P.A.P.A. on location weblog

First 'P.A.P.A. on location' resided in the ward of a mental hospital in Haarlem The Netherlands. The commission created - in coöperation with Het Dolhuys, museum for psychiatry and the Mental Institution itself was to blog from the ward of the mental hospital For ten weeks, twice a week. The weblog was printed out and read aloud to the inhabitants.
Sadly the Weblog is no longer on line.

#suitcases
the suitcases of the inhabitants are put away on the lockers in the cloakroom of the personnel on arrival. My very first morning at early six thirty I was shown a place to hang my coat. I asked about the suitcases. The nurses didn't notice the suitcases any more. It as if they see them for the first time. Some of the suitcases belong to people who have already passed away. That simple is it to make news on location!!!

#roses
I do admire when people really dress well although they have not left the ward for years. Fragile love relationships emerge.

#eternal beauty
There is a much greater variety in forms of living then you would expect. In the big brick villa's live people an independent life. They get their medicine and food and an obligation to shower once a week. There are even people living in the city, having a painting studio on the grounds of the mental hospital. A lot of creativity around.

# big stories
All big stories here. People have obsessions to define a reality they can hold on to. I can relate to that very well. As an artist I do cultivate my own obsessions. All the work I make orginates out of my own need and curiousity. The only difference is I have a choice (I think) People love my attention. That is what I can do from my position. Report on their lives to give insight and enlarge their self respect. And what counts for everybody the news most hidden is the news on your own doorstep.

P.A.P.A. on location studio

P.A.P.A. on Location designed a photostudio as a live event for and with the people living in the ward. Twelve diptychs of people and their favourite object were made.

>it was a touching process to receive the people in my temporary studio just one green meadow seperated from their ward. Although the clinic is open several people never leave the building. The act of taking the picture and more specific the selection of the favorite one straight after the shoot is more important then the final result as far as I am concerned. Although all were happy when I handed them over the results a few weeks later.

<Under your hat everything turns out to be great. "Onder hoeden keert alles ten goede"

  > Sweet lady taking care of the biscuit rolls to be eaten at breakfast and lunch and not during the night.

P.A.P.A. on location results

P.A.P.A. on Location # 1 resulted in a booklet 80 pages to be sold in the museum and in the ward. In the book the weblog stories, the studio diptychs and an article I wrote: Photography as social intervention. Two colorfull Cibachrome transparents in perspex one square meter each feature in the glass central patio. Twenty five A3 freshly framed pictures I took of details in and around the building are decorating the corridors of the five departments connected to the glass patio.

>This booklet unites all the work I have done. the diptychs, the stories of the weblog, texts written by my commissionars and an article I wrote: photography as social intervention.

PDF boekje
PDF boekje 1

<Strangly enough for me as a visual artist it is not the result that counts. For me it is most important what the process causes. That is why the first thing I did is frame the pictures I made of the people and handed them over.