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Molly Palmer

Selected works 2016 - 2024

Molly Palmer - Selected works 2016 - 2024

Asylum X is an ongoing participatory experiment opening a “Call Center” that anonymously translates callers’ material memories of psychiatric wards into an expanding digital space that can be shared and navigated.

Callers descriptions are reconstructed until the digital space becomes uncomfortably real. At this point Call Center Agents support the caller to take control, transforming the space as they reclaim agency and dignity in the memory it represents.

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For example, this caller reconstructed the medicine hatch in the corridor of a youth detention center in Australia, which felt infinite since she was forbidden beyond her bedroom door. At the turning point (code name) Goldie placed her childhood pet, a golden retriever, outside her door, and then twisted the corridor section by section, opening it to the outside she longed for and adding rope ladders and trees to play on.

CODE NAME NEJM: The caller reconstructs the psychiatrist’s consulting room from a hospital in Berlin, then adds giant speakers, turns the furniture upside down, takes off the roof to let the rain in and sets the room on fire.

Gekkenhuis is a 15^th-century Dutch term meaning 'madhouse', which has become slang to describe anything chaotic, confusing and positively or negatively overwhelming. The word is simultaneously comical, disruptive and revealing of the saneism embedded in our language.

Gekkenhuis is a collective learning initiative that centers mad, crip and trans narratives as a framework in questioning oppressive power structures. This research exists in relation to wider emancipatory struggles – the group is open to all who feel alienated by the dominant reality systems. Each gathering will grow out of the last – a collaborative space to share material and open new discussion. This session particularly welcomes psychiatric survivors (those who navigate institutional care), and those who see a role for art institutions in repositioning madness narratives.

Our first public meeting was in March 2025 at Rijksakademie van Beeldende Kunst in Amsterdam, NL. "Madness and the Institution" responded to texts, research and artist films on 15th – 20th Century Asylum Systems, examining these histories and methods as a microcosm of imbalances in power structures, and contextualising lived experience of non-physical disability as inherently critical and political.

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The afternoon was divided into three parts (as described in the invite):

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1: The Asylum System: �

• We’ll read “Madness”, a chapter from Health Communism on psychiatric care models’ mirroring of capitalist values and their role within wider systems of control.
• Molly Palmer will share archival research on dehumanising methods of corrective care such as electroshock therapy, insulin injections to induce comas and lobotomies.
• We’ll look at two projects that aim to restore agency: Palmer’s experiment Asylum X – a Call Center that anonymously reconstructs memories of psychiatric hospitals in a digital environment that can be shared and navigated; and Mad Love (A Designer Asylum), in which the artist Vacuum Cleaner helps young people in distress design a safe place to go mad.

2: Ovartaci - “The chief Lunatic”�

• We will look at the life and work of Ovartaci, a Danish trans artist who lived and worked in an asylum for 56 years (1929–1985) and whose gender identity was disregarded and pathologised as schizophrenia. Her work is widely celebrated but is often segregated as ‘outsider art’. This framing opens questions - what voices are heard and legitimised by the art institution? What happens when we stop marginalising and infantilising madness narratives, and instead read through them as a lucid response to conditions that affect us all?

3: Reading through madness - the institution as an agent of change. ��

• Gekkenhuis uses Mad and Crip as terms reclaimed by Disability Studies to signify identities formed by politicised experiences of the health system. We’ll reflect on the relative absence of such terms and theory from art discourse in the Netherlands, and the reinforcement it could bring.
• Our closing discussion looks at the interconnectedness of these developments with the increasing spread of fascist logics globally. How can ‘reading through madness’ elucidate the relationship between psychiatry and colonialism, patriarchy, eugenics and neoliberalism?
• We will consider the emancipatory potential of institutions – their capacity to recognise neurodivergent skill sets and validate authorship of counter narratives that destabilise stigma. We will think about Access beyond visible disability and dysfluency – masking, adaptation and emotional regulation as hidden barriers within ableist funding structures, expectations of overwork and socialising as a source of opportunity.

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THE FOLLOWING PAGES ARE UNDER CONSTRUCTION ::))

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AS A PLACEHOLDER SOME IMAGES OF PUBLIC AND COMMUNITY SESSIONS OF GEKKENHUIS ��MORE SOON

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BETWEEN PUBLIC SESSIONS WE MEET UP TO SHARE FOOD, THOUGHTS, RESEARCH / INSPO FROM FILMS, TV, MUSIC AND BOOKS TO PERSONAL EXPERIENCE.

