Created by psychiatrist Nise da Silveira, in 1952, to be a study and research center, the Museu de Imagens do Inconsciente (MII) celebrates 70 years of existence with the opening, Saturday (10), of two new simultaneous and free exhibitions, which mark the return of the equipment’s activities.
At 11am, the exhibition Ocupação Nise da Silveira will open, in partnership with Itaú Cultural, which was in São Paulo and is now in Rio de Janeiro. The exhibition pays tribute to the career of the psychiatrist who saw new forms of mental health treatment in Brazil, presenting the methods, references and main concepts adopted by her.
The other exhibition, called From the asylum to the park: 70 years of history, brings together paintings, drawings and sculptures produced by mental health users throughout the history of the Museu de Imagens do Inconsciente, from the 1940s to the present day. The works were selected by the curators based on the theme of the transformation of the institute’s space in the Nise da Silveira Urban Park. Visits can be made from Tuesday to Saturday, from 10am to 4pm.
Deconstruction
The director of the Nise da Silveira Municipal Institute, Érika Pontes, said that the two exhibitions are important, mainly because they bring art and culture to the north zone of Rio de Janeiro, a region that lacks access to these assets. “The Nise da Silveira Municipal Institute is becoming a cultural pole, connected to mental health.
According to Érika, the institute keeps its doors open, even after the end of the psychiatric hospitalization beds. “On October 26, 2021, the last long-stay inpatient at the institute returned to the city. He went to live in a therapeutic residence, a therapeutic residential service.”
In these places, there are caregivers and permanent care staff. In the last ten years, 310 patients left the psychiatric internment and returned to social life. For each one of them, individual adaptation work was done. The former inmates are treated in the Psychosocial Care Centers (CAPs), which have a psychiatrist, a social worker, and a psychologist.
“With this, we managed to deconstruct the psychiatric hospital. The institute ceases to be a psychiatric hospital and becomes an institute in which art, culture, leisure, and sports become our instruments of treatment and care”.
Outpatient care continues to be provided and includes art workshops, income generation, sports, dance, a gym for martial arts, and work with animals that play a therapeutic role in the treatment.
Collection
The collection of the Museu Imagens do Inconsciente (MII) is considered a heritage by the United Nations Educational, Scientific, and Cultural Organization (UNESCO). It contains 400 thousand catalogued and archived works. Its collections are listed as national heritage by the Institute for National Historic and Artistic Heritage (Iphan). The therapeutic workshops remain in operation, so that the museum’s collection is added to daily. The MII usually receives researchers, students, and artists from all over the world to see its works.
“And we hope that the general population can have access to this. The walls of the old hospice were torn down. We have opened the institute to the population”, the director pointed out.
Érika commented that, despite christening the institute, Nise da Silveira’s name has more visibility abroad. The doctor, born in Alagoas, is responsible for a transformation in psychiatry in Brazil and was recently considered a hero of the country for the work she did with the mentally ill and for the legacy she left behind. Nise da Silveira is considered a pioneer in the use of humane treatments for patients with mental disorders.
