"Every clinical picture poses the difficult problem of pathoplasty."
— Oury (1976, 124)
Abstract:
This project explores encounters of locked psychiatric spaces. It takes Jean Oury’s assertion that ‘the hospital is ill’ as a departure point from which to critically examine the psychiatric clinic today. Through artistic and qualitative methods, it exposes the binary logic and distancing mechanisms embedded within the infrastructure of locked psychiatric clinics and the profound impact this has on the body. The project has two core contextual framings: firstly, the notion of 'risk' in the conception and design of the contemporary clinic and secondly, the 20th-century concept of pathoplasty developed at the experimental French clinic La Borde by Jean Oury and Félix Guattari, which offers forms of resistance within the clinic under the umbrella of institutional psychotherapy. The project gathered insights through a workshop where participants created clay objects reflecting their encounters with the clinic, with subsequent semi-structured interviews centred upon their clay object. My artistic practice further considers these insights by using layering and juxtaposition as methods in which to create new meanings. Whilst also processing materials that sit at varying scales, from the institutional and systemic to more intimate encounters.