Museums of mental health: can art help heal your mind?

I’m sitting in front of a piece of cloth awash with twilight hues – a painting without a frame, draped and pinned to a white wall at the Museum of Modern Art (MoMA) . Through headphones, the gentle voice of psychotherapist Sabrina Sarro guides me through a breathing exercise. It’s part of the Artful Practices for Well-Being audio tour; MoMA is one of several New York museums using art as a vehicle for healing, mindfulness and wellbeing.

“Lean into a colour that’s calling out to you and slowly melt into that colour,” Sarro says as I gaze upon Sam Gilliam’s 10/27/69 (1969). I settle on a sunset salmon, radiating from beneath a crease.

“Think about what this colour symbolises for you right now and try to give it a body or a face – visualise the energy behind that colour and how it might be interacting with you inside your body.”

It’s difficult. I’m jetlagged, disoriented and tightly wound after a long journey to New York. Normally, I’d have passed the artwork with a cursory glance as I marched towards the museum’s more famous pieces, but here I am looking at a piece of cloth and trying to process the emotions and thoughts it stirs. My instinct is to move on, but I sit and keep breathing.

Art and mental health

Sarro is among several mental health experts enlisted by MoMA to shape its wellbeing-focused programming, including the Slow Looking itinerary, which is designed to help visitors “observe, process and create personal meaning”.

“People aren’t just looking to learn about contemporary art; they want to make connections and have a personal response; they want to use art as a tool,” says Sara Bodinson, MoMA’s director of interpretation, research and digital learning. “Art is something you can use for yourself and your wellbeing.”

Discussions around mental wellbeing and art have long existed, often centred on artists such as Vincent van Gogh and Frida Kahlo, but only recently have they shifted towards those viewing the art. Earlier this year, doctors in Neuchatel, Switzerland began prescribing museum and gallery visits to patients with mental health conditions and chronic illnesses.

“I’m convinced that when we take care of people’s emotions, we allow them somehow to perhaps find a path to healing,” Patricia Lehmann, one of the doctors, told Reuters.

Living feelings

At the Living Museum in Queens, artists are patients at the adjoining Creedmoor Psychiatric Center, invited to explore their lives through art. Their works are vulnerable testaments to healing in progress. Meanwhile, last year’s Museum of Feelings popup tracked social media and other real-time indicators of how New Yorkers were feeling; the building’s façade shifted like a mood ring: forest green for joy, purple for worry – a beacon of solidarity in a sometimes lonely city.

Rachael Schwabe, an assistant educator at MoMA, highlights the “pandemic of loneliness” identified by the US Surgeon General in 2023.

“That’s why people are looking for places of solace or new ways to process life,” she says. Schwabe helped expand the Artful Practices audio guide into a full digital course , now one of MoMA’s most popular online services.

Back at Gilliam’s 10/27/69, my eyes rove over the entire work. “Try to contextualise the colour that you’ve chosen with the entire landscape of the piece,” Sarro says.

I linger on its violets, recalling bruises from hauling suitcases through metro stations and the exhaustion of travel. I return to the soft pinks, thinking of my husband’s smile and his laughter when we finally reached our hotel, then the pale yellow of shared happiness. Slowly, the painting transcends the inanimate, becoming a full body of hidden folds, dusky limitations, warm joys.

I leave feeling calmer than I have in days, rooted in something greater than myself and, finally, able to see the bigger picture.

Further inwards

More museums that offer space to reflect on the mind

1. Amsterdam

Painting was the sole remedy for Vincent van Gogh’s highly publicised struggle with his mental health. Amsterdam’s Van Gogh Museum’s Open Up with Vincent programme promotes inclusion and accessibility, encouraging dialogue and emotional connection through mindful art viewings, yoga in the museum and meditation videos to practise at home.

2. Kent, UK

The Bethlem Gallery in Kent , UK exhibits about 1,000 works by current or former patients of the Bethlem Royal Hospital, which specialises in psychiatric care. The gallery is part of the Bethlem Museum of the Mind, which was opened by artist Grayson Perry in 2015 and focuses on the hospital’s near-800-year history and legacy of care.

3. Singapore

There are multiple wellness-based initiatives at the National Gallery Singapore , including a Slow Art self-guided tour for a mindful experience; and a BTS-soundtracked Namjooning Virtual Tour, named after the group’s rapper Kim Namjoon, who’s known for his introspection and self-care habits.