Asia North Exhibition and Festival - Forest Haven: Trisha Gupta Solo Exhibition

What happens when the treatment is worse than the disease? Trisha Gupta’s solo exhibition at Night Owl Gallery is a collection of research, documentation, and classification of 3 years of study centering around Forest Haven Asylum in Laurel, Maryland. Trisha Gupta is a contemporary artist, community activist, and educator. Her work is heavily influenced by her Indian-American heritage and explores themes of social inequality, colonialism, mental health, and immigration. It has come to light that in the 1960s-70s, the staff there criminally abused, tortured and murdered over 387 patients that were then unceremoniously buried in unmarked graves on the campus. While the asylums have closed, Gupta asserts that the attitudes that promoted mistreatment persist. Not only does Gupta respectfully engage the audience in learning about the travesties that took place in the institution, Gupta highlights the relationship between provider and patient and the inherent vulnerability of the patient. Gupta simultaneously creates a metaphor for her exploration of her own fraught mental health journey. Trisha is an MFA candidate at MICA in the Mount Royal School and has an background in healthcare.