Paz Errazuriz's Psychiatric Hospital of Putaendo

Today I’m going to write about a picture that I like. It was taken by the Chilean photographer Paz Errázuriz and it shows a couple of the Psychiatric Hospital of Putaendo (actually, the Philippe Pinnel Hospital). They are embracing themselves and watching. The protograhper shows the love and affection of the people in the hospital, who expresses their loving and care to the others. She took it in 1994. She included some texts in the exposition (where appeared this photo), trying to emphasize in the sense of it: wonder about loneliness, lack of communication and tolerance in our society. Errázuriz wanted to show how we see the different people.

The photographer wanted to know the feelings, thoughts and, in general, how “the outsider people” live. She thinks that this people represents the non official speech, doesn’t have to adapt to the rules of the society. And she thought that people in the hospital were more honest and spontaneous. The photographer opposes the spontaneous and sincere life of people in the psychiatric with the ruled and false relationships of the “normal people”.

I like it because I think it’s very important the diversity and tolerance in our life and in the society to wonder why those people are (still) treated as objects. Errázuriz says that all the intents of classifying them are a way of keep our safety, be calm and forget about an uncomfortable part of ourselves (our society).

When all the people talked about “tolerance”, Errázuriz tried to know why the society put a frontier into the normal and those people who must stay cut off. I think that it’s really important to know what thinks people that aren’t included in our society.