The Mind Laboratory Museum of Rome, inaugurated in 2000, retraces the history of the Santa Maria della Pietà Hospital, from its founding as “Hospitale de’poveri forestieri et pazzi dell’Alma Città di Roma” to its definitive closure in 1999, five centuries later, as a psychiatric hospital.
An immersive narrative journey through the memories of the asylum, for an understanding of otherness, its forms and languages, to fight stigma and promote mental health.
The original visit itinerary (supported by the Historical Audiovisual Archive and the Cencelli Library of Santa Maria della Pietà) is structured as a historical cartography of institutional practices and anti-institutional practices, as a double and continuous dialectical process of deconstructing the geography of spatial, physical, psychological, and social constraints and reconstructing subjectivity: a subjective experience generated by crossing asylum spaces and the unexpected appearance of recounted stories.
The importance of the Mind Laboratory Museum within the Museum Organization of the Lazio Region, the ICOM Italy Award received in 2010 as “Museum of the Year for Innovation and Attractiveness in Public Relations,” the constant influx of visitors, collaboration with schools, universities, research institutes, health services, socio-cultural associations, national and international museums, the positive outcomes of initiatives characterizing the first ten years of its activity, and the institutional dimension of “caring” are the founding reasons to continue, in permanent dialogue with the community and territory, the enhancement of its artistic and documentary heritage, welcoming activities, research, training, and the completion of the exhibition project undertaken in 2008 with Studio Azzurro.
