Photographer Bill Diodato‘s first monograph, “C/O Ward 81,” is a hauntingly beautiful photographic tribute to the demise of The Oregon State Mental Asylum’s Ward 81. Opened in the late 1800s, Ward 81 was established to provide women with psychiatric needs help and isolation. The Salem-based asylum was also the famous setting for the 1976 movie, “One Flew Over the Cuckoos Nest.”

As Diodato writes in the book’s introduction, “Ward 81 is gone, and metaphorically so are the stereotypes associated with women who are afflicted with mental illness. My intention in publishing these images is to present the physical crumbling and decaying cells, which represent the end of old, corrupt, poorly-run asylums and bring about a sense of closure for the women of Ward 81.”

During 2005, when the entire site was being redeveloped, the Oregon State Legislature authorized Diodato to photograph – and thus document – the cremated remains of some 3500 deceased patients of the “Asylum” which, in one final act of inhumanity, had been cremated buried and exhumed. During this very moving project, Warden Marvin Fickle also granted Diodato access to the infamous closed-off Ward 81. Knowing that he’d be the last person to document the ward, Diodato felt a sense of responsibility to remember the women who inhabited this extraordinary place.

Famed photographer Mary Ellen Mark, who herself spent more than six weeks living with and photographing a woman’s ward at the same hospital in 1976, penned the book’s forward. In it, she writes:

“It’s painful for me to look at these pictures. They evoke feelings of life and death. I can hear the sounds of women running through hallways and someone shouting, ‘Meds, meds, come and get your meds.’ I can hear the crying of a woman being locked down in restraints. I can hear the music of the jukebox at the once-a-week dance with the women of Ward 81. Bill’s book brings me back to the haunted cell in which I slept in a deserted ward right next to Ward 81. I swear I heard people walking above me all night. Bill’s images confirm the feeling that I always had—that Ward 81 was and still is inhabited by many ghosts.”

There is immense sadness in Diodato’s series to be sure – undeniably, this crumbling space witnessed unthinkable pain and desperation. But there are also surprising elements that suggest the possibility of joy. Faded specimens of patients’ artwork and scabbing, once brightly colored paint on the walls can, at times, evoke an unanticipated and bittersweet sense of lost home.

In Diodato’s words: “…. Entering Ward 81, I found each room vibrated with pastel colors, some walls even adorned with curiously upbeat art from the patients. All this beauty was contrasted with a dense chalky air, earthy odor and constant crackling of debris beneath my feet….In the end, I can’t say where exactly the many sleepless nights I spent pondering what happened to the women of Ward 81 have taken me. I simply do not know. If, by chance, it helps even just one woman and her family, I rest my head with a renewed sense of hope.”

“Care Of Ward 81″ is the first of two limited-edition Diodato books focusing on “the demise of institutional services.” The second is slated for a 2011 release.

“Care of Ward 81″ is available in a first edition of 1,000 copies (200 are still available for $50); in a signed, numbered and slipcased edition of 100 with both the book and the slipcase bound in Japanese Saifu cloth ($250), and as a deluxe edition of 50, numbered and signed by Bill Diodato and Mary Ellen Mark, slipcase bound in Japanese Saifu Cloth, which comes with a print. The deluxe edition print of 50 included with the Deluxe Edition is a pigment print on the archival Hahnemuhle Fine Art Baryta paper. This image is printed with the finest archival inks available on the market today. Each print is signed and numbered by the artist. ($500) To purchase, click here

To learn more about Bill Diodato, visit his blog or billdiodato.com.
Diodato is represented by Marge Casey + Associates: 212-929-3757; info@margecasey.com

Care of Ward 81
Photographs and text by Bill Diodato.
Foreword by Mary Ellen Mark.
Golden Section Publishing, 2010.
64 pp., 46 color and black & white illustrations., 10×6½”.

*All images courtesy of Bill Diodato.