Tenter l’art pour soigner - À l’hôpital psychiatrique de Blida-Joinville dans les années 1960

In 2021, the Institut du monde arabe museum received a generous donation: a collection of archives, painted ceramics, and numerous gouache drawings, executed in the late 1960s during social therapy workshops conducted at the Blida-Joinville Psychiatric Hospital (HPB), an Algerian institution marked by the emblematic figure of Frantz Fanon. This donation is now brought to light within its historical context.

The Blida-Joinville Psychiatric Hospital (HPB) was founded in 1933.

Frantz Fanon (1925-1961), a doctor in psychiatry and a major figure in anti-colonialism, served as chief physician there between 1953 and 1956; the hospital would be named after him upon the country's independence.

Breaking with colonial psychiatry, Fanon renewed the psychiatric approach by adapting to the local cultural and social context of the residents.

With them and the medical team, he created a social fabric within the institution, including manual activities, music therapy, and sports practice, to encourage patients' expression with a view to their possible recovery and reintegration into society.

In the late 1960s, Fanon's successors developed this practice of social therapy. The drawing workshops that gave rise to this very rich collection of gouache paintings bear witness to this. Drawing became a true medium of expression for the patients.

The exhibition questions the content of these paintings by highlighting the human dimension of the residents who created them; and, based on the donation archives, sheds light on the historical context in which the contributions of the artistic workshops at the hospital are situated.