{"id":2950,"date":"2025-08-20T11:15:05","date_gmt":"2025-08-20T09:15:05","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/openartmuseum.ch\/life-stories-in-the-upk\/"},"modified":"2026-05-13T15:13:26","modified_gmt":"2026-05-13T13:13:26","slug":"life-stories-in-the-upk","status":"publish","type":"page","link":"https:\/\/openartmuseum.ch\/en\/life-stories-in-the-upk\/","title":{"rendered":"Life stories in the UPK"},"content":{"rendered":"<h3><strong>K<\/strong><strong>\u00fc<\/strong><strong>biographies of artists<\/strong><\/h3>\n<h5>Life stories in the UPK Basel accompanying the exhibition &#8220;<strong>A dream of a ball gown<\/strong>&#8221; &#8211; works from the picture storage of the University Psychiatric Clinics Basel<\/h5>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>The present-day <a href=\"https:\/\/www.upk.ch\/startseite\">University Psychiatric Clinics (UPK) Basel <\/a>have, since their founding, also been known by the names Irrenanstalt Basel (1886\u20131898), Kantonale Heil- und Pflegeanstalt Friedmatt (1899\u20131960), and Psychiatrische Universit\u00e4tsklinik (PUK, until 2005).<\/p>\n<p>For a long time, the psychiatric ward was a self-contained cosmos. How did people experience everyday hospital life, how did patients feel about their (mostly) long-term hospitalization between 1960 and 1990? Over 22,000 patient files in the Basel-Stadt State Archives provide information about the fates of patients. Doctors and nursing staff record the condition of their patients, what concerns them and what worries them, on an almost daily basis. In addition to EEG and fever curves, the dossiers also contain letters, Christmas greetings, personal notes and drawings.    <\/p>\n<p><em>Included from the open art museum&#8217;s collection are drawings by Peter Wirz (1915-2000), who was also a patient at the UPK Basel. Adelheid Duvanel (1936-1996), who repeatedly sought refuge in the UPK and began to draw there again, will have a solo exhibition at the open art museum from November 9, 2025. <\/em><\/p>\n<p>Due to the protection of personal rights, many files are not accessible, names are not known or must be anonymized. The protection also has its downside: the authorship expressly represented in the signature and the self-empowerment that goes with it is ignored or even has to be concealed. A person&#8217;s personality and world view can only be identified through the work. The information on the context and connection to the individual life story that is important for the reception of the work is missing. The understanding of mental health, concepts of mental illness and psychiatry, therapy and treatment methods correspond to the knowledge and social norms of the respective time.    <\/p>\n<h5><strong>Biographical research as a process<\/strong><\/h5>\n<p>Dealing with life stories from medical records remains a constant process with many questions. What is available? What may be viewed, what may be quoted and published? What is important for understanding the work? We therefore see this exhibition as an approach to further research. No definitive biographies are offered, but a &#8220;research diary&#8221; allows visitors to participate in new findings; the biographies are continuously supplemented and corrected.     <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>K\u00fcbiographies of artists Life stories in the UPK Basel accompanying the exhibition &#8220;A dream of a ball gown&#8221; &#8211; works from the picture storage of the University Psychiatric Clinics Basel &nbsp; The present-day University Psychiatric Clinics (UPK) Basel have, since their founding, also been known by the names Irrenanstalt Basel (1886\u20131898), Kantonale Heil- und Pflegeanstalt [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":7,"featured_media":0,"parent":0,"menu_order":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","template":"","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"class_list":["post-2950","page","type-page","status-publish","hentry"],"acf":[],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v28.7 - https:\/\/yoast.com\/product\/yoast-seo-wordpress\/ -->\n<title>Life stories in the UPK &#8211; 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