WCP 2017 - Final Programme

PSYCHIATRY AND ART

Exhibition: People in Chains

In villages of the Ivory Coast and Benin, thousands of mentally ill people live as so-

called “people in chains”. They are chained to trees or locked into dark crates. They

are tethered up like animals, sometimes for weeks, sometimes for years. Some die in

captivity. Society is afraid of them; the belief still prevails that mentally ill people are

possessed by demons.

Monday to Thursday

Hall 2.2

The local organisation St. Camille de Lellis has been

working since 1991 to free these people from their

chains and care for them appropriately in treatment

centres. The non-profit organisation “Freundeskreis St.

Camille“, based in Reutlingen, Germany, has been sup-

porting these efforts for more than 20 years through per-

sonal engagement, food and medicine. The aim is for the

mentally ill people to return to their villages and receive

long-term psychopharmaceutical treatment. The best

way to enlighten people is to re-integrate the mentally ill

into their communities and thus take away people's fear,

particularly from the families.

The exhibition “People in Chains: how mentally ill peo-

ple are dealt with in West Africa” was designed by the

museum MuSeele, a museum on the history of psychia-

try located in the psychiatric hospital Christophsbad in

Göppingen, Germany, in collaboration with the “Freun-

deskreis St. Camille“. This travelling exhibition consists

of large-format colour photographs by the photogra-

phers Heinz Heiss and Uli Reinhardt together with short

explanatory texts. An accompanying brochure provides

additional background information.

www.kettenmenschen.de www.museele.de