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WE MEET NEW GEKKEN, MAKE FRIENDS, FIND MAD COMMUNITY

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MEETING LIKE THIS BRINGS UP NEW THOUGHTS AND COLLABORATIONS FOR FUTURE MEETINGS. ALL ARE WELCOME, SEND US AN EMAIL IF YOU LIKE TO JOIN

Into the Sky Tent it Glows Bright Red (ins Himmelszelt es Leuchtet Leuchtend Rot) is the outcome of an ongoing exchange with Nie Pastille, an artist in her 70s who lives and works on a caravan park in Cologne. Our practices connect through two of my video works, Two Friends and Two Curtains (2016), a film about loss, transience and human connection, and In Addition to Everything Real (2015), which follows cycles of perceptual tuning through different bandwidths of our shared reality.

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Amulet, 2024, Single channel video with stereo sound

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Amulet

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2024, Single channel video with stereo sound

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Amulet was commissioned in 2023 by Mondriaan Fonds and Het HEM, an art institution based in a former bullet factory in Zaandam, an industrial estate north of Amsterdam. The film was part of Het HEM’s chapter Mystics of the Cthulucene, curated by Maia Kenney. Its production was supported by Mondriaan Fonds and Amarte Fonds and its IRL screenings at Het HEM & IDFA Documentaire Paviljoen were curated by Kenney & Berber Meindertstma

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🔗Viewing link

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Amulet, 2024, Single channel video with stereo sound.

Film commission from Het HEM, Mondriaan Fonds & Amarte Fonds. Curated by Maia Kenney & Berber Meindertsma

Screening online HERE at Het HEM’s digital platform →→→→ The Couch ←←←←

IRL screenings: Launch at Het HEM, Zaandam, 8th July 2024, IDFA Het Documentaire Paviljoen + conversation with Jamie Sutcliffe,

Amulets: Sancha Meca Castro, Agnes Waruguru, Saman Mahdavi, Shreya DeSouza, Silvana Hurtado Dianderas, Ruby Hoette

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A Grey Suede Glove, 2021, Rijksakademie OPEN, Amsterdam

A Grey Suede glove, 2021, Single channel HD Video installation with 4.1 surround sound, lighting score and motorised objects synchronised to sound. Dimensions variable. Installation view at Rijksakademie OPEN. Photography by Peter Thijhuis with Akinci

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A Grey Suede Glove, 2021, still from video

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Password, 2021 - 2022, still from video

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Password is Hope, 2021, Plywood windows with painted MDF, gauze curtains and computer cooling fans. Curtains move in time to 4.1 surround sound. Installation at Rijksakademie OPEN

Alphabet, 2021, wooden wall relief opposite motorised door. Path of light moving as door opens and closes with video loop. Installation at Rijks OPEN

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Medusa Frequency, 2021, decapitated head of the young Medusa in coil built ceramic with craquelle glaze. Rijks OPEN

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Snow Machine and Sad Poems, 2021, floating hand with paper mache pen writes glyphs over salt mountain. Single channel video on CNC cut wooden stand. Spoken and sung soundtrack in 4.1 surround with synchronised lighting score and motorised sculptures. Shown in A Grey Suede Glove at Rijksakademie OPEN, photography by Peter Thijhuis

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Some Shapes Without Edges, 2016, Royal Academy, London

Emblem, 2022, 3D printed sculpture with gilded ceramic coin, edition with 1646, Den Haag

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“Molly Palmer explores fluctuations in perception such as anxiety, depression, schizophrenia or bipolar as experiences that can bypass or reorder the systems and structures of reality. Outside language classifications of illness or disability, these shifts of understanding bring opportunities for spiritual progression, creating something complex, strong and mysterious that adds new layers of meaning to a person or an object.

This new edition is a 3D printed sculpture carrying a gilded handmade coin. With its symbolic markings representing the effects of Lithium (a mood stabilising psychiatric medication) the coin questions the value we assign to different readings and rhythms of reality. Its holder evokes utopian design movements and science fiction sets that attempt to build our environment in ways that project alternative futures.

Emblem holds belief in the insights reached through experiences that are often silenced by stigma, and celebrates the personal and communal values that grow from them. All the while, it functions as a token or a medal, for those who read or have read reality differently; for those who are open to it: to question and reflect, to seek possibilities for change, and to throw forward individual and collective hope.”

Text by 1646

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Password, 2022, solo with Akinci Gallery, Amsterdam

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Password is Hope, 2021, Plywood windows, computer cooling fans blowing gauze curtains synchronised to sound.

