The North Hampton State Hospital sits as historical memory to virtually one
hundred and fifty years of the old style asylum, often known as the hospital
for the insane. A colleague and I photographed the visual remnants of the lives
there for over one year. We would get locked into the main building for the
day. The building is deteriorating from neglect. Ceilings caving in, broken
pipes, and wild animals, added to the vandalism all create an unsettling
atmosphere. This place which was meant to heal residents mental state is so
haunting and foreboding the 
identities of residents seem to exist in small bits
of evidence they left behind. The reality of this older style of healing people
by sending them off to be isolated in asylum life is hard to imagine. The
hospital was a self-contained environment, which even grew its own food and
made its own furniture. In the cold New England winters the first director
wrote of the difficulty of helping anyone in such an extremely harsh
environment.
The winter months seemed so cold in there while we made photographs we would
often sit outside in the caged porches to warm up in the sun. We were both
going through very difficult challenges in our personal lives. In an odd way
the experience of wandering through this structure seemed to be helpful.
John Willis
2001