Sense your body
A NON-CAPITALIST SELF-CAREIn our project, entitled “Sense your body: A Non-Capitalist Self-Care” we noticed that the model of care of the GGzE was entirely based on a capitalist framework in which one of the main goals of the institution is to make patients ‘productive’. In the recognition that capitalism has the potential to be inherently damaging to us, but also accepting that it is the ideology we currently live under we asked the question: how can the capitalist framework be a more grounded experience?
For our project, we reclaim the capitalist artifact of the LED sign and instead of using it to sell products, the sign displays performative instructions of mental health care that exist outside of the capitalist framework and share messages of listening to your body and how you feel. We are constantly fed instructions--we’re told how to consume, how to act---what if these instructions actually benefitted us in some way? The signs would be placed throughout the city of Eindhoven which serves two purposes--the first, is making mental health visible within the city and second, it refers to the possibility of deinstitutionalization in the future in which the mental health institution as a brick and mortar building or campus will no longer exist as such.
Research
Our project began, with an interest in the GGzE’s goal of the client’s reintegration into society. We were fascinated by the GGzE’s rehabilitation model aimed at eventually getting the client to the point where they need as little professional help as possible. In this model, the end goal is the possibility of an independent life outside of the hospital. We discovered that the method in which a client is reintegrated is through the simulation of daily life, specifically through the simulation of work and work duties--ultimately, the model of reintegration is based on capitalism. Even the term ‘client’, which marks a shift from the term ‘patient’ which perpetuates the healthy/unhealthy binary, is a capitalist term. It is the same term that many businesses use when speaking about their paying customer.
In the GGzE, there are a variety of services offered such as a cafe, a bed and breakfast, and a bike shop, among others--all these locations depend on the labour of the clients. Overall, we identified a level of performativity integrated into the model of care in which the client performs daily life outside of the institution in preparation for the eventual return to society and to develop the skills to manage their personal reintegration. In understanding the performative nature of this capitalist model of care, we recognised that in order to be considered ‘valuable to society’ one must be productive--we see and live through instances of this every day--think about the pressure you feel at work or school to perform and do well. A sign that a person is successful and mentally healthy, is if they are able to perform well in a job and contribute in a productive way to the organisation and society, at large. This creates a binary categorisation of mentally healthy or unhealthy, in which a person considered mentally healthy is useful/productive and performs at a high level ultimately meaning they are highly valued, whereas a mentally unhealthy person can generally be defined as unproductive and as a result societally considered to have a ‘low value’. This binary oversimplification is clearly damaging and reduces the human to a machine.
Furthermore, in this binary division, there is a clear boundary between the GGzE and Eindhoven. Although, the boundary itself is fluid with the free movement of bodies, it still stands as an isolated part of the city, similar to that of a campus where the majority of GGzE buildings are located. This division emphasizes the distinction between the mentally healthy and unhealthy. During the Kitchen Table Review, the connector that we spoke to mentioned the concept of deinstitutionalization or the idea that one day, the institution as a centralised hospital will cease to exist and ideally, clients will be able to stay in their houses and receive care without having to move around. The idea of being able to receive care within the city removes one of the more destabilising parts of a client’s current experience in which as the client’s needs change in relation to the amount of care he/she needs, typically the client moves from one location to another. Deinstitutionalization is an attempt to combat this destabilisation and serves as a theoretical framework for the eventual merge of the city with the institution.
Based on our research, our project proposal consists of LED signs that state ‘performative’ actions to be installed throughout the city of Eindhoven. The performative actions/instructions, in their abstract nature, reflect a new use of the sign as a capitalist symbol. The LED sign which uses the color blue to call for feelings of calmness or serenity invites the public to sense the stress and pressure in our bodies. We are also encouraged to have a discourse around the notion of work and productivity under a capitalist system. The signs, with their present-day application, mark a move towards the possibility of deinstitutionalization in the future. By making mental health visible in public spaces of the city, the signs signify the beginning of the removal of the boundary between the institution and the city and, in turn, the removal of the healthy/unhealthy binary that exists. Ultimately, the signs act as the foundation for the introduction of deinstitutionalisation into the city-scape of Eindhoven.
Designers Giulia Braglia, Holly Zambonini and Yujin Joung
Collaboration GGZE Eindhoven