KAOS (KunstAtelier OpperStraat) is a non-profit Brussels based art organisation. KAOS develops and supports artistic projects that have a link to mental vulnerability. KAOS starts from the idea that there is a significant overlap and an affinity between creativity and mental vulnerability. Artists can be more mentally vulnerable than average while mentally vulnerable people can be exceptionally creative. Also, creating and experiencing art can be healing activities for everyone. And thirdly, the art world tends to be more tolerant and inclusive for people who think differently. These connections between creativity and mental vulnerability could help to fight psychiatric stigma, still an important cause of suffering, discrimination and exclusion among people with psychiatric vulnerability. Through projects on the intersection between art and psychiatry, KAOS fights for the arts and against stigma.
Psychiatric stigma [is] still an important cause of suffering, discrimination and exclusion
KAOS was established in 2011 in PSC Elsene, a small-scale psychiatric hospital for people with a serious mental illness in the heart of the city. Thanks to this connection, KAOS is lucky to be able to use a beautiful, roomy studio that was originally built as an artists’ studio 100 years ago. From the beginning, KAOS organised exhibitions, concerts, performances, publications and talks.
But the focal point of our work are artists’ residencies in psychiatry. When KAOS started its residency program, it was one of the first in Europe. Now KAOS assists residency programs in other centres such as the well-known Museum Dr. Guislain in Ghent and Yellow Art in Gheel, the famous village welcoming people with a psychiatric vulnerability since the Middle Ages.
The residency is firmly anchored in the KAOS philosophy. Given the overlap between creativity and psychiatric vulnerability, there is huge similarity in the way KAOS welcomes the artists in residence and the other residents willing to participate. The visiting artists can be people with or without a psychiatric vulnerability and if they wish, they can stay in a room of a sheltered community house and live with the patients. The artists receive 24/7 access to the studio that is also used for activities organised by the hospital. They also have free access to the community spaces of the hospital, where encounters with the patients are encouraged.
Visiting artists can be people with or without a psychiatric vulnerability
The KAOS residency is basically a research residency, meaning that no particular outcome is expected apart from an open encounter with the patients. At the end of the residency, KAOS offers the artists the opportunity to organise a talk with a panel of their own choice. These talks are broadcast live and saved on the KAOS Talks YouTube channel.
Starting from the idea of overlap and affinity, KAOS is critical of the concept of outsider art. Undoubtedly originally meant to be emancipating, the label of outsider art automatically creates a problematic divide that KAOS wants question. This label is often given by insiders and thus can be patronising and stigmatising. To counter this divide, KAOS strives to connect to the regular art world by collaborating with it and organising exhibitions, talks, performances etc. together. In exhibitions, KAOS typically mixes artists with and without a psychiatric vulnerability and never places any labels next to the works but instead provides the visitors with an explanatory text and a list of the works, so that visitors focus on the works, not on the vulnerability.
KAOS aims to destigmatise through art. The only way KAOS can succeed is by putting art first in the selection of projects and artists and let top quality art provide the message.
Find out more about KAOS: www.vzwkaos.be
Fund Friends of KAOS: https://donate.kbs-frb.be/FVV_KAOS/~my-donation
Erik Thys is a psychiatrist affiliated with the UPC KU Leuven and PSC St.-Alexius in Elsene. He specialises in psychosis, creativity and stigma and is the President of KAOS.
