Publication: Bethlem Heritage
Date: 13th May 2014
Page Number/URL: http://bethlemheritage.wordpress.com/2014/05/13/cooltan-arts-stays-up-latesat-the-science-museum/
CoolTan Arts Stays Up Lates at the Science Museum
The end of April saw the launch of a book and DVD celebrating CoolTan Arts’ recent project with
the Science Museum. From Summer 2013 until January 2014, volunteers from CoolTan Arts led
the Largactyl Shuffle around the Science Museum LATES, covering topics such as
representations of madness and the relationship between treatment and experiment in scientific
psychology. We previously blogged about the ‘Food for Thought’ walk last August.
Through their intervention into the Science Museum (and visits to the museum at Bethlem),
CoolTan volunteers often questioned the dominant narratives in exhibition displays. In particular,
the group asked: “What is normal, and who decides what is normal?” At their final walk, around the
Mind Maps psychology exhibition the guides questioned whether progress had been made in
many areas of mental health treatment by taking visitors around the exhibition backwards. Their
intention was to emphasise the challenges caused by an Enlightenment separation of science and
philosophy by discussing a variety of other ways of understanding the brain and nervous system,
including the spiritual elements of meditation or non-western philosophies.
It’s often easy for a public museum to assume that they represent everyone (i.e. “the public”), but
is this really the case? One of the things CoolTan volunteers noticed was that exhibition texts at
the Science Museum often used the pronoun “we” to appeal to visitors. But this led to many
assumptions as to what visitors would share and understand, potentially alienating anyone who
didn’t agree with the dominant Science Museum narrative. A final part of the project saw CoolTan
inviting visitors to add their own responses to Science Museum exhibitions, as shown in the image
below.
The walks formed part of CoolTan Arts’ series of walking tours
– The Largactyl Shuffle – which reclaim mental distress from
the perspective of the service user. The name emphasises the
marked, unpleasant side effects of certain psychiatric
medications (in particular, the shuffling gait experienced by
long-term users of Chlorpromazine – largely known by the
brand name, Largactil – one of the earliest anti-psychotic
medications). CoolTan run regular local history walks which
aim to enhance wellbeing through creativity and activity. You
can find a full list of these on their website.
‘Picking Holes’ by
Bekki Perriman (2013), displayed as part of the ‘Mind Maps’ Largactyl Shuffle