Making Love is Forbidden in the Psychiatric Hospital

Anda Lāce’s Making Love is Forbidden in the Psychiatric Hospital is an installation of paintings drawing attention to the lives of people living in closed institutions and to their need for physical intimacy and close relationships. The desire for touch, closeness, sexuality and love is a fundamental human need that does not disappear when someone enters institutional care. Its expression, however, becomes complicated by questions of care, safety, privacy and consent. These are experiences that can easily disappear from view when a person is seen primarily through the circumstances of their mental health and the institution in which they live.