Melancholia (Floorplan)

Melancholia is based on the floorplan of the Fergus Falls Regional Treatment Center, which is a former state mental hospital located in Fergus Falls, Minnesota. It was built in the Kirkbride plan style, a model established by physician Thomas Kirkbride, and first opened to patients in 1890. Kirkbride asylums were designed to provide “moral treatment” to patients. The hospital closed in 2005 after gradually moving patients to smaller, community-based facilities for two decades. Various proposals have been made to repurpose the site and buildings since its closure, but to no resolution. The audio is from archival newspaper reports on individuals who committed suicide while in residency at the institution. The music is composed based on the interesting points of the grid of the floorplan.