Face to Face: Stories from the Asylum
Face to Face: Stories from the Asylum
An exhibition on the lives of Victorian patients at Dundee Royal Lunatic Asylum
Tower Foyer Gallery, University of Dundee
23 March – 9 June 2018: Mon – Fri 09:30 – 19:00 Sat 13:00 – 17:00
Admission free
Currently on display at the University of Dundee, Face to Face: Stories from the Asylum is a new exhibition exploring the lives of nine patients admitted to Dundee Royal Lunatic Asylum around the turn of the twentieth century. Researched and curated by St Andrews PhD student Morag Allan Campbell, the exhibition aims to promote awareness and discussion about present day mental health issues by uncovering the experience of mental illness in the past, and is a collaboration between the University of St Andrews and University of Dundee Archive Services.
Using photographs and information from their case notes, the exhibition tells each patient’s story – where they came from, the circumstances that brought them to the asylum and the dilemmas faced by their families. Their diagnoses and treatment are explained within the context of how mental illness was understood during that period, and their stories are also placed within the local historical background of late nineteenth/early twentieth century Dundee.
The exhibition is one strand of a wider project, Promoting Mental Health through the Lessons of History, based at the University of St Andrews and led by Prof. Rab Houston of the School of History. The project also includes Rab’s highly successful podcast series exploring the history of psychiatry in Britain and Ireland since 1500, currently available on SoundCloud and now into a third series.
Face to Face: Stories from the Asylum, will be on display in the Tower Foyer Gallery from March 23 until June 9th, and a number of associated events are planned, including talks, a panel discussion and a creative writing workshop.
Further information is available on the exhibition website: http://arts.st-andrews.ac.uk/facetoface/
You can also follow us on Twitter and Facebook @FacetoFaceStA