Ward 81– Mary Ellen Mark

This book was created because Mary Ellen Mark was hired to work on Milos Forman’s “One flew over the cuckoo’s nest“. The set was filmed in Oregon State Mental Hospital, Salem, in 1975. This is how Mary Ellen Mark came to know the ward, she was given a tour of a Dr. Dean Brooks who was the director of the hospital at the time. Ward 81 was a maximum security ward for women, this meant that the women she photographed were either a danger to themselves or others. Once her work was completed, she returned to Oregon State Mental Hospital in 1976, however this time she stayed for 6 weeks in an empty ward next to ward 81. This way she was able to get to know the women in the ward well.

Layout

Ward 81’s layout is one that was used a lot during exhibitions in the 1970s. This was with a white border as the images displayed were often mounted. However the images throughout are different sizes and seem to have no particular pattern, this could have been done intentionally to help represent the instability of the women in the ward. As you flick through the book, the images become progressively more graphic and traumatic.

Once the final images have been shown, the editing notes can be seen, this helps the viewer understand Mary Ellen Mark’s thought process when bringing all the images together. Her main inspiration was W. E. Smith, he is seen by many as one of the most important photographers in the development of the editorial photo essay. The work that inspired Mark was the “Country Doctor”, one of W. E. Smith’s famous pieces of work.