Status: 26.08.2024 12:16
The artist group “KiK – Art in the Clinic” always meets on the grounds of the psychiatric ward of the Asklepios Clinic in Ochsenzoll. All members have psychiatric experience. The group is now celebrating its 25th anniversary.
In an old brick building on the hospital grounds in Ochsenzoll, a few basement rooms are brightly lit. Between easels, paint tubes and canvases, Sabine Schönleiter leads us through the studio, where there is a lot going on. “There is a lot of cheering, hustle and bustle, and cheerfulness here,” explains the social worker. In the large room with open windows, several people share their permanent studio spaces. Everyone is working on their own work of art, like Sven, who is currently painting Niagara Falls on canvas: “I love art. This is a very special place where you can do it like this.”
Right next door, Jonas is working on his colorful, surrealistic picture of a room. He still comes here regularly, many years after his stay in the clinic, and appreciates having a room just for painting, for his art. For him, it’s a real luxury, he says: “Many people here also receive basic social security. Then it’s actually impossible to feel like an artist or to live like an artist – even though we have it in our blood and soul. Here is a room in which you can live out your artistic soul.”
Art is the focus – not the disease
Space for creative expression.
The artist group “KiK – Art in the Clinic” is not a therapeutic offer. 24 artists aged between 19 and 84 meet here every Thursday to live out their artistic passion, work in a focused manner or talk about art and the world. All members have a psychiatric experience, which is a condition for participation. This means that they have been in a clinic at least once in their lives for depression, anxiety disorders or other mental illnesses.
The two group leaders Sabine Schönleiter and Kirsten Dressler, however, do not know the diagnoses and clinical pictures of most of the artists: “We think that it is important to put the art in the foreground and the mental illness in the background.” In terms of content, the artists do not necessarily paint themes related to their illness, but rather they have their own personal art world, their own style and their own themes, and they just want to get away from the illness.
Space for needs and exchange
A picture often tells more than a thousand words.
For 25 years, the Asklepios Clinic in Ochsenzoll has provided rooms for the art group free of charge. The group finances the material through painting sales and donations. The members can use the rooms at any time with key cards. Most of them come to the meeting point every Thursday. Like Philine, who has her workstation in a quieter single room and works on small watercolors in postcard format: “I think it’s really nice to be able to be creative with other people and to belong to a group and have a place where you can feel safe and be able to express yourself. I really enjoy being a member now.”
Here, art is the focus. You can experiment with colors and materials. And yet the studio has been a protected space for many people for years, where there is room for their needs and for exchange with one another. Open days are offered regularly – the next one is planned for November 14th.
More information
“The picture only comes into being in the moment of viewing,” says Inka Schube, curator of the exhibition “The picture is what it does”. more
Inmates of the women’s prison in Vechta have reinterpreted, painted over and collaged the works of Titian, Manet and Picasso – as trauma therapy. more
Rituals serve to structure one’s own life – this is the subject of an exhibition that can be seen in the St. Petri Church in Lübeck. more
This topic in the program:
NDR Kultur | The morning | 26.08.2024 | 10:20 a.m.
