Notes on Madness

Notes on Madness is curated and produced by UnBox Cultural Futures Society and Quicksand Design Studio in partnership with the National Institute of Mental Health and Neurosciences (NIMHANS) and Studio Slip.

Notes on Madness is an attempt to take the medical case files from 1920 to 1970 of the NIMHANS archives far beyond the shelves of academia and research, directly into conversations with the community at large. The immersive exhibition also looks at mental illness in recent times from the lens of lived experience as well as that of providing care.

The approach utilises scientific knowledge anchored by NIMHANS and cultural perspective of a person's relationship with their environ’s leading a conversation about the evolution of the mental health discourse in India. Through the stories of people living with Psychosis, Hysteria, and Neurosyphilis, the exhibition intends to start a constructive conversation about mental illnesses and the challenges that come with them. Reflective stimuli that provoke this discussion have been added to the exhibition to enable a holistic understanding of mental illnesses. Immersive audio stories and a space to reflect on personal thoughts have been installed to encourage the creation of safe spaces for talking about mental illnesses.

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“At NIMHANS, we have been archiving the registers and clinical records from the late 1800s and these archives provide rich information not just into diagnosis and management across times but also valuable insights into the larger canvas of people’s lives and mental health.” 

Dr Pratima Murthy, Director, NIMHANS 

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“At a deeper level, this project was about reimagining the archives - it is not a document of the dead past but stories of people going through difficult times in their lives. The idea was to reconstruct what mental ill-health means at different levels of society.” 

Riya Gokharu, Senior Design Researcher, Quicksand

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“It has not been an easy journey bringing these archival notes to audiences responsibly. Throughout the process, we have been consciously questioning societal norms, medical perceptions and personal biases around mental ill health from then to now. This process has been meaningful and enlightening to work across design, research, institutional memory and people’s lived experiences.”

Jyoti Narayan, Senior Design Researcher, Quicksand

Project Team:

Research and Curation (Quicksand): Jyoti Narayan, Riya Gokharu, Sinjini Ghosh

Exhibition Design (Studio Slip): Kamini Rao, Adnan Mohammad, Arya Dave, Siddharth Kumar

Knowledge Support (NIMHANS): Dr Pratima Murthy, Dr Sanjeev Jain, Dr TS Jaisoorya, Dr Ajit Dahale, Dr Chethan B

Translation Support: Dr Varsha Udupa, Dr Sachin, Vasavi Chitra, Akshatha Karthik 

Graphic Design: Vivan Kamath 

Production: Vishwas Kashyap, Sunil Kumar

Audio Recording: Rohit Chaturvedi, Sanoli Chowdhury, Shiva Tejaswi, Puneeth Babu

Special Thanks: Dr Krishna Prasad, Yamuna Rani, Kavitha, Babitha George, Neha Singh, Divya Costa Ribeiro, Saket Ghaisas, Anush Kumar, Sarah Ghani, Sweta Pal, Mindscapes Team.