This project was meant to commemorate Blackwell Asylum’s history, taking direct reference from Nelie Bly’s book “10 Days In A Madhouse”
Proposal for Seminar:
Roosevelt Island’s Octagon building is an extremely important building on the island, not only for its current use, as an art gallery, but also for its past use as the former main building of the island, Blackwell Asylum. Currently, the building is extremely well maintained, the inside is carpeted in some sections, with a wooden finish in others, with furniture and modern upholstery just at the entrance, there are mini art galleries immediately once one walks into the building and looks to the left or the right, as well as a spiral staircase at the entrance that leads to two upper floors. If one explores inside the building enough, they will find references to the building’s earlier time as Blackwell Asylum, but nothing revealing the real environment inside the asylum, this will take the form of older pictures of the outside of the building on the upper floors of the building.
The Octagon’s goal was to create “nostalgia and legitimation of American heritage”. This is shown mostly through the artwork on display. A lot of the art is incredibly well made and a lot of paintings are representations of a lot of different parts in America’s heritage and ever-growing culture. One artist on display, Georgette Sinclaire, is an embodiment of this belief. She has created paintings of farms, bridges in New York, and even floral landscapes across the canvas. These are representations of America’s culture even found today.
There are also more ways the Octagon’s goal is to create “nostalgia and legitimation of American heritage”, as one heads towards the upper floors in the building, there are references to the Octagon’s earlier time as Blackwell Asylum. There are several photographs of the building during the 19th and 20th centuries as one goes further up the staircase showing the changes throughout time. This shows off America’s constantly-changing culture and how it can keep repurposing buildings for new reasons and when doing this, the original purpose of the buildings become something that one can choose whether or not to remember. However, this creates an exclusionary past. According to Paul A. Shackel, the writer of “The Making of the American Landscape”, a collective memory can often come at the expense of a subordinate group.
My intended gesture/monument is a pitch for a potential Virtual Reality experience that explores the Octagon during its time as Blackwell Asylum. The experience will include one or two different “modes”: one mode for the present Octagon, which is honestly optional as one could experience the Octagon by simply going there, and one for Blackwell Asylum. This mode will mostly take inspiration and reference from Nellie Bly’s story, “10 Days in a Mad House”. I have already created some ideas for what could be in the VR as well as the gaming engine the experience will be developed on.
The new monument seeks to create a more “inclusive past” by providing people with the experience of what the asylum was like while it was open. This obviously won’t be a complete experience, as the asylum was open for years and the reference that I am using only took the course of 10 days, and of those 10 days, it is unclear which one the person is in.
I also think that doing this gesture will create this “inclusive past” because some don’t know and don’t care what the place used to be like. Most people who live there and visit there come for the space, the Four Freedoms Park and the Smallpox Hospital. However, only one of those things actually involves learning about the earlier history of the island, and unfortunately, it doesn’t reveal the whole story behind the island. Due to many modern monuments commemorating more recent events, Roosevelt Island’s time as Blackwell Island doesn’t have too much attention drawn to it. Given that the history of the island is extremely interesting and important, I believe that it is worthy of commemoration, and this is how.
A current event that was brought to attention in September of 2017 that makes the need for a new monument even more imperative would be the imprisonment of a young man named James (last name unknown). He was imprisoned for a plea of insanity about 20 years ago, and has been living in the asylum ever since, despite technically not being guilty because of insanity. He was arrested based on another woman’s statement that she was raped and despite a lack of substantial evidence, he was imprisoned anyway because of a plea of insanity. Incidents like this are reasons that a new monument is important to create, since it shows people that our prison system for insanity has not changed that much since then.
