From taboo to embarrassment, from prudishness to awkwardness, from blushing to guilty pleasures. This book, and the corresponding exhibition at The Museum Dr. Guislain in Ghent, focuses on the feeling that is omnipresent but difficult to comprehend. 'Shame,' you may feel it when you've accidently said something inappropriate in public, or you may feel it as a result of your small or larger physical imperfections, as a result of poverty, or even psychological problems. Shame surprises us when we least expect it, but there are many different reasons to feel ashamed. Character, but also time, place and culture play a role. With objects from other cultures, historical psychiatry documents, testimonies, essays and illustrations, the exhibition and the book approach the feeling from many different angles. Contemporary artists categorise the feeling in paintings, sculptures, photography and video. The Museum Dr. Guislain in Ghent aims to focus attention on important psychiatric problems and place them in their corresponding social and cultural context. In order to do so, it always starts a dialogue between psychiatry and art.
With texts by Bernard Dewulf, Paul Faber and Evert Peters, amongst others.