Il Museum Laboratory of the Mind in Rome, inaugurated in 2000, traces the history of the Santa Maria della Pietà Hospital, from its foundation as the “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 itinerary through the memories of the asylum, for a reading of otherness, its forms and languages, to combat stigma and promote mental health.?
The original visit path (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, social constraints and reconstructing subjectivity: a subjective experience generated in the traversal of asylum spaces and the unexpected appearance of the recalled stories.
The importance assumed by the Museum Laboratory of the Mind in the Museum Organization of the Lazio Region, the ICOM Italy Award received in 2010 as “Museum of the Year for innovation and attractiveness in relations with the public,” the constant influx of visitors, the collaboration with schools, universities and research institutes, health services, socio-cultural associations, national and international museums, the positive results of initiatives that have characterized the first ten years of its activities, the institutional dimension of “caring” constitute the founding reasons to continue, in permanent dialogue with the community and the territory, the work of enhancing its artistic-documentary heritage, reception activities, research, training and the completion of the exhibition project undertaken in 2008 with Studio Azzurro.
