In 2003, Anna Schuleit installed 25,000 potted flowers in the Massachusetts Mental Health Center to commemorate its life, history, and people over the 91 years of its operation. Ambient sounds of the Center were recorded while it was still in operation and played over the PA. The muffled sounds of the hospital mixed with the silent flowing flowers created a beautiful, haunting monument. After the exhibit, the flowers didn’t go to waste! Schuleit and her volunteers delivered them by truck to people in more than 40 facilities throughout Massachusetts and Rhode Island, including psychiatric facilities, clubhouses, and homeless shelters.

“Bloom is a reflection on the healing symbolism of flowers being given to the sick when they are bedridden and confined to hospital settings, with the astounding, persistent exception of long-term psychiatric patients, who receive few, if any flowers during their hospital stays. Walking through the hallways of an institution, still to this day, one cannot find any flowers in the rooms. Bloom is created in the spirit of offering and transition.” – Anna Schuleit