Ward 81 by Mary Ellen Mark at CPW

The exhibition showcases Mary Ellen Mark's 1976 landmark series on women living in a locked psychiatric ward, featuring previously unseen prints, contact sheets, archival materials, and Moonlight Heaven Black, a short film by Mark’s husband, Martin Bell.

Overview

In 1975, while photographing on the set of the movie One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest, Mary Ellen Mark (American, 1940–2015) met several women who lived on Ward 81 of the film’s location, the Oregon State Hospital in Salem. One year later, Mark returned to the high-security psychiatric facility with writer and licensed therapist Dr. Karen Folger Jacobs (American, b. 1940) to document life on the ward through photographs and recorded interviews. Jacobs and Mark lived in the hospital for thirty-six days, ultimately producing a nuanced and compelling record of the daily realities of the female patients, including their private thoughts, intimate interactions, and intense medical treatments. Jacobs said, “They are the women we might have been or one day become.”

As the U.S. premiere of this project, CPW’s presentation brings together never-before-seen prints, contact sheets, archival materials, and Moonlight Heaven Black, a short film made by Martin Bell, Mark’s husband, to be incorporated into the exhibition. It was organized by curators Gaëlle Morel and Kaitlin Booher for the Image Centre, Toronto, in collaboration with the Mary Ellen Mark Foundation, New York. It is accompanied by the publication Ward 81: Voices by Mary Ellen Mark and Karen Folger Jacobs, edited by Martin Bell, Julia Bezgin, and Meredith Lue (Steidl, 2023).

Founded in 1977 as Center for Photography at Woodstock, CPW is a not-for-profit arts organization with a dual mission: to support artists working in photography and related media, and to engage audiences through creation, discovery, and learning. At the heart of CPW’s mission is programming that is community-based, artist-centered, and collaborative. To foster public conversation around critical issues in photography, CPW offers exhibitions, workshops, artists’ residencies, and access to its Digital Media Lab. In 2022, CPW relocated from Woodstock to Kingston, NY. In January 2025, CPW will open its newly renovated headquarters–including a photography museum, and an educational and community center– in a 40,000-square-foot factory building at 25 Dederick Street.