Happy new year! I will continue this year writing about my life as a freelancer in the art world.
I recently started working as a collection consultant for CW+, the arts charity of Chelsea and Westminster Hospital. I got to know the hospital collection as a volunteer many years ago.
When I finished my Masters in contemporary art almost ten years ago, I was finding out the hard way that art jobs are difficult to come by as a nearly forty-year old mother of young children. Having worked as a lawyer, the only roles I was asked to interview for were in fundraising. But then I saw an ad for a volunteer at Chelsea and Westminster hospital, assisting with their art collection. My father was a surgeon, my mother studied medicine; my husband’s family are all doctors. A year earlier, I had been admitted to a psychiatric hospital for depression, and my art tours helped me get back into the world and find a sense of purpose. It was, as they say, a no-brainer.
The Atrium, with (from top) painting by John Copnall, mosaics by atelier Adam Nathaniel Furman and painting by Liam Mertens
I ended up staying for two years. Besides leading a project to donate de-accessioned artworks to other medical organisations – a hugely satisfying job, like handing out Christmas presents every day – I also curated a few wards, re-installing works from the collection. I was able to us a fantastic selection of School Prints – which we installed in the Imaging ward (in fact, Hepworth Wakefield has issued a new collection of school prints by contemporary artists in 2018, which is very exciting). In the Centre for Sexual Health on Hammersmith Broadway, a clean, industrial looking building, we installed prints by British post-war artists such as Bridget Riley, Robert Long and Joe Tilson.
The first thing I remembered when I walked into the hospital again in October last year was how highly complex it is to look after a hospital collection, which has to represent all people, can’t offend anyone, and has to be proven to have a positive impact on health in order to receive continued funding. After years of seeing art mostly in white cube galleries, I also remembered the tricky logistics of installing work in clinical spaces. Artworks in hospitals do not have ideal lighting. They often have to be installed above barriers. They sometimes get blocked from view by lovely volunteers selling cakes and cards, and they constantly are at danger of being trashed by trolleys and hospital beds. Allen Jones’s Acrobat, the largest work in the Atrium, had lost its head, which was sitting abandoned in an adjacent room.
Nevertheless, the rewards are enormous. Last month, for World Aids Day, I organised a small gathering for the artists who had loaned us work for our quarterly exhibition wall – a space at the back of the Ground floor Atrium that we paint freshly for each new exhibition, this time a sparkling purple. All of the artists are or were patients of the hospital. There was no wine, there were no mince pies. There were no speeches, and just myself attending on behalf of the charity. But they showed up, and they were beaming: seeing their work exhibited in a public space was a first for many.
That dark December afternoon, the participating artists were able to name their illness, and to celebrate being a part of a community that has been through a lot but is still standing. Shivering in a cold hospital corridor with the streets outside frozen, we kept warm in the knowledge - deep seated and proven and true - that art can heal, connect and inspire. And we found our purple lining.
For any questions, suggestions or ideas for partnership please contact me at CW+, at the following email address: cwplus.arts@cwplus.org.uk