LEVIATHAN

LEVIATHAN is 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 the closed department 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 Monday, the cell was transformed into a terrarium inhabited by five pythons. On Tuesday, the room held a precise re-enactment of Ilya and Emilia Kabakovs’ Punishment of Household Objects. On Wednesday, it became the indoor plant department of a garden centre, then a massage parlor on Thursday and a meditation centre on Friday. On the weekend, visitors where invited to the Museum of Orientalism. The week ended with a piano recital of Simeon ten Holt’s Canto Ostinato. All of the events that took place inside the isolation cell were documented throughout the course of the week on a live blog.

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

Live blog: http://leviathan-degeopendeisoleercel.blogspot.nl/

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

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)