BEAUTIFUL DISTRESS: ART AND MENTAL HEALTH. MARTÍN LA ROCHE IN CONVERSATION WITH CAROL STAKENAS

Kings County Hospital, Brooklyn NY

Carol Stakenas, curator at-large for the Social Practices Art Network (SPAN), talks to Chilean Amsterdam-based artist Martín La Roche (1988) about his three-month residency experience at Kings County Hospital in Brooklyn, New York, as part of the Beautiful Distress Foundation (Amsterdam) program, whose mission is to raise awareness of mental distress under the belief that art is pre-eminently capable of articulating and representing the human condition.

Beautiful Distress uses art to tell stories of psychiatry to a wide audience that, by not coming into direct contact with mental illness, is submerged in ignorance and, therefore, stigmatization. Although mental illnesses evoke negative emotions in those who suffer them, they are also a rich source of creativity. By uniting these two worlds, that of art and psychiatry, Beautiful Distress seeks to validate the world and the experience of the mentally ill.