The project “Nós os Loucos Aqui Vos Esperamos” [We the Mad Await For You], or “Nós os Loucos” [We the Mad] for short, began around three years ago through a partnership between Manicómio and Viarco, the famous pencil company in São João da Madeira. The initial aim was (and still is) to create experimental drawing studios in psychiatric units to bring artistic freedom to the residents of these units.

Pedro Pico, one of the participants in the project – “a drawing machine”, as some say –, describes the sensation of drawing and painting as “a feeling of mental ecstasy”. “It’s as if I was running away from all the bad things in the world, and felt nothing but pleasure.”

The workshops take place in various psychiatric units across the country – Sobral Cid (Coimbra), Casa de Saúde Bom Jesus (Braga), CHPL (Lisbon) and Telhal ISJD (Sintra) – and seek to focus on the person, their experience and their value, rather than their illness. The impact found, according to Catarina Gomes (responsible for the project’s social area), is that the participants are “happier, more autonomous, with more space for their artistic freedom”.