Progress is made on setting up a “Museum of the Mind” in Sydney

Progress has been made on setting up a “Museum of the Mind” in Sydney based  on the “Museum of the Mind” in Rome. The Italian Cultural Institute in Sydney hosted a focused and effective meeting on the project, which was attended by the Director of the Santa Maria della Pietà Museum in Rome, psychiatrist Pompeo Martelli, and anthropologist Marco Salustri, head of the Educational Service of the Museum. The Rome museum opened after the ‘Basaglia’ law entered into effect and led to the closing of the psychiatric hospital Santa Maria della Pietà, where it now stands. The goal was to set up a museum where people could look at mental  distress in a different way while giving visibility to mental suffering.  Sydney’s “Museum of the Mind” should be set up in the place where the Callan Park Hospital for the Insane (Rozelle) once stood. It is promoted by the MHS Learning Network and the Royal Australian and New Zealand College of Psychiatrists (RANZCP). Vivienne Miller MS, Director of the MHS Conference and co-convenor of Sydney Mind Museum Arts and Neuroscience Precinct Steering Group, attended the meeting along with the Italian representatives.