Renee Gerlich Essay

Still Presence

Still Present - Exploring Psychiatric Institutions in Photography
Adam Art Gallery
14th May - 17th July 2005

By Renée Gerlich

One holiday when I was little, my family and I stayed in a hotel in Taupo. Our unit was laid out a little inconveniently for my parents: the double bed was upstairs and the two singles were downstairs with the television. Never mind - my brother and I shared the double bed so that my parents could watch T.V. without waking us.

The plan backfired. Upstairs, though the T.V. was inaudible, an old man with a club caused much greater unrest. Hung on the wall opposite our bed, just daring us to close our eyes for a second, the Goldie reproduction had to be turned around to face the wall before my brother and I could drift off. When you're little, artworks can leave such a deep, stirring impression; Still Present is the first exhibition I've seen that has reminded me of the effect art could have on me as a child.

When I first walked in to see Jono Rotman's Chambers, on the middle floor of the Adam, it stopped my companion mid-sentence as she uttered an involuntary 'Wow'. Rotman's concern to capture the 'emotional residue' that resides in his spaces (specifically, active and abandoned prisons and institutions) is awesome. The floor has been darkened and Rotman's figureless photographs are lit from behind. There is a ghostly feel…a still presence. The rooms depicted are understated in colour, yet starkly lit, so that you can't enter unnoticed; and as your eyes widen to adjust to the light, you hear the dim hum from the air conditioning, which actually adds to the atmosphere. Rotman's success lies not so much in images themselves, but in transporting and installing within the gallery the whole unnerving, visceral experience of vulnerably entering isolated and unwelcoming territory.

Chien Chi Chang's high-impact series of photographs crowds the Lower Chartwell gallery. The series is the culmination of his five-year long project: forty images captured in one afternoon. It is to a large extent a photographic documentary, an exposé on Lung Fa temple, in Kaohsiung, Southern Taiwan, and its highly controversial 'treatment programme'. 'In a country that is generally reliant on the 'family unit' to provide social welfare support,' Sophie McIntyre explains, 'Lung Fa Tang is a Buddhist temple that provides a sanctuary for the mentally ill whose family are either unable or unwilling to offer such assistance'.

Perhaps the term 'sanctuary', with its connotations of comfort and safety, is not quite apt. Part of Lung Fa Tang's above-mentioned 'treatment programme' consists of attaching patients together in pairs through the use of a chain, so that the more mentally stable of the two may assist the patient deemed less stable. 'The Chain of Compassion', is the painfully euphemistic name given to the chains and the associated practice (derived from Buddhist philosophy), which obviously cause much distress among patients, for instance in the event that someone 'refusing to work is punished severely. The 'chain of compassion' becomes the 'chain of compunction''. 

The variety of expressions captured in Chang's The Chain, is mirrored in the myriad of different responses to them. They have been described as everything from tender to empty, sad to indifferent: even though they were photographed after lunch on their way back to work - informally, while going about their daily routine - and were not aware they were to be part of this exposé. But, indeed, part of the power of this exhibition comes from the pain and discomfort evoked by the juxtaposition of energy and expression with control and restraint.

Also controversial is Anne Ferran's series upstairs. Ferran found a small archive of thirty-eight portraits of institutionalised women, in an Australian library. Mysteriously, these images seem to have been made neither for artistic nor medical purposes. Enthralled and moved by the pictures, Ferran decided to photograph them and use them in her artistic practice.

Many of the images contain women's hands; their gestures are small yet deliberate, and the pressure in their hands reveals a sensitivity and intensity of thought. This however is contrasted with an oppressive, sterile hospital environment; the women are also often shown being watched or restrained. Ferran has cropped the images and displayed the women anonymously: shapeless, uniformed midsections reflecting stolen identities.

On the whole, the exhibition challenged the way those deemed 'mentally unsound' are grouped, detained and isolated, yet these artists present very different perspectives on the same subject. Ferran and Chien-Chi's works in particular present ethical challenges: regarding ethical treatment of the mentally unsound. Also Ferran raises issues about authenticity, authorship and confidentiality; Chien-Chi about cultural relativity.

This is a powerful, extremely moving exhibition.

About the Author:
Renée Gerlich has recently completed a Bachelor of Arts in Art History and Anthropology, from Victoria University.