"The Living Museum"

Exploring relationships between art and mental health

Disabilities Month

Accessible Arts, the Coalition for Independence, VSA arts of Missouri, and Unity Temple on the Plaza announce the screening of "The Living Museum" as a part of FilmFest Kansas City. The events will take place Saturday October 5, 2002, beginning with a reception from 6:00 - 7:30 pm at Eden Alley. The film will be screened across the street at the Cinemark Palace on the PlazaTheater from 8:00 - 9:20 pm, followed by a discussion from 9:20 - 9:50 pm. Panelists will be Bob Ault (Ault's Academy of Art in Topeka and founding member of the American Art Therapy Association and the Kansas Art Therapy Association) and Dr. Mahasen DeSilva (Topeka Veterans Administration Hospital).

Advance tickets for the full event, including reception with food and drinks, screening, and panel discussion, will be available for $12 through September 30, and $15 per person after that date. For those who want to see only the film, advance tickets are available for $4 ($7 at the theater). Please call Accessible Arts (913/281-1133) or Coalition for Independence (913/321-5140) to make reservations.

Eden Alley is located in the lower level of Unity on the Plaza at 707 W. 47th Street (at Jefferson). Parking is one block south on Jefferson . The Cinemark is at 500 Nichols Road, directly east of the parking lot entrance .

The filmmaker/producer is Jessica Yu, who won the Oscar for best documentary short subject in 1997 for "Breathing Lessons: The Life and Work of Mark O'Brien." The "Living Museum" refers to the magical place in which artists with mental illness work--a 'living' museum located on the grounds of a psychiatric center where every wall is a canvas, every floor is a foundation, and every fallen tree is a potential sculpture. The film explores the questions: What is art? What makes an artist? Where is the line between creativity and madness? Yu comments, "After a while you...stop trying to figure out who's a patient and who isn't." Yu presents the complex lives of six very different talents, from a young black artist who creates politically charged pop art to a middle-aged woman who creates minimalist pastels of strict line and color.

Dr. Janos Marton, curator, psychologist and artist, theorizes that anyone who's had a psychotic breakdown automatically becomes a great artist. Yu interprets that to mean that all of a sudden, these 'patients' have access to creativity that is very special. One patient described the magical place they live as being "about the enchantment of mental illness without denying any of the pain." He also told Yu that if given the choice of his life with mental illness or a 'normal' life, he could not have chosen the latter. Yu's goal was to discover why—how he came to that feeling.

See, also, Fall 2002 Newsletter, Page 1.