Festival celebrates Anti-Asylum Struggle Day

Starting on Monday (19/5), the Nise da Silveira Municipal Institute of Health Care will hold a festival with cultural and health promotion activities to commemorate Anti-Asylum Struggle Day, celebrated on May 18. The workshops, classes and discussion groups of the Nós na Luta event will be held until the 26th of this month. The Loucura Suburbana block will be the highlight of the program, with workshops on the 20th and 23rd. The first carnival collective for mental health, the project, which is celebrating two and a half decades of existence, originated in the institute's spaces.

Loucura Suburbana emerged as part of the process of dehospitalization and municipalization of Nise da Silveira. Opened in 1911, at the time under a different name, the institute was one of the main hospices in the city. With the Psychiatric Reform came a new way of treating and welcoming mental health patients. For Ariadne Mendes, founder and coordinator of Loucura Suburbana, the different perspective on culture, as a possible way of integrating and treating patients, was the driving force behind both the changes in the institution and the beginning of the Carnival collective.

– The idea of ​​dealing with freedom, art and culture was what instigated the creation of the bloc. The desire to offer these spaces for socialization and art has always been present.

Celebrating its 25th anniversary, Loucura Suburbana, which received the title of Cultural Center from the Ministry of Culture in 2010, was a pioneer in mental health during Rio's carnival. Today, there are at least four blocks in the city promoting integration and leisure for patients and employees of the city's 38 psychosocial care centers (CAPS) and also with society as a whole. Elisama Arnauld, Loucura Suburbana's flag bearer since 2005 and a patient of Nise da Silveira, believes that the intersection of cultural activities with her treatment was crucial for her health and well-being. Today, she is also a designer and costume designer for the organization.

– My medicine is culture, this block gave me self-esteem.

May 18th is chosen as National Anti-Asylum Day because of the year 1987. On this date, the Congress of Mental Health Service Workers in Bauru (SP) took hundreds of employees, family members and patients to a march for the rights of mental health service users. The meeting was the result of the Psychiatric Reform Movement of 1979, which advocated for better conditions and humanization in the treatment and care of mental health patients. Today, SUS systems such as RAPS (Psychosocial Care Network) coordinate and integrate services that offer comprehensive care to patients.

For the superintendent of mental health at the SMS, Hugo Fagundes, this is a date that needs to not only remember the end of the asylum systems, but also reinforce the importance of not building walls in the relationship with mental health patients.

– We dismantle the asylum when we start to treat others as equals, when we recognize them as individuals with rights. Culture is a path that helps to emancipate individuals and improve their lives.

Next week, Ponto de Cultura Loucura Suburbana will coordinate two of Nós na Luta's programs: a carnival workshop for students from public schools in the region on Tuesday (20/5) and Sarau do Loucura Suburbana on Friday (23/5), both at the collective's headquarters. In total, the festival will feature 30 activities of the most diverse types to celebrate and raise awareness about Anti-Asylum Struggle Day.

 

Festival schedule We in the Fight:

May 19th (Monday)

Functional Class – 9:30 am to 10:30 am
Location: Dona Ivone Lara Forest

Opening session: The Knots of Struggle – 9am to 12pm
Location: CETAPE Auditorium

Torquato Neto Choir Presentation – 13:30pm to 14pm
Location: Memorial of Madness

Body Territory Workshop
Location: Travessia Space

 

August 20th (Tuesday)

Kite Workshop – 10am to 12pm
Location: Memorial of Madness

Storytelling – 14pm to 15pm
Location: Memorial of Madness

CAPSi Heitor Villa Lobos Body and Movement Workshop – 14pm to 16pm
Location: Travessia Space

Loucura Suburbana Carnival Workshop – 14pm to 16pm
Location: Suburban Madness Cultural Center

 

August 21th (Wednesday)

Collaborative breakfast with music in the garden – 9am to 12pm
Location: Horta do Nise

Biodanza outdoors – 10am to 12pm
Location: Dona Ivone Lara Forest

Cine Travessia with popcorn and guarana – 14pm to 17pm
Location: Travessia Space

Dançar'ar Inaugural Class – 15pm to 16pm
Location: Hall of Mirrors

Artistic Animals – 15pm to 16:30pm
Location: Memorial of Madness

 

May 22rd (Thursday)

Free Painting Workshop + Discussion Circle about Madness – 9am to 12pm
Location: Memorial of Madness

Torquato Neto Theater – 13:30 pm to 16:30 pm
Location: Memorial of Madness

Just for a change: open garage with samba, free microphone and snacks – 13:30 pm to 16:30 pm
Location: Balcony of CAPSad Raul Seixas

Stand with the Public Defender's Office – 14pm to 15pm
Location: Dona Ivone Lara Room – Suburban Madness

Dona de Mim Workshop – 14pm to 15:30pm
Location: Travessia Space

Suburban Madness Soiree – 14pm to 16pm
Location: Dona Ivone Lara Room – Suburban Madness

 

23 / 5 Day (Friday)

Walk – 9am to 10am
Meeting point: Nise Gate

Trilhos Karaoke – 10am to 12pm
Location: Memorial of Madness

Discussion circle – 14pm to 16pm
Location: Sports Center Gymnasium

 

March 24th (Saturday)

Nise’s Carioca Tour – 9am to 12pm
Meeting point: Nise Gate

Income Generation Fair – 9am to 16pm
Location: Dona Ivone Lara Forest

Opening of the ENTRE Exhibition – 14pm to 17pm
Location: Travessia Space

 

May 26th (Monday)

RAPS Carioca Football Championship
Location: Encantado Olympic Village

Category:

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17 May 2025

Appointments: Suburban Madness Block Anti-Asylum Struggle Day Festival Nise da Silveira Institute We in the Fight