Interview with Eva Laantee Reintamm and Mari Vallikivi

The two Estonian curators visited an exhibition in Bucharest, part of a broader international project included in the Tartu 2024 - European Capital of Culture programme

Vlad Palcu, 23.08.2023, 16:42

The exhibition ART IN/SANE. Culture, mental
health and social inclusion opened on August 18 at ARCUB – Hanul Gabroveni in
central Bucharest. The exhibition includes over 200 paintings, drawings and
engravings created by children and adults from psychiatry hospitals and pupils
from a school devoted to children with special needs.

The exhibition can be visited over August 18 -
September free of charge.

ART
IN/SANE. Culture, mental health and social inclusion is an event organized by
the Bucharest City Hall by means of its Cultural Center – ARCUB, in partnership
with a number of psychiatry hospitals and nursing home centers across the
country. It is part of a broader project aimed at promoting psycho-pathological
art titled ART IN/SANE, coordinated by Dr. Valentin-Veron Toma. In 2023, organizers
sought to promote this type of art as outsider art, introducing it to the
public in art galleries.

ART IN/SANE is also a preliminary phase of a
broader international collaboration project as part of Tartu – European Capital
of Culture in 2024. A series of works selected by art historian Eva Laantee
Reintamm and the director of Kondas Center in Viljandi, Estonia, Mari
Vallikivi, will be included in the project titled Hidden Worlds Expanding. In
turn, this project seeks to raise the visibility and inclusion of people in
need of special support, and boost their self-confidence through art creation. Hidden
Worlds Expanding also aims to see these people step out of the shadows and
achieve equal status as artists and in society at large.

The ART IN/SANE collection will therefore enter
an international circuit, putting Romania on the map of psycho-pathological art
and highlight the need for coherent and updated mental health policies as well
as state-of-the-art inclusive nursing programs.

Eva Laantee Reintamm and Mari Vallikivi visited
the Romanian Radiobroadcasting Corporation and talked to Eugen Cojocariu about
the exhibition and the concept of outsider art.

Further information:

https://www.tartu2024.ee/hiddenworlds

https://arcub.ro/art-in-sane-culture-mental-health-and-social-inclusion/

https://noba.ac/en/exhibition/if-only-you-could-understand-your-dreams-works-from-the-collections-of-the-prinzhorn-museum-and-the-kondas-centre/

https://www.eaa.ee/kael-kogunes-viljandis