blooming corridors

 african violets, grass, heather, mums, orange tulips, white mums, white tulips  more orange tulips and orange begonias

A four day public art installation called bloom was done in the Massachusetts Mental Health Center in Boston.  After 9 decades of service, the building was slated for demolition. They sought artist Anna Schuliet to help memorialize it.

"After an initial tour of the facility she was struck not with what she saw but with what she didn’t see: the presence of life and color."

She chose 28,000 potted flowers to fill every nook and cranny of the MMHC, hoping that the visitors, former patients, and employees would see the color and life that really came from these corridors, stairwells and offices.

Words left by a former patient in a guestbook for Bloom: 

“My mother told me, 36 years ago, ‘Hang on. They’ll find a cure, I was suffering alone until I came to MMHC. And today… oh so grateful…beyond any words, so grateful. Lives and sufferings have been redeemed here… Today, we flourish.” 

 another entry...

 “I walked through Bloom with a close friend of mine who has spent a great deal of time inside similar hospitals. He was close to tears and repeated said he felt the desire to jump into the flowers, sum bold for the freedom and the celebration of his own growth and healing. We recognized that Bloom brought beauty and wonder to what has always been an inherently taboo subject matter.”


images taken by Anna Schuliet and found here,  another article here