<
https://www.positive.news/society/the-art-of-healing-how-creativity-is-changing-nhs-mental-health-wards/>
"It was nearly 10 years ago that Tim A Shaw and his partner, Niamh White, found
themselves visiting a close friend who had been admitted as an inpatient to a
mental health unit.
“It was a really inhumane, cold, clinical space,” he recalls. “Very bare. Quite
claustrophobic. Entirely the opposite of where someone who’s really struggling
should be. It felt like our friend had been let down.”
What would happen, the pair wondered, if they could draw on their backgrounds
in the art world – Shaw is an artist, White a curator – to “bring artists in
and transform the space? We’re used to making spaces beautiful for other
people. It felt like we could translate that into mental health units.”
What began as a one-off project to bring creativity, colour and joy to a single
mental health setting – The Phoenix Unit at South West London and St George’s
Mental Health NHS trust – soon expanded to become Hospital Rooms, a mental
health charity with a nationwide reach. Shaw and White have since created
vibrant, site-specific artworks in 25 hospital spaces, collaborating with
dozens of curators, artists, inpatients and NHS staff members."
Cheers,
*** Xanni ***
--
mailto:xanni@xanadu.net Andrew Pam
http://xanadu.com.au/ Chief Scientist, Xanadu
https://glasswings.com.au/ Partner, Glass Wings
https://sericyb.com.au/ Manager, Serious Cybernetics
