I have once been hospitalized for depression. One of the first things I noted, even in my detached state of mind, were the prints on the wall. Tired-looking posters of an unidentifiable lake in an undefinable country. Cheaply framed in brown mounts, sticking against the filthy plexiglass. The art felt lost, like me.
In 2016, the charity Hospital Rooms stepped into the artistic void. When visiting a friend who was sectioned in an NHS mental health unit, curator Niamh White and artist Tim A Shaw were shocked to find that the hospital environment was cold and clinical at a time when she was so vulnerable. With ten years of experience in the art world, they realised that they had a real opportunity. “Our mission is for all people in mental health wards to have the freedom to experience extraordinary works. We believe in the power of art to provide joy and dignity and to stimulate and heal.”
The results have been truly astounding. Staff of NHS psychiatric units around the country are waking up to the enormous possibilities that artworks can offer to the wellbeing of their patients. The amount of projects that Hospital Rooms is involved in is growing exponentially and there is now a waiting list as new requests keep flooding in.
As Hospital Rooms’ art projects are site-specific and sometimes situated in extra secure units, the results are not always visible to all. But Hospital rooms has found a solution for that. Through regular exhibitions in art galleries, artworks derived from the originals are accessible to the wider public. Currently South London Gallery is showcasing the artworks made for Croydon PICU, a psychiatric intensive care unit for men located in Bethlem Hospital.
The five artists who made work for Croydon PICU were carefully selected according to the needs of the community and asked to work closely with patients, staff and the NHS trust. Artist Harold Offeh held workshops in which service users were encouraged to explore the texture of different spaces in their unit through wax rubbings. Offeh layered the resulting patterns in a composition that was projected and painted directly on the wall of the Dining Room. The work tells a story of how we experience and map the spaces around us.
The work was replicated in South London Gallery and accompanied by a performance, ‘Mindfully Dizzy’, on opening night. Offeh and an accompanying trumpetist were dressed in gowns with the same prints as the mural, looking like a cross between doctor and wizard. In between atmospheric musical tones, Offeh expressed his dizzy state of mind with increasing intensity of voice and gestures, moving between the audience, lying on the floor. The crescendo repetition of Jon Kabat-Zin’s forecast that “mindfulness may be the only promise that the species and the planet have for making it through the next couple of hundred years” was a powerful ending, sounding more like an ominous curse than a gentle choice.
The other artworks are equally inspiring. Sonia Boyce held a karaoke workshop with service users where everyone came prepared with their favourite song; her large wall-based artwork depicts the hands of people of various origins each carrying a different flower with healing properties. Tim A Shaw’s patchwork-style artwork in the hallway sits in between figuration and abstraction: based on colours chosen by the patients, it is related to maps of the nearby area and meant to slowly unfold over time.
Similarly colourful and bright is Remi Rough’s large exterior mural, made of a vibrant but calming palette that seems to be in movement, like rays of sun hitting the building. According to the artist, an exponent of the Abstract Graffiti movement in the 1990s, “[i]t’s one of the simplest yet most complex mural designs I have done of late but I am so pleased with the result and I really hope that it makes the patients a little happier when they’re spending time outside of their building.”
Michael O’Reilly, a scenic painter at the Royal Opera House, chose a mild blue colour on the wall of the Extra Care Room, a space for patients who need some time away. His landscape is painted from an elevated position, enabling the viewer to contemplate a calm expanse, whilst at the same time surrounded by a sense of shelter from the wooded foreground. Sepia illustrations on the wall depict individual objects, resembling the drawings found in natural history books. Service users have described the artwork as ‘serene and deep’.
At the end of the day, residents can gather in the tv room, where Jessica Voorsanger chose warm and saturated colours interspersed with symbols that she designed together with the patients from drawings based on their favourite tv shows. “I chose to work with the TV room as that is where I would spend the most of my time”, she says. And that, ultimately, is what Hospital Rooms wants to achieve: that patients will feel at ease and see their environment as a positive space where they want to spend time.
As I can attest, mental health wards can be hostile and confusing environments. But at least those who find themselves in one of the wards transformed by Hospital Rooms can find comfort in the experience of being surrounded by art. And not just any art, but the kind of art that I see in the UK’s best galleries and museums.
Photographs courtesy of Hospital Rooms
@Hospital Rooms
The Croydon PICU Exhibition is at South London Gallery Fire Station until 23rd February 2020
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I have recently joined the Development Committee of Hospital Rooms. Contact me at sabine@sabinecasparie.com for any questions or suggestions