While the St. Peter Regional Treatment Center stands as one of the largest institutions in the St. Peter community, it’s not often that the patients inside have a chance to share their voice.
During the Arts Center of Saint Peter’s fourth biennial exhibition, “Changing Minds,” artists and musicians behind the mental health campus’ gates are given a rare platform to showcase their talents for the wider public.
The exhibition, which opened Friday and runs through May 25, features a diverse array of works created by patients in the Forensic Services program over the past two years. Across the two floors of the gallery, viewers will encounter pieces ranging from colorful portraits of celebrities to knitted stocking caps, painted sleeveless shirts and much more.
Included among the works hanging on the walls are painted masks molded with watered down cafeteria trays — a testament to how creativity continues to thrive even with the limited resources available at the St. Peter Regional Treatment Center.
Some of the artwork was produced independently by artists on their own time at the St. Peter Regional Treatment Center, while others were created in year-round workshops hosted by the Arts Center of Saint Peter. Available to patients who require less restrictive care, the workshops serve a dual function of helping patients heal through creative expression and reintegrate into public life.
“I see a sense of self accomplishment and a lot of personal growth and healing that comes as their personal identity is noticed for their art, rather than their everyday treatment focus,” said Kat Graves, a recreation therapist at the Minnesota Regional Treatment Center. “I see that sense of self come out and that sense of self-worth increase. It’s renewing some of their passions.”
Many of the participating patients have had a passion for art from an early age, but in struggling with mental illness, Graves said people can forget the things that used to bring them joy. Through recreational therapies like practicing art, the St. Peter Regional Treatment Center aims to help patients reignite those passions.
“To see them tap into that expression, you see them connect to more people, you see them have more effort in themselves which is a form of recovery and healing,” said Graves.
Under the tutelage of instructors like Mankato artist Amber Rahe, patients gathered at the Arts Center to practice techniques like chalk drawing and painting both traditional and abstract portraits. Rahe also serves as an instructor at Minnesota State University Mankato, but said that the patients were her most enthusiastic students.
“The patients are more joyful with it and they’re so much more eager,” said Rahe. “It is exciting for them because many of them haven’t had that experience of someone guiding them or it’s a self-taught expression through their lives.”
New to this year’s Changing Minds exhibit is a listening station in the lower gallery to accommodate the explosion of new music and spoken word produced by patients in recent years. In total, 235 pieces including rap, metal and instrumental music have been recorded for the gallery with the help of the Minnesota Regional Treatment Center’s music therapist Ava Olin.
Music therapy is a relatively new addition to the St. Peter Regional Treatment Center. The facility did not have a music therapist until just before the COVID-19 pandemic. As a music therapist, Olin focuses on using music to foster better therapuetic relationships with patients and help them achieve mental health goals like practicing relaxation and proper emotional release and partaking in healthy group dynamics.
Olin also helps her clients grow as musicians. She has a large music room where patients have access to instuments like guitars, drums, a piano and a soundboard to make music.
Often, patients will write songs in their own time and reach out to Olin to help them record and edit them. The music therapist carries around her own mobile recording studio, consisting of a high quality portable microphone, an audio processor and a laptop equipped with recording software which she can take to each of the buildings on the St. Peter Regional Treatment Center Campus. With Olin’s help, patients have the opportunity to showcase their music at both the Arts Center gallery and on digital music platforms like SoundCloud.
I think it’s a huge confidence boost,” Olin said on the impact publishing music has had on her patients. “Even today I ran into a patient and I was showing him his SoundCloud profile and he saw that a couple of his songs had 2,000 listens. He was like ‘I wasn’t expecting people to listen. I wasn’t expecting this response.’”
Dr. Soniya Hirachan, Executive Director of the Minnesota Regional Treatment Center, said recreational therapies are a valuable tool to reach patients who struggle with or are reluctant to express themselves in traditional therapeutic settings.
“Not everyone can express and vocalize through therapy. They’re not going to just pour their heart out in a group or even in individual therapy,” said Hirachan. “But music, just like artwork here, is non-judgemental. It’s creativity, so it makes it easier to relate.”
Speaking at the “Changing Minds IV” opening reception on Friday, Hirachan emphasized that the gallery was about much more than helping patients heal, it’s also about building a bridge between the state hospital and the wider St. Peter community to reduce the stigma surrounding mental health.
Through the exhibition, patients can share their work just the same as any other artist in the community, and “feel like contributing, productive members of society,” said Hirachan. And just like other artists, the patients’ work can be purchased at the gallery, with 70% of the proceeds going directly to the artist.
“A big part of this is for patients to present themselves as artists and community members to see them as such, and for everybody to walk away having their expectations changed,” said Ann Rosenquist Fee, Executive Director of the Arts Center of Saint Peter.
The Changing Minds exhibit’s mission of building connections in the community and combating the stigma associated with mental illness dates back to its origins in 2016 when a patient at the treatment center contacted the Arts Center of Saint Peter, hoping to put their artwork up in a gallery. What started as an individual request soon morphed into a partnership between the two facilities to create an opportunity for all patients to showcase their art.
“If we weren’t doing this, I don’t think we would be fulfilling our mission of stimulating and supporting creative work in our community because the population at the state hospital is part of our community,” said Fee.
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