This text, edited by Nicola Valentino for the publishing house "Sensibili alle Foglie," recounts the experience of the "Gattablu," one of the first psychiatric and psychosocial rehabilitation centers, an expression of the vast Basaglia movement that emerged in Campania in the early 1990s, during the closure of the former Leonardo Bianchi Psychiatric Hospital, the so-called "Frullone." This courageous operation, undertaken with the enthusiasm and optimism of that historical moment, was undertaken by Professor Sergio Piro and a group of workers who occupied small, abandoned buildings that later became the home of the community that provides care, the subject of which this book tells us.
Here, as in other day centers with the same idealistic inspiration, the processes of liberation from loneliness begin, relationships and dialogue are developed, and the tools and skills that allow for the achievement of a state of subjective, social, and functional well-being are enhanced. Gattablu represents a crucial juncture in the process of deinstitutionalization that has revolutionized psychiatry and has contributed and continues to improve the lives of patients and their families.
Patients are involved at various levels in managing the center's activities; even the collective preparation of food stimulates activity and the building of emotional relationships. Art plays a central role as a form of "self-care" when life becomes difficult. It is a vital resource, a world in which one can take refuge and regenerate, an experience that transcends the center to encounter the world outside: "from secluded art to public art."
The works become installations in public gardens, are part of exhibitions and meet collectors or enthusiasts, and are featured on the floats of neighborhood carnivals in Naples. Many works have found buyers, and the proceeds from each sale benefit the entire community, with a view to building a different future for everyone.
The center's inclusive vocation, within the broad grassroots movement that emerged in those years, led Gattablu to forge relationships with a vast network of individuals and situations. At Gattablu (the name likely derives from a cat that inhabited the facilities, and the blue likely a reference to the Basaglia blue horse), over the more than thirty years of its existence, initiatives, meetings with other associations, projects with schools, and social opportunities have been organized.
The book seeks to explore the human and social value of this network of social ties essential to the treatment of mental illness, a network that unites, as Sergio Piro observed, individual and social suffering.
Returning to art as a way to escape the day center and open up to the world, the vast artistic production, including paintings, drawings, sculptures, short stories, poems, and thoughts, is very interesting.
The renovation of the buildings was enhanced with mosaics and installations that, along with what remains of the structure, constitute a heritage that needs to be preserved, especially since the local health authority (ASL) closed the center in January 2026 and decided to demolish the facilities. In this phase of regression in mental health treatment methods and healthcare cuts, the encounter with the "arte ir-ritata" archive of the Coop Sensibili alle foglie takes on particular value for the dissemination and protection of this heritage at risk of dispersion or misappropriation. While we await a new perspective on the existence of this precious experience of care and solidarity.
Il Gattablu
A narrative of the artistic and social activities of the Scampia Mental Health Day Center in Naples edited by Nicola Valentino
Publishers: Sensibili alle foglie (p. 109)
Review by Nadia Nardi
https://umanitanova.org/il-gattablu-di-scampia-esperienze-di-de-istituzionalizzazione-della-psichiatria/
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Source: A-infos-en@ainfos.ca
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