Creative Lifelines: Hospital Rooms Co-Founder Tim A Shaw on the Power of Art in Healthcare
There is a well-established link between creativity and healthcare, as the medium provides not only aesthetic enjoyment but a cathartic process and highly stimulating environment. A concept that the art initiative Hospital Rooms recognises as part of their immersive projects within hospitals across the UK. The NHS run Phoenix Unit, a secure psychiatric rehabilitation ward housed within a set of imposing Victorian buildings is home to the first set of transformative installations from founders Tim A Shaw and Niamh White. After Nyne spoke to co-founder Tim A Shaw to find out more about the benefits of art and design in improving healthcare.
Firstly, could you explain why Hospital Rooms was founded and main goals of the organisation?
Niamh White and I have both had people close to us who have suffered from mental health problems and have spent time in mental health units. After visiting one friend in particular, who was spending some time in a mental health unit in a London hospital, we were struck by how cold and clinical the environment was, and how the artwork in the unit didn’t really do much to change the atmosphere or suit the space or its audience. If someone is mentally and physically unwell it seems common sense that the right environment to live and recover in is vitally important.
We think that it is important to tackle spaces within mental health units holistically. We want to commission world class contemporary artists to make and install work that takes into account the necessary compliance restrictions laid out by the hospital, the difficult spaces that exist in communal areas of mental health units, and the specific audiences (staff, service users and visitors) and make work that is exciting, beautiful, stimulating, immersive and thoughtful. These were our first aims when we started Hospital Rooms and we applied them to our first project at the Phoenix Unit.
There has been research into a link between art and health. Do you think art can help improve wellbeing?
There is research to show that artistic or therapeutic environments can reduce hospital stays, ease anxiety, reduce the need for pain medication and lower blood pressure. We think that changing the atmosphere in spaces like the Phoenix Unit, and installing beautiful and stimulating artworks and design is an important part of a recovery process and will make the day-to-day lives of those people living amongst the work better. Giving service users the chance to see and live with works that you might normally see in top galleries or museums instils a sense of pride in people. It also challenges us to think about how we value spaces and the people that use them. Also, having art that stimulates and encourages conversation can be used as a part of a service users path to rehabilitation. It has been great to see service users and staff discussing the ideas behind the artworks, and how they relates to their own memories or feelings.
Could you talk more about the contemporary artists and the installations they have created as part of Hospital Rooms?
We have commissioned 11 artist and designers to take on 10 spaces within Phoenix Unit as part of our first Hospital Rooms project. The commissioned artworks included pieces by Sophie Clements, a widely exhibited artist and filmmaker. She has installed a series of photographs called ‘Shall I This Time Hold You’ in the Games Room at the Phoenix Unit. This dynamic collection of images documents the split seconds after an explosion using 'bullet time' photography (filming simultaneously from many camera angles). They are poetic cloud-like forms, frozen in a moment of change, that are open to individual interpretation. Much of Sophie’s work involves documenting a point of change, and she is interested in how we might attempt to delay, capture or return to these moments despite the impossibility of doing so. These works are at the same time a celebration of the present 'moment' and an invitation to look back at past moments of beauty in our lives.
Nick Knight OBE is among the world’s most influential and visionary photographers. Nick selected two of his most iconic prints for the Phoenix Unit, Lily and Pale Rose. Lily shows a model spinning around in a haute couture gown that has powder paint laced into its seams. The pink powder flies up around her creating an elevated energy. Pale Rose was made by printing a still life image of roses onto acetate and then causing the ink to drip by exposing it to heat and water before it dried. Nick Knight’s work is frequently shown in national museums such as the National Portrait Gallery and the Victoria & Albert Museum.
Gavin Turk is one of the original YBA’s (Young British Artists) who found fame in the early 1990s. Gavin designed a graphic ‘egg’ vinyl motif titled ‘Egg Balance’ for the Phoenix Unit and painted his room in Duck Egg Blue. The egg is like a signature for Gavin and repeatedly appears in his work. Turk stated ‘two diagrammatic eggs, one balancing on top of another, alluding to an infinity sign. The egg is a symbol of birth and death. It triggers the riddle ‘which came first, the chicken or the egg?’ and is constantly referenced in legend and folklore. The egg form occurs frequently in the history of art, most notably as a surrealist motif. Egg tempura was the original painter’s medium.’
Do you think art should play a bigger role in healthcare, should national organisations such as the NHS be putting more investment in art-based therapies?
Of course the NHS is always stretched financially, and art is often an afterthought, but we believe that improving the environments in clinical environments and installing thoughtful and stimulating artworks is extremely valuable. It can’t be overlooked that improving mood and happiness is valuable in itself, but this improved wellbeing can also potentially aid patients’ recovery. In the future we would like to commission evidence based research to show that money spent on making projects like ours is good value and ultimately that the benefits outweigh the costs. We think that not only the art on the unit, but the interaction that it promotes, between curators, artists, service users and staff, has had a positive effect.
Moving forward how do you think the arts could be integrated further into healthcare?
The approach taken by Hospital Rooms, where we encourage artists to think about the space, the compliancy restrictions and the audience before making or choosing artworks should be an important stage of creating new hospital units and improving old ones. We are keen to work within difficult spaces, as the people who live, recover and work within in them seem to often have the least access to exciting artwork. It should be policy to have exciting, site specific artwork in hospitals and the effort should be made to work with all departments in a trust to make sure that artwork can be installed even in the units with the most compliancy restrictions.
Further info at: hospital-rooms.com
Image credit: Toni Hollowood
