France – World | “Prescription art”: Blues and anxiety are treated in a museum in Montpellier
Under the high ceiling of a former pharmacy school in Montpellier that has been transformed into a contemporary art center, André, Kevin and Ambre work with clay under the watchful eye of an artist. On the recommendation of a psychiatrist, they participate in a pilot program “art by prescription”.
These three patients, with very different ages and life courses, but with common episodes of depression or anxiety, followed by the psychiatric emergency and emergency department (Dupup) of the University Hospital of Montpellier had not shown a particular interest in art until now.
But they nevertheless respected this special treatment to the letter for several weeks.
Mo.Co, the city’s contemporary art center and the university hospital’s psychiatry department, are “convictions” in common: “there is an urgent need to inform the public about the benefits of artistic engagement for mental health,” Professor Philip insists. Courtet, from the University Hospital of Montpellier.
Unprecedented in France, this project, inspired by experiments in Belgium, Canada or Great Britain, has one ambition, the professor adds, “to get patients out of the hospital by writing art on them.”
Ambre Castells, a 17-year-old high school student, smiles as she pours paraffin into a clay mold. start”.
Kevin Gineste, 23, found his “natural anxiety lessened.” “You can go to psychologists, but the best thing is to do everything with my own hands, to bring out what is inside me,” he says, he is happy to meet “people with the same type of problems” and now he is “ready to go” to the museum more often.
“It’s a workshop around soft, bendable materials that come into contact with the hand, go from solid to liquid and deform. It allows you to master the experience,” visual artist Suzy Lelièvre explains, observing.
Beside them, 60-year-old André Broussous, wearing a white apron to avoid contamination, is pleased to have “improved” the way he “uses his hands” this time after starting the year for body expression. protégé of dancer Anne Lopez.
“Choreography gave me the art of adapting to a group, which was not easy at first, but also gave me more confidence in the way I express myself,” she recalls.
“Mental health disorders such as depression lead to social isolation and lack of self-esteem, which contributes to the disruption of being in groups,” emphasizes art enthusiast Philippe Courtet.
Elodie Michel, another specialist in psychiatry at CHU, insists: “It is not the artists who come to the patients, but the patients who go to the museum, meet the artists and enter their universe.”
In 2022, this program will include three groups of approximately ten patients. In the program: one-month art trips, visits to exhibitions and art practice workshops.
Each session was accompanied by a visual arts student and an intern in psychiatry, specifically responsible for the scientific evaluation of the project.
“l’art sur recipe”, completely free for participants, is funded by Mo.Co, the Regional Health Agency, the Regional Directorate of Cultural Affairs (Drac), as well as the city and metropolitan area of Montpellier. the world’s oldest medical faculty still operates within its walls.
“We hope that this program will be (applicable to everyone) and paid for by social security,” Mo.Co director Numa Hambursin points out, noting that treating physicians in Canada can now schedule up to 50 museum visits a year. patients.
