BLOOM: A Memorial project for the Massachusetts Mental Health Center
September 30th, 2008I’ve been doing some research on this project, as well as the artist, Anna Schuleit, and thought it was worthy to pass along. Though I never got to visit the installation – I had friends who both worked on the installation, as well as got to experience it during it’s 4 day existence - and told me (quite persistently) how amazing it was.
In November of 2003, the Commonwealth of Massachusetts decided to close the doors of the Massachusetts Mental Health Center – 91 years after it’s inception. The hospital had been one of the oldest public teaching hospitals in the country. In response to the closing, artist Anna Schuleit developed “BLOOM – a site-specific installation that would commemorate the building, it’s history, and the people it had both staffed and served.
For 4 days in November 2003, the Massachusetts Mental Health Center opened it’s doors to the public to reveal a transformation of the space. BLOOM, as a Postmodern art-installation, succeeded in drawing the viewers into an entirely sensory-filled, participatory experience – in which they moved throughout the building experiencing new colors, textures, smells, and sounds with each corner they turned:
“BLOOM consisted of 28,000 potted, blooming flowers, selected and sorted by color, and placed throughout four floors of the historic building. The basement hallways were carpeted in live sod for viewers to walk on. The old public announcement system was used to play recorded sounds of the building from the days leading up to its closing”
The hallways and rooms of the building, which were typically colorless, were transformed carpetings of blooms. Each area featuring a different flower each in a distinct color. Thousands upon thousands of purple african violets, orange tulips, red tulips, yellow begonias, Narciissus Paperwhites, ferns, white chrysanthemum, and wildflowers each carpeted separate hallways and rooms of the building. The result was breathtaking textural fields of colors and scents. The basement was carpeted in sod, which viewers could walk on.
The installation, though visually transforming, also spoke to another experience – that in reflection of the thousands of sick patients who had lived inside of it’s colorless and drab space. As it is often customary for hospital-ridden patients to receive flowers, often long-term psychiatric patients did not. Therefore the 28,000 flowers in the installation also symbolized a healing remembrance. After the installation was removed the flowers were donated to surrounding institutions and hospitals.
For more information about this installation you can check out the projects website: http://www.1856.org/bloom/index.html
