ASYLON – Moist Light, Päivi Setälä

ASYLON – Moist Light
Päivi Setälä

Images from a greenhouse that became a mental asylum.

For the Asylon – Moist Light exhibition, Päivi Inkeri Setälä has photographed the interior of an orangerie—originally built in the 1840s for citrus trees—located at Vuojoens Manor in Eurajoki, Finland. Nearly a century after its construction, the municipality of Eurajoki purchased the estate and converted the main building into a nursing home. The orangerie, designed by architect Carl Ludvig Engel, was repurposed as a mental asylum for the nursing home’s patients. When the nursing home was later relocated, the building was left to the mercy of the elements and vandals.

Setälä captured the interior of the building during the summer and autumn of 2006. In summer, green vines climbed the walls and pressed against the windows, as if recalling the orangerie’s past. A green glow filtered through the observation windows in the asylum doors. By autumn, moisture had taken over the space, paint peeled from the walls like a living surface, and droplets on the walls reflected the outside world.

The exhibition title, Asylon, means a sanctuary—a place of care for the mentally ill, a place free from danger. The same Greek root word has given rise to asile d’aliénés in French, meaning “mental asylum,” and to the English word asylum, which today refers to a refuge for displaced persons. Asylum is a comforting word, and for the photographer, it connects to the idea of a greenhouse—a personal sanctuary. At the time of these photographs, however, both sanctuary and citrus trees were nothing more than distant memories within the building’s walls.

This text was created with AI assistance