MEER VREUGDE MET KAMERPLANTEN

MEER VREUGDE MET KAMERPLANTEN is a part of LEVIATHAN, a project commissioned by the Dolhuys Museum, the national museum of psychiatry and the mind, Haarlem, (NL) about the right to self-determination in a psychiatric context. Focusing on an isolation cell, Aëgerter reflected on their controversial use in the Netherlands in the present day.

Patients and employees of a psychiatric institution (Westerpoort, Bennebroek, GGZ inGeest) were invited to take part in a series of performative interventions during a seven-day period in which the isolation cell underwent a daily metamorphosis.

On Wednesday, the isolation cell of the closed department of the psychiatric clinic became a ‘Garden center, department of indoor plants’. The residents and employees were invited to stroll around and chose a plant of their liking.
Against the background of the next door isolation cell, patients and staff indistinctly posed in front of the camera for a portrait with on their lap the plant of their choice.
Those portraits are replacing the photographs of the plants in a guide book for the care of indoor plants.

LEVIATHAN received the generous support of Dolhuys museum, Prins Bernhard Cultuurfonds – Tijl Fonds, Mondriaan Fonds, Stichting Stokroos, BNG Cultuurfonds, Cultuurstimuleringsfonds Haarlem and Gemeente Bloemendaal.

Liveblog: http://leviathan-degeopendeisoleercel.blogspot.nl/

Related projects:
LEVIATHAN
 ‘MEER VREUGDE MET KAMERPLANTEN‘ (artist’s book)

A series of photographs and a documentary video-installation of the project are exhibited at De Maakbare Mens, Dolhuys Museum Haarlem
(7th October 2016 – 10th March 2017)