Bringing our collection to life
June 11 or June 12 Rare Opportunity to Draw in Museum
Unlocked alldaybreakfast
Artists: Tommy Cha, Anwyl Cooper-Willis, Pat Jamieson, Carol Laidler
Exhibition at the Arcade, Broadmead, Bristol November 2016 and
at the Bristol City Hall 20th-24th February 2017
Unlocked is the opening exhibition for NEW city centre art venue: The Vestibules.
Unlocked is inspired by the archive of Bristol Lunatic Asylum held at Glenside Hospital Museum. Funded by Bristol City Council and the Arts Council England. The aim of this ongoing residency is to explore the Museum’s collection, to unlock the history of the objects and to pay attention to the experience of the patient.
Bristol Lunatic Asylum opened in 1861 as a replacement for the overcrowded St Peters Hospital, which was deemed not fit for purpose. By the mid 19th century attitudes towards the mentally ill had changed and had come to be seen as a disorder that should be treated with compassion and rehabilitation.
The new asylum was well lit and airy with enough land to create a self-sufficient community: a farm with pigs, chickens and fields for vegetables, an orchard, large green houses and a team of gardeners. Patients were given employment as deemed suitable to their capabilities, both sexes worked as ward orderlies. Horticulture or agriculture was seen as men’s work, women were employed in sewing and laundry facilities.
The exhibition focuses on the tension in perception between ‘asylum’ as place of safety and one of incarceration. The works examine the myths and common perceptions of the institution, the language surrounding emotion and the relationship between gender and mental (ill) health.
Image: The shop in the Arcade, poster, Naming of parts. Pat Jamieson and Carol Laidler
Image: Big boys don’t cry. Installation with moving image, Tommy Cha
Image: Every few hours someone cries. Installation of Handkerchiefs embroidered with fragments of quotes. Pat Jamieson Carol and Laidler
Contact us about the museum
