Below is a transcript of our conversation with artist Kimberly Chapman:
David Nicholas:
I'm David Nicholas and this is Central Focus, a weekly look at research activity and innovative work from Central Michigan University students and faculty. Last week, we featured author Stephanie Carpenter, who visited campus in support of her novel “Moral Treatment.” The book is set in the late 1800s at the former Traverse City State Hospital. Intersecting Carpenter's time on campus was the opening of an exhibit in CMU's Baber Room Gallery, housed in the Park Library. It is the work of artist Kimberly Chapman, “Eighty-six Reasons for Asylum Admission.” The title comes from an actual list used to put women into asylums, part of the cruelty and injustice that women endured. In the first of two segments, I met the artist in the gallery…
And I'm actually looking at the manuscript of the Trans Allegheny Lunatic Asylum Reasons for Admission, 1864 to 1889. Seems like a good place for Kimberly you to pick up the story. When did you come upon this and where did the inspiration come from?
Kimberly Chapman:
Well, actually, it was the inspiration for the entire show. I like to do a lot of research before I start doing any work, and I came across the list of preconditions as to why people were sent to asylums. And when I saw how so many of these really zeroed in on women troubles, or women in particular, I just became very angry, and I started to realize how the asylums were basically silencing women through psychiatry.
DN:
The list itself then it says the Trans Allegheny Lunatic Asylum. Were lists like this common in other parts of the country?
KC:
I've seen a couple other lists, but this is the most complete one that I came across and I journeyed to Weston, WV to actually see the asylum. It's a massive museum that you can roam the entire place and see everything. And that's where I purchased this actual poster.
DN:
Do you think that this was or a matter of men, I will say, and dominant in society that they didn't understand women or this was a form of oppression, or both?
KC:
I think it's a little bit of both. I certainly seem to be focusing more on the latter, the oppression. I think it was a way to safely put away wives and daughters that were too independent, too outspoken, or maybe I wanted to go down the street to a different church. Or maybe I wanted to just sit down and read a novel. Maybe I wanted more than just being a wife and mother.
DN:
This is dated, as we said, 1864 to 1889, the period when lists of this type were then mostly active. Is 1889 when and this was outlawed, banned in the courts, a shift away. What happened?
KC
Well, I'm basically focusing on the Thomas Kirkbride Asylums, which are the, there was, I guess, about 77 asylums built across America and they were the massive palatial asylums and they were mostly built in the eighteen-forties, 50s and 60s. So, I think that's why we see the date of that list as such.
DN:
Your bio says you focus on what women endure and you look to shed light on dark subjects. This is certainly one. There's also a reference to this as a traveling, as a teaching collection. Does that set this apart in the way this was staged then you would have had it elsewhere? What? What makes that distinct? And is that a part of what you have on exhibit here?
KC:
Now I think that's a great question. I call it a teaching collection because I really want to enlighten folks about what asylum life was like for women and you'll see a lot of labels that are pretty comprehensive on the walls. So, if (if) I'm not here, which of course I live in Ohio, people can understand what's happening. They'll also see a film where I was interviewed about 86 reasons, so that they can learn more about it. I don't sell my work, so I like to keep it together as a collection and it has been traveling to different museums and college galleries where what sets it apart is, is that I'm teaching the history of women in asylums.
DN:
Next week, a closer look at the art pieces that make up the exhibit, Eighty-six reasons.
