W 1975 r. fotografka Mary Ellen Mark, na zlecenie jednego z magazynów, dokumentowała wydarzenia z planu filmu "Lot nad Kukułczym Gniazdem", który kręcony był w stanowym szpitalu psychiatrycznym w Oregonie. Właśnie tam poznała ona pacjentki z Oddziału 81.
Przedmowę do albumu napisał, reżyser "Lotu nad Kukułczym Gniazdem", Milos Forman.
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Foreword
I once heard a story about two women in a small town in Czechoslovakia. At the end of World War II, as victory drew near and the Germans were forced to flee before the Russian advance, each woman took to the streets in euphoria and attacked the retreating German tanks, yelling abuse and throwing stones. The Germans fired on the first woman and killed her instantly. The second woman, for reasons unknown, was ignored by the fleeing army. Screaming hysterically, she was led away by her compatriots and taken to a mental institution where the doctors finally managed to pacify her.
The woman who had been killed became a hero. Her photograph made the front pages of the newspapers. Her name appeared later in schoolbooks. A street was named after her. The woman who had been ignored spent five years in a mental institution. As far as I know no one ever bothered to photograph her.
Milos Forman
Prologue
In 1975, photographer Mary Ellen Mark was assigned by a magazine to do a story on the making of ONE FLEW OVER THE CUCKOO'S NEST, shot on location at the Oregon State Hospital, a mental institution. While there, she met, briefly, the women of Ward 81.
Ward 81 is the women's security ward of the hospital, the only locked ward for women in the state. The women on this ward are considered dangerous to themselves or to others.
In February of 1976, Mary Ellen and Karen Folger Jacobs, a writer and social scientist, were given permission to live on the ward in order to photograph and interview the women. They spent thirty-six days on Ward 81.
