HOLY BODY
2012
Video installation (two-channel with audio)
with the costumes and scenographic elements used in the video
Variable dimensions / Loop 31’08”
Commissioned by the Prinzhorn Collection, Dias & Riedweg departed from the historical collection of the Heidelberger Museum to spend a year working with a group of patients from the Institute of Psychiatry at the Federal University of Rio de Janeiro. They held a series of workshops in the clinic's old theater, which is called Qorpo Santo, in honor of the Brazilian playwright who spent much of his life in a psychiatric hospital.
In a “theatre dressing room” that occupied the entire space, these patient-participants changed their clothes, from their sad and impersonal hospice hospital uniforms to burlesque costumes, inspired by the works of the Prinzhorn Collection and performed with carnival artists from samba schools Cariocas, to then freely improvise texts and songs in scenes of their own internal worlds.
The act of dressing up in “whimsical” costumes somehow infused their bodies with new vital energy and resulted in much therapeutical evolution for the patients. As in several works by Dias & Riedweg, the installation's form repeats the film set, featuring the costumes and a huge dressing table, in which the mirror was replaced by the projection screen of one of the videos.
Installation views at Prinzhorn Collection, Heidelberg, Germany, 2012; Museum of Art of Lucerne, Switzerland, 2014
"It's a joy to be hidden, but a disaster not to be found...". This striking Winnicott phrase shows, in a nutshell, the complexity of psychic operations related to being or not within the perceptual reach of the other. Although we are used to confirming the relatively stable separation between our internal world and external reality, it is in an indeterminate, fluid, potential and “neither internal nor external” space that we live our most important experiences. Working with subjects in a serious state of psychological distress brings us this problem in an acute way. Such subjects put us before impasses to be found and do not experience any pleasure in being hidden. It takes a non-invasive insistence on the part of the other for an encounter to take place. It was exactly this type of encounter that Dias & Riedweg's works in the context of mental health provided.
DR. Julio Sergio Verztman, psychiatrist, postgraduate professor of psychoanalytic theory at UFRJ
THE PROCESS
Holy Body
Starting from an original sculpture and paintings from the Prinzhorn Collection, from the Institute of Psychiatry of Heidelberg, Germany, Mauricio Dias & Walter Riedweg conducted a series of workshops with a group of patients from the Institute of Psychiatry of the Federal University of Rio de Janeiro during the year of 2012. The artistic immersion, based on theatrical exercises and improvisations, culminated in the video installation entitled "Corpo Santo", first presented at the Museum of the Prinzhorn Collection, in Heidelberg, later at the Kunstmuseum Luzern and currently integrated in the collection of the National Museum of Art Contemporary Reina Sofia in Madrid, Spain.
with
Adilson Santos de Almeida
Ana Cláudia Amaral dos Santos
Ana Cristina Ferreira da Costa
Ana Paula de Oliveira
Antônio Carlos Dias
Aristóteles Casas de Oliveira
Benedita Vicente
Carlos Alberto Pereira Batista
Carlos Henrique Coelho França
Carolina Batista Cesário
Claudio de Carvalho Claudino
Cristiano Antonio da Silva
Dalila Meira de Azevedo Marques
Demetrius Lucas Peixoto Andrade
Diogo dos Santos Luz
Edmyr Jesus do Nascimento
Fábio Rodrigues da Silva
Fernanda Gomes de Siqueira
Gerson Mandarino Nunes Marques
Gessy Faria da Silva
João Batista de Souza
José Newton Santos Queiroz
Luiz Fernando da Silva de Souza
Marcelo Henrique Paranhos de Lima
Marcio Henrique de Oliveira
Marco Antonio Pinheiro Moreira
Marconi Pereira da Silva
Marcus Paulo de Paula de Amorim
Maria Cecília Vieira
Maria Raimunda de Jesus
Maria Ribamar
Mauricio Gloria Martins da Silva
Patrícia de Oliveira da Silva
Paulo Humberto Veiga Junior
Pedro Paulo Salouto da Silva
Priscila Mayara Guimarães da Silva
Priscilla Sobral Pinto
Rafael Dias dos Santos
Rafael Melo Soares Ferreira
Regina Celia Benjamin de Souza
Renato Batista de Carvalho
Rodrigo Pereira de Souza
Rosemery P. C. de Almeida
Samuel de Oliveira Souza
Sandro Gomes Rocha
Severino Estevão da Silva
Sintia Alves
Vilma Maria Thiago
Vinicius Nogueira de A. Martiniano
Viviane dos Anjos Marcelino
Wagner Almada Queiroz
Commissioned by
Sammlung Prinzhorn
Psychiatrische Universitätsklinik Heidelberg
in collaboration with
IPUB - Instituto de Psiquiatria da Universidade Federal do Rio de Janeiro - UFRJ
Workshops held at Teatro Qorpo Santo Theater, IPUB - UFRJ
Concept, realisation and editing
Dias & Riedweg
General Assistent
Juliana Franklin
Assistent Edition
Jorge Soledar
Assistents
Bruno Pires, Leandra Lambert, Cleiton Henrique dos Santos
Costume Design
Bruno Villaça and Karin Wyler
Medical Supervision IPUB - UFRJ
Dr. Prof. Julio Verztman
Assistents Psychologie
Constança Pondé e Natália Pfeil
Director Prinzhorn Collection
Dr. Prof. Thomas Roeske