SANATORIUM, by Mexican artist Pedro Reyes, is a performative installation in the form of a temporary clinic that combines art and psychology. Created in 2011 for the Guggenheim Museum in New York, it has since been presented in different contexts and institutions, like the Whitechapel Gallery in London (2013) and dOCUMENTA (13) in Kassel (2012).

For this work, the artist developed a series of therapies incorporating techniques from theatre, Gestalt psychology, flow state, group activities and trust-building games, corporate coaching, psychodrama, hypnosis, and popular culture. Conducted by non-professional, ordinary people, the placebo treatments that make up this project are spaces for encounter and dialogue, presenting life-stories and narratives which aim to cure the maladies and diseases associated with contemporary life.

Despite its playful and educational dimension, Reyes presents some of the most pertinent issues of our time: how daily life in great urban centres affects our health and quality of life, and other issues concerning our mental health and emotional, social and psychological well-being.

On the tenth anniversary of SANATORIUM's original exhibition, and in the year when the world is fighting the COVID-19 pandemic, maat promotes the artist’s first presentation in Portugal by bringing a new version of this project to its space at Central Tejo. 

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