{"id":740,"date":"2026-05-19T09:30:00","date_gmt":"2026-05-19T09:30:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/drouki.com\/?p=740"},"modified":"2026-05-19T09:30:00","modified_gmt":"2026-05-19T09:30:00","slug":"photographer-mary-ellen-mark-turned-her-lens-on-mental-illness-and-changed-our-perceptions","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/drouki.com\/?p=740","title":{"rendered":"Photographer Mary Ellen Mark turned her lens on mental illness and changed our perceptions."},"content":{"rendered":"

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In 1975, Mary Ellen Mark accepted a one-week photography assignment that would change her life.<\/p>\n

Mark was already known as a photographer for his portraits of rock stars and actors, and was scheduled to do similar work on the Oregon set of One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest. And she did just that, capturing star Jack Nicholson and producer Michael Douglas at the mental hospital where the film is set.<\/p>\n

Later, on set, she met the women of Ward 81, the only high-security psychiatric hospital for women in Oregon. Fascinated by their stories, she persuaded the director to return to therapist Karen Folger Jacobs the following year. The two spent six weeks infiltrating the unit, documenting the stories of women who were confined and hidden from the public’s eyes.<\/p>\n

The result is “Ward 81,” a searing photography exhibition that opened in late January and ends Friday at the University of Maryland, Baltimore County’s Alvin O. Kuhn Library Gallery. <\/p>\n

The trust Marc and Jacobs built with the women is evident in the intimacy of the black and white photographs throughout the spacious gallery. Mark shows a close-up of a shackled ankle. She shows her hands restraining a patient undergoing electroconvulsive therapy, which the patient doesn’t like. She captures small moments of friendship and joy. A cigarette dangling from painted lips. A young woman taking a bath.<\/p>\n

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Carol T. Miller, Ward 81, Oregon State Hospital, Salem, Oregon, USA. 1976. (Courtesy of Mary Ellen Mark\/Mary Ellen Mark Foundation)<\/span><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/div>\n

Tara Pixley, a photojournalist and assistant professor of journalism at Temple University, said the photographs allowed Americans to imagine what was inside the trapped women. Over time, this image became one of the many factors that pushed society toward treatment and medication at home and outpatient facilities rather than in institutions. Just as Jacob Riis’ photos of tenement houses promoted changes in housing policy.<\/p>\n

“‘Word 81’ was completely different from anything that came before it,” Pixley said. \u201cThis initiative was so innovative and brought people together in such a meaningful way that it actually made possible things that would not have been possible otherwise.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cWard 81\u201d also includes testimonials.<\/p>\n

\u201cI used to be able to imagine beautiful things, but now I have no imagination,\u201d said a woman named Beth. “It’s not working anymore. Maybe I’ve been here too long.”<\/p>\n

Another woman, Tommy, said: “They treat you like you’re no good. What they’re saying is you’re stupid because you’re in a mental hospital… You’re ugly, you’re no good, you don’t belong in this world.”<\/p>\n

Mark provided Polaroids so women could see themselves the way she did. For Mark Swartz, who visited the exhibit, that detail was one of the gentlest touches. <\/p>\n

“You can tell this is a person who is concerned about how people in our country are disabled and how they struggle,” said Swartz, who was familiar with Mark’s famous twin photos from a previous job in the marketing department of the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York City.<\/p>\n

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Mona and Beth take a shower in Ward 81 at Oregon State Hospital in Salem, Oregon, USA. 1976. (Courtesy of Mary Ellen Mark\/Mary Ellen Mark Foundation)<\/span><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/div>\n
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Tommy peeking through his room window, Ward 81, Oregon State Hospital, Salem, Oregon, USA. 1976. (Courtesy of Mary Ellen Mark\/Mary Ellen Mark Foundation)<\/span><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/div>\n

Mark published \u201cWard 81\u201d as a book in 1978. From 200 rolls of film, she carefully selected images that show the complexity of being trapped in the prime of life. <\/p>\n

The man admitted to the facility received individual treatment. Women, on the other hand, were treated in groups. Both Nicholson’s 1975 film and Mark’s photographs depicted the horrors of electroconvulsive shock therapy (ECT), and changed how and when doctors administered it. It is still used today, but is tailored to less common, more severe and drug-resistant mental health conditions.<\/p>\n

Mark, who passed away in 2015 at the age of 75, published 20 books and won nearly every prestigious photojournalism honor, including multiple Robert F. Kennedy Journalism Awards and a Lifetime Achievement Award from the George Eastman House. She and her husband Martin Bell turned their photo essay about runaway children in Seattle into the Academy Award-nominated film Streetwise. Although Bell continues to distribute his work, the only one listed for 2026 is the UMBC exhibit. <\/p>\n

UMBC Exhibitions Curator Emily Hauber and Special Collections Curator Beth Saunders saw the \u201cWord 81\u201d exhibit when it first opened at Toronto\u2019s Image Center in 2023, and from there they decided to work with their team to bring the exhibit to UMBC. <\/p>\n

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Carol T. is being held in Ward 81, Oregon State Hospital, Salem, Oregon, USA. 1976. (Courtesy of Mary Ellen Mark\/Mary Ellen Mark Foundation)<\/span><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/div>\n

Sanders said the show is popular. Students often come before or after studying or drinking coffee to share their own or their families’ mental health concerns with on-site curators.<\/p>\n

“It’s clear that the photographs and the women in them had an emotional impact on the visitors,” Saunders said.<\/p>\n

Caitlin Booher, an Ohio-based curator who helped organize Mark’s Toronto exhibition, said ‘Ward 81’ is important because Mark met women early in her career and “it set the pace for how she would photograph women around the world for the rest of her life.”<\/p>\n

Mark grew up in Pittsburgh and befriended Candice Bergen, one of the few women studying photography at the University of Pennsylvania in the early 1960s. Mark said her father’s mental breakdown may explain her affinity for women in the 81st Ward. <\/p>\n

UMBC’s narrated films bring once-forgotten women to life. Letters from their parents remind viewers that they were once loved. Mark told Time magazine in 1978 that the photographs were like a scrapbook of her life and herself. <\/p>\n

\u201cI wanted to give them exposure to the outside world, to reach out to them and let them express themselves,\u201d Mark said. “I didn’t want to use them. I wanted them to use me.” <\/p>\n

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Photo of Mona and Michael Douglas, Ward 81, Oregon State Hospital, Salem, Oregon, USA. 1976. (Courtesy of Mary Ellen Mark\/Mary Ellen Mark Foundation)<\/span><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n