WATERBURY, Vt. -
Saturday at the State Office Complex in Waterbury an art installation was held to mark the closure of the State Hospital.
The "Going to Waterbury: An Elegy" exhibit was attended by Governor Peter Shumlin, Secretary of Human Resources Doug Racine, the artists who helped create it and some people who had even spent time in the facility.
"Going to Waterbury" was a term many Vermonters remember with a tainted meaning: That you needed mental help. The exhibit was marked with the artifacts and paintings of the former hospital but also the sounds of the now abandoned building.
Earlier in the week new media artist Jenn Karson recorded audio at the state hospital and abandoned building but still full of the memory of its patients.
"You really got the sense that it was a home for people and a place for people," Karson said.
She recorded the sound of the passing train, keys unlocking doors and the whir of the machinery still running. Karson then compiled the audio and edited it together and played the audio on a loop at the exhibit.
"We have a sense that the structure is abandoned when the building is left. But in my experience those buildings take on a life of their own," Karson said.
The sounds of this now vacant building capture what it used to be but it also marks the transition of what "Going to Waterbury" means for the people who received mental help there, according to Director of the art installation Tom Stevens.
"'Going to Waterbury' isn't going to be a negative thing for them anymore. They're not going to Waterbury in a negative way any more and that's an important thing to mark," Stevens said.
Stevens said the project quickly attracted talented artists looking to find a way to remember the hospitals past and the people who spent time here, some who were involved in this process.
"We owe it to ourselves to mark that closure in a way that's respectful to all the different experiences that happened here," Stevens said.
There are plans for demolition as well as renovation for parts of the facility. But the new state hospital will be located in a different place.
Tomorrow the closing ceremony continues at 7 PM at St Andrews Church. It will include a musical performance by Vermonters, some with admitted mental illnesses.
