Just in time for the World Health Organization’s Mental Health Awareness Day, I present to you: the Muro Azul. The Blue Wall of Lisbon. Surrounding the old Julios de Matos Hospital (now the Centro Hospitaler Psiquiatrico de Lisboa) the wall stretches around what was one of Lisbon’s first mental health institutes. For the past number of years the hospital has partnered with the GUA (Urban Art Gallery) (LINK) to bring awareness to mental health issues amongst the LIsboa. The murals painted on this wall call attention to the global and local issue of mental health, and how it can affect anyone regardless of social status, ethnicity or culture.
Our magnificent guide, Nuno of Get-Lost-Get_local, took us to the hits of street art in Lisbon like works done by Vhils and Shepard Fairy. But what I loved even more were the collections of murals painted outside the city limits. They felt authentic and created for a purpose in a way that was different from the splashy pieces downtown. Top on my list is the one kilometer wall surrounding an old mental health facility near the Lisboa Airport.
Each mural is spectacularly different, though artists were given two parameters: that they must retain some amount of the blue wall, and the image must contain a face of some sort. Walking up and down the wall delivered a gut punch as we took in each individual vision. In total there are approximately 77 paintings, and the wall is considered one of the longest urban art murals of Europe. The sections have been painted by local artists, and international ones. They may change over time, and there is an involved process and application to be allowed to paint on the wall.
One of my favorite pieces combines mental health awareness with the ever-present Portuguese tile, and play on words relating to the national treasure mindset of suadade. Saudade, loosely translating to "joyful sadness," is an emotional state of melancholic or profoundly nostalgic longing for something or someone that one loves despite it not necessarily being real or they reciprocate it back. It often carries a repressed knowledge that the object of longing may never be had again or attained in one's lifetime. It is the recollection of feelings, experiences, places, or events (often illusive) that once are thought to have somehow brought excitement, pleasure, or well-being, but now trigger the painful sense of separation from the perceived joyous sensations.
It is important to remember that art can be a powerful voice for anyone who struggles with mental health: whether they are making or viewing it. Art has power.
***Nuno gives tours of Lisbon, and all of the surrounding towns as far out as Obidos, Nazare, and Alocobaca. While he is knowledgeable and insightful about each of these places (and full of locals-only locales!) you can tell street art is one of his passions. He knows the names of the artists, keep a log of what has been where, whats been painted over, and where amazing new pieces are. He put up with me asking approximately eight million questions about art, the city, Portugal itself, and who knows what else. I cannot recommend him enough!
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