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Blind Magazine : photography at first sight

The Women on Ward 81

In 1976 photographer Mary Ellen Mark and writer Karen Folger Jacobs set out to document the women who were living in the locked ward at the Oregon State Hospital in Salem. Over the course of 5 weeks while living and working in the hospital, the two women interviewed and photographed the women on Ward 81.

"When I close my eyes and I think of images, I think of long hallways with fluorescent lights over them. With people peeking out of open doorways, waiting to see if it’s time to go out of their rooms." Photographer Mary Ellen Mark recounts these thou...

Picture of Robert E. Gerhardt

Robert E. Gerhardt

Robert Gerhardt is a New York based photographer and freelance writer. His photographs and writings have been published nationally and internationally including in The Hong Kong Free Press, The Guardian, The New York Times, and The Diplomat.

Read More : Inside Italian Psychiatric Prisons

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