We are the Museum of the Mind!

We are the Museum of the Mind. We are fascinated by the artwork between your ears. Because nothing is as diverse, fascinating and at the same time as vulnerable as the human mind. Anyone who has had a bad night's sleep can tell you how thin the line is between feeling normal and feeling different.
Our history started more than 700 years ago in the Dolhuys of Haarlem. For years the Dolhuys was home to people suffering from leprosy and the plague. Later the building was host to ‘the insane’ who needed to be kept out of the city. Of course, back then, physical and mental help looked nothing like it does now. The dark isolation cell and the tranquilizing chair are shocking by today’s standards.
Our commitment now is still to mental well-being, but as a museum we do it in a different way. In 2005 we opened the doors to the public. We reopened after a major renovation to the historic building and a big change in presentation in the fall of 2020. Almost the entire public space has been refurbished. Now, the walls that once excluded people from society voice strong messages of inclusion.
We are proud that we have been working with many volunteers since our opening in 2005. Whether or not with a mental illness. You will find them everywhere. Almost 100 volunteers are currently working there: they are indispensable strengths of our museum.
In the permanent exhibition we lead our visitors through the building by posing six big life questions related to the mind: What is your mind? Who are you? Who do you cherish? Who do you see? Who takes care of your mind? Can speak your mind?
With a multimedia guide you can get into the deeper layers of the exhibition. Spoken from the perspective of the monumental building we tell the story of the past seven centuries while showing you art, historical and scientific artifacts and asking you to engage with the posed questions.
What's normal and what's weird? Should we as humans change, or should we change our ideas of weird and normal? Belonging and participating, regardless of how you feel, look, or behave, is essential to our mental health. So that message runs through our program. Through art and culture we show the inner world to the outside world, so that we feel connected to each other.
We surprise you, amaze you and want you to think about the standards, values and expectations that you impose on yourself, which are imposed on you and which you impose on others.
We believe that an open mind is a healthy mind that offers space for everything that lives in ourselves and in others. How we think, how we behave, how we believe and how we love.
We are committed to inclusiveness and a world without exclusion and stigmatization.
We make mental health a topic of discussion with our art and cultural programs, even for people who might think they are normal.
www.museumvandegeest.nl