Defectives, Epileptics: United States. Massachusetts. Palmer. State Hospital for Epileptics: 1905. Power houses. 1905

Curator: The Woodhead Studio captured this photograph, titled "Defectives, Epileptics: United States. Massachusetts. Palmer. State Hospital for Epileptics: 1905. Power houses.” Editor: It looks... clinical. Bleak, even. Those massive pipes and machinery seem to loom over everything. Curator: Indeed. It is a look at the power infrastructure of an institution dedicated to a specific group of people, using equipment of the period. Editor: The materials—steel, iron, the very concrete of the floor—speak to the industrial age's response to managing bodies deemed 'defective'. It makes me wonder about the labor involved, the human cost behind these 'power houses'. Curator: Absolutely. And I think it reveals our human obsession with control, whether over nature or the vulnerable. Editor: It also prompts us to question: who is being served by all of this? Is it the patients or a system of control? Curator: Precisely. A photograph of a power plant offers so much more than meets the eye! Editor: It really does. It's a chilling reminder of the past, and a prompting to reflect on present social structures.