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Glyphs, 2022, Ceramic with craquelle glaze, felt panels and sun

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The Object, 2022, hand painted wooden staircase with blue wall mounted wood stand and gloss white shelf, Password at Akinci

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Password, 2022, still from video 2016

Password, 2022, Still from video

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Password, 2022, lighting score and motorised sculptures synchronised to sound, Sculptures: L: Transaction, R: Medusa Frequency, Akinci Gallery

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Transaction, 2022, wall mounted plaster arms, gilded ceramic coins marked with symbols representing psychiatric medications.

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Transaction, 2022: Lithium - a soft, silvery-white alkali metal used to produce mood stabilisers, heat resistant materials and batteries

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Password, 2022, two channel HD video with 8 channel sound, lighting score and motorised sculptures synchronised to sound

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Mesh Warp, 2022, white stoneware mountain & vessel with craquele glaze, gilded clay coins with symbolic markings

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Mesh Warp, 2022 (detail), Gilded clay coins with markings symbolising the effects of: Lithium (mood stabiliser), Mirtazapine (anti-depressant), Lorazepam (sedative for anxiety or mania), Quietapine (anti-psychotic) and Zopiclon (sleep medication)

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Signal, 2023, Single channel HD video, 4.1 surround sound, flute sculptures with aluminium & mirror, Buitenplaats Doornburgh’s chapel

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Signal, 2023, Stills from video

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Site specific wooden wall drawing of an abstracted floor plan of this 1950’s monastery. Speaker stacks made from broken altar stones, convent beds as benches. Signal explores the building’s belief systems through benedictine monk Dom Van Der Laan’s architecture.

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Signal, 2023, Stills from video

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Some Shapes Without Edges, 2016, Royal Academy, London

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Signal, 2023, Stills from video

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Some Shapes Without Edges, 2016, Royal Academy, London

Two Friends and Two Curtains, 2016, still from video

Two Friends and Two Curtains, 2016, still from video

Apples, 2016, video still

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Some Shapes Without Edges, 2016, Two channel video installation with 4.1 surround sound and synchronised lights, Royal Academy, London

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Alternating Currents, 2021, Group show curated by Mamali Shafahi at Dastan Basement, Tehran

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Low to high:

Mesh Warp, 2019, plaster and steel

The Plastic Ratio, 2019, HD video with sound

Nine Nectarines & Other Porcelain (Lattice), 2019

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Alternating Currents, 2021, Group show curated by Mamali Shafahi at Dastan Basement, Tehran. Painted mural linking research threads between 2010 and 2021. Recessed alcove L: Muscle Beach Miami Condo I & II, 2010, 60x60x2cm, acrylic on board, R: Cycle, 2018, acrylic on bamboo curtain, 100x180x4cm. Between Alcoves: Instrument, 2019, soldered copper pipes, 35x40x8cm.

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Mechanism of a Lock, 2019, 1646, Den Haag. Video projection: Nine Nectarines and Other Porcelain, 2019

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Mechanism of a Lock, 2019, installation at 1646, three rooms of video works, sound, sculptures, scenography, fabric work and lighting.

Nine Nectarines and Other Porcelain, 2019 (still from video)

Palmer explores the variety of hidden neurological profiles that affect people’s sensitivity to the world. This can be in relation to different species and natural perspectives, but also the perspectives of non-physical disabilities such as clinical depression, schizophrenia or bipolar.

Mechanism of a Lock questions existing linear views that assume that because such differences don’t align with a normative mental health profile they should therefore be fought and overcome — in practice these differences tend to recur throughout an individual’s life. The idea that they should be ‘cured’ can result in combative behavioral patterns that damage our bodies and souls, such as feelings of failure or defeat.

One of the videos on view, Nine Nectarines and Other Porcelain, suggests that we turn our energy inwards and work together to create healing spaces, caring instead of curing, attention instead of overcoming. The exhibition builds on the idea that a breakage does not signify weakness or defeat but can instead create something complex, strong and mysterious, adding new layers of meaning to a person or to an object.

What is visible and invisible and can be considered real or unreal. The mechanism of a lock can never be entirely seen, and yet the shape of the key that turns it reveals something of its nature.

Text by 1646 for the solo exhibition Mechanism of a Lock in 2019. More texts, interview & press: 1646 exhibition web page

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Mechanism of a Lock, 2019, L: Nine Nectarines and Other Porcelain (Lattice), 2017-19, white stoneware ceramic. R: Character Study, 2019, copper tube wall drawing. 1646, Den Haag

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Center: Hathor, 2017, ceramic hands based on percussive clappers used in Ancient Egyptian funeral rites. Mechanism of a Lock at 1646

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Cycle, Portal Path, 2023, group exhibition at Nest, Den Haag.

