Mental pollution of a place the case study of Raadi

Abstract

The article summarises the master’s thesis defended in the Estonian Academy of Arts in 2006 entitled ‘Mental pollution of a place – the case study of Raadi’. A major part of the article is devoted to defining mental pollution, which is done by analysing the place as a system. While studying mental pollution we should first ask ourselves why some places feature in the stories and recollections as dirty and off-putting, so that because of the burden of bad experience there is no room left for people. Nothing new happens there, new events happen somewhere else. In real life these places are unkempt, deserted and dangerous.

The concept of mental pollution tends to be vague and confusing. People grasp its meaning and know what emotions are evoked and they can even diagnose mental pollution, but it is quite difficult to describe it. Hence, mental pollution is not physically measurable. Its mental substance is made up from experience, participation in the placemaking process, collective meanings and opinions, and it can be described as one constituent of the interrelationship between place and society.

Mental pollution, its scope and essence are usually recognised as is clear from heated public discussions. Even if it is difficult to estimate its influence and extent, because meanings do not necessarily overlap, its existence should be acknowledged and publicly revealed. The meanings, causes and backgrounds can then be ‘read’ and interpreted. And it may happen that some kind of understanding will be reached (the confrontation caused by the Monument to the War of Independence should give us some food for thought).

As place is a social construction, mental pollution is also a social construction, and its roots lie in an evil event that happened in a particular place. Thus mental pollution is something that can be socially deconstructed. But as we know the replacement of symbols that have undergone mental pollution is only seemingly easy. Symbols arise in people’s minds and the removal of physical bodies does not help, you will have to negotiate with the place of their origin – the mind.