind of attractions as it really makes you more aware of problems near you. However, afterwards, treat yourself for a nice walk on the beach or an ice cream to lift up the spirit again. 

PS. Here is an interesting detail I spotted in the museum (I'm Portuguese)