WCP 2017 - Final Programme

Touching photography – perhaps the only people who are still interested in the mental

asylums of the past are the photographers of the urban exploration (“Urbex”) move-

ment. Christoph Burger is one of them. Since 2013, he has made numerous trips to the

Manicomi abbandonati of Italy.

Monday to Thursday

Hall 2.2

The history of psychiatry in Italy is one of dramas and

tragedies. Forgotten by society, legally incapacitated,

mentally and often also physically tormented, patients

were locked away in inhumane conditions, deprived of

their dignity and marginalised until far into the 20th

century.

The darkest chapter in psychiatry was the rule of Benito

Mussolini, which lasted from 1922 to 1943. In this peri-

od of fascist terror thousands of political dissidents and

people out of favour with the regime were declared to

be mentally ill and deported to a “Manicomio” – with

the aim of destroying them mentally or even physically.

May 1978 marked a watershed in the history of psy-

chiatry in Italy. Under the initiative of the psychiatrist

and hospital director Franco Basaglia, the parliament in

Rome passed the psychiatric reform. The declared aim

was to introduce “humane psychiatry” by closing all

Manicomi and creating sufficient places to provide out-

patient care. Although most hospitals were closed and

many patients were released, there were problems with

creating the new points of care.

The bold project faltered in its early stages; no one built

the dense network of decentralised treatment centres

that should have accompanied the gradual closing of

the hospitals. Apart from thoroughly laudable private

initiatives, every effective health service for the released

patients was lacking.

When Christoph Burger documents the decay in al-

most inaccessible rooms, he does so without artifi-

cial light and in keeping with the Urbex rule “Take

nothing but pictures. Leave nothing but footprints.”

Nothing is rearranged, everything is left as it is

found. These trips have resulted in the series of im-

ages “Manicomio”.

Photographs by Christoph Burger

PSYCHIATRY AND ART

Exhibition: Manicomio