“Cycle, Portal, Path examined how the traces of the Swedish artist Hilma af Klint (1862-1944) continue to impact contemporary art 100 years later. Af Klint lived in a time full of developments. Scientists investigated nature and were concerned with phenomena such as atomic fission and X-rays; discoveries that shaped the world and made the invisible visible. At the same time, new movements such as theosophy emerged, which wanted to reconcile the spiritual world with exact sciences.

Molly Palmer has a special bond with Af Klint, by whom she continues to be inspired at different times in her life. Palmer's practice connects existing forms and stories from mythologies, esoteric practices, faiths and neuroscience with personal biographies and inner experiences. Her cyclical working method is characteristic: she combines and reuses older works of art in her new work. Recognizable are forms of physical circular systems, such as the nervous system, lungs, brain and heart.

In The Plastic Ratio, four figures cross their arms and hands in new patterns. In a meditative manner, the persons without words form intuitive new connections with each other, merging into one whole. These compositions subsequently reappear in the sculptures Third Circuit and Nine Nectarines and Other Porcelain (Lattice). The work Third Circuit refers to the synaptic connections in our brain that ensure that the lungs breathe and the heart pumps. The canvases are reminiscent of coats of arms and question conventional ideas of strength and courage.

The Plastic Ratio alternates with the video work Heart Song. Palmer makes a playful reference to a personal experience with spirit photography, a genre of photography from the late nineteenth century in which people were photographed with spirits or spiritual entities. Like Af Klint, Palmer asks questions about the perception of the world, about the visible and invisible, the inner and outer worlds. The nested worlds and realities within her work explore the complexity and absurdity of being human.”

Text by Nest: https://nestruimte.nl/exhibitions/cycle-portal-path

Cycle, Portal Path, 2023, group show responding to the centenary of artist Hima Af Klimt at Nest, Den Haag. More info at Nest’s site

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Heart Song, 2016 with Nine Nectarines and Other Porcelain (Lattice), 2017-19 and wall drawing, 2023

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L to R: Third Circuit, 2007-2021, video: The Plastic Ratio, 2019, Nine Nectarines and Other Porcelain (Lattice), 2017-19

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In Addition to Everything Real, 2021, group show at Akinci Gallery, Amsterdam. Video, sculptures, print & paintings 2007-2021

In Addition to Everything Real, 2015, still from video

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Third Circuit, 2007-2021, hand stitched embroideries of the synapses that regulate the breath and heart beat. Mounted on wooden plaques based on heraldic banners to represent forms of strength and courage that are not tied to physical ability.

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In Addition to Everything Real is about two lifts in the lobby of a building. Only it's not about lifts, or buildings - and to say it's 'about' any thing is not quite right.

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There are objects and activities that are so ordinary that they're absorbed and held physically. We know them on an unconscious level that hovers below language and description.

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This embodied knowledge comes before the appearance and naming of things as logical components of the 'real’. With a common presence that is felt, not thought, we can move among them in the dark and in our sleep.

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In the small blank moments when thoughts shift out of focus, unknowable non-things start to leak into daily routine. They accumulate in intricate arrangements, like a magic eye puzzle that moves and grows. Sometimes in unremarkable moments between what is fixed and known, the mind becomes blurred in just the right way to glimpse what is hidden behind.

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Exhibition text from Premiums, 2015, Royal Academy, London

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In Addition to Everything Real, 2015, single channel HD video with sound. Top: Hathor, 2017, ceramic hands referencing the creation myth of the Egyptian goddess Hathor. Akinci, 2021

In Addition to Everything Real, 2015, still from video

In Addition to Everything Real, 2015, still from video

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Fountain, 2013-21, coil built jug with painted glaze referencing Czech cubist ceramics. The jug was a film prop in the video work Fountain, 2017. Presented on sculptural wooden plinth with editioned print of a still from the video. Akinci Gallery

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L to R: Predictions, 2010, Procedure, 2010, The Plastic Ratio (Arms), 2019, Instrument, 2019. See In Addition to Everything Real at Akinci

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Some Shapes Without Edges, 2016, Royal Academy, London

Continuum II, 2024, solo booth with Akinci Gallery at Art Brussels

Continuum II, 2024,Sculptures, video, paintings & drawings from 2008-2024 with sun, felt and wood scenography. Akinci Gallery at Art Brussels

Shibboleth, 2021-2024, Acrylic on wood