Ward 81, Mary Ellen Mark, Oregon State Hospital,
Salem, Oregon, 1976
300B-017-028
The setting of “Ward 81” is the Oregon State Hospital which is a psychiatric hospital in the U.S. that was active in fields of electroconvulsive therapy, lobotomies, eugenics, and hydrotherapy. Ward 81 in particular was a women’s security ward that was the only locked women’s security ward in the state. Photographer Mark and writer Kay Folger Jacobs lived alongside the patients for around a month and documented their experience through this photobook. The book is profound and gives us an insight on not only the sexist notation of “women with mental issues” but also the struggle that these women have in finding themselves in the institution that does not allow them to explore. Most of the expressions of the women shown in the photos showcase their anxiety, fear, confusion, loneliness and even anger of why they are locked up in the first place. They seem very vulnerable, as if they are children. I found this particular photo unique due to the almost exaggerated use of the subjects bodies to describe different themes. We see two people hugging while one seems to be in agony on their knees and another woman on the right looking down at her with an agitated expression. To me, it seems like various responses to possibly bad news. There are people that seek comfort in another, people that anguish over the event and those that are seemingly indifferent and critical. Upon looking closer there seems to be another hidden subject sitting behind the two people hugging on a chair. The composition seems to be almost ruined by this hidden figure since everything seems evenly spaced out. It takes only one tiny thread to pull all the stiches apart. There is no true way of dealing with emotions in general, but there are solutions that can take place so that we can prevent the event from getting worse. I relate this to how the women in Ward 81 are dealing with living in this mental institution even though some of them did not want to be there, or have no legitimate cause to be there in the first place.