Here is a short article that I wrote for THE GOOD TIMES (16.01.12). A Newspaper filled with only positive stories, self-published by my good friends at the creative agency THE CHURCH OF LONDON.
//Gugging//
Humans have an inherent desire to express themselves. We are makers of many non-functioning yet beautiful things. Whether or not those objects are thought of as ‘art’ is purely subjective. An artist is just someone who has something to say and the desire to communicate.
Europe is leading the way with this approach to communication, via studios and //ateliers// that provide people with psychiatric and developmental disabilities the material and freedom to create daily. One such space is the Gugging ‘House of Artists’ in Austria, which opened in 1981 as the Centre for Art and Psychotherapy. This studio is literally open to all. Though many of the people who use the space do have psychiatric experience, anybody is welcome to use the facilities, and it’s an environment where passion for creation rules over desire for profit.
Humans have an inherent desire to express themselves. We are makers of many non-functioning yet beautiful things. Whether or not those objects are thought of as ‘art’ is purely subjective. An artist is just someone who has something to say and the desire to communicate.
Europe is leading the way with this approach to communication, via studios and //ateliers// that provide people with psychiatric and developmental disabilities the material and freedom to create daily. One such space is the Gugging ‘House of Artists’ in Austria, which opened in 1981 as the Centre for Art and Psychotherapy. This studio is literally open to all. Though many of the people who use the space do have psychiatric experience, anybody is welcome to use the facilities, and it’s an environment where passion for creation rules over desire for profit.
Gugging is not a space with therapeutic direction and there are no official classes. It is a quiet haven with room to think and the free materials to experiment. For those who have suffered (or are suffering) with a psychiatric disability, the chance to express feelings in a non-literal way can be incredibly liberating.
In a recent interview with the Museum of Everything, the Gugging House of Artists art director and curator Dr. Johann Feilacher described how creativity is essential to a person's wellbeing.
"If you make something - the intention to make art - or not - is of no importance."
"Creativity is essential - the mental ability which begins in childhood and which everybody has... Today at Gugging, artists do not get any kind of arts education. We simply create a happy environment for them, where they feel well, where we help with their psychological problems and arrange things so that they can make 'art'." //Lotty Sanna//
My good pal Andonis Trattos went all over Europe filiming studios like Gugging.
You can check them out on Vimeo here:
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