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Psychoanalysis: The unconscious in everyday life

This exhibition at the Science Museum (London) marked the centenary of the British Psychoanalytical Society. Its central concern was the representability of psychoanalysis, which is discursive and non-visual, within the context of a museum devoted to the understanding of the physical world. Albano referenced the cabinet of curiosities as a metaphor for both the museum and the mind, and used it as a curatorial concept to investigate the unconscious in everyday life through the themes of play, object relations, and the uncanny. She focused on the psychoanalytical significance of the ‘object’, addressing psychoanalysis and the unconscious through objects and artefacts. In researching the exhibition Albano selected psychoanalytical material and artworks, focusing on their associative and affective impact.

The exhibition wove thematic and visual links and exploited the sensory affect of objects to invite free association. Use of text was minimised and replaced with commissioned audio recordings of psychoanalysts. These were positioned over the display cabinets to convey key psychoanalytical ideas and conjure a psychoanalytical scenario through the disembodied voices of the analysts.

Material on display for the first time included drawings from the Melanie Klein and Winnicott archives, toys used by child analyst Betty Joseph, and toys from the collection of child-psychiatrist Margaret Lowenfeld. Artworks by leading artists including Joseph Kosuth, Tim Noble and Sue Webster, Grayson Perry, Mona Hatoum and Carlo Zanni, were presented alongside three commissioned works. These comprised two on the uncanny and one on early bonding (mother/infant) and its affective impact in later life, and referenced research linking psychoanalysis and brain studies.

Psychoanalysis had an estimated 200,000 visitors. The exhibition was commissioned and supported by the Science Museum and the Institute of Psychoanalysis.