Aesthetic experience and institutional daily life: new maps for subjectively dealing with spaces for mental healthcare

The use of artistic activities as agents for mental healthcare practices is discussed in relation to the organization of daily life and institutional spaces, in substitutive services, such as at psychosocial care centers. The importance of the porosity of this daily routine to embrace the users' creations and articulate these with the other activities that structure daily life and occupy institutional spaces is discussed. It is advocated that institutional spaces need to reflect the intrinsic characteristics and needs of people who are treated there and for the institution to function as a backdrop for semantic linkage of the subjects' experiences and their possible dialogue with culture.