10 years of transforming mental health hospitals with art

Extraordinary and creative people work in, and are cared for behind the air lock doors of mental health wards. Yet the places these people are in, more often than not, do not care. I’ve been thinking quite a lot recently about when I was a student at Central Saint Martins, around 20 years ago. Back then I’d never heard of the phrase Creative Health, or even Arts & Health. Maybe it could have been something I would have had an interest in had it been in my vocabulary, but I certainly wouldn’t have known it through those words. I think things have changed a lot since then, and many students’ priorities and ambitions have changed too. Being an artist doesn’t have to include gaining commercial representation, having a studio and perpetual exhibitions.

Ten years after graduating, my partner Niamh White (a curator) and myself (an artist) had the idea to work with artists, mental health patients and NHS staff to transform a clinical mental health unit into a creative hub, working with the talent around us. We founded the charity Hospital Rooms and have since commissioned several hundred artists to make collaborative, site-specific installations for mental health wards. It certainly didn’t feel like a radical idea initially, but we found out pretty quickly it was quite a unique one for that moment.

For as long as humans have existed engaging with the arts, in whatever form they take, has been seen as being good for you. It’s obvious, right? But even now, ten years on again, it is still a complex journey to get to the point where we can pass through the double airlock doors of mental health unit, bringing artists in to lead workshops and transform spaces. With budgets being stretched, and risk rarely rewarded, bringing the arts to health environments may, understandably, not be top of the agenda.

However, with Hospital Rooms, I feel like we’re at this pivotal moment. In the last 10 years we’ve transformed 6% of the NHS inpatient mental health units in this country. There’s 94% to go, and then where?

We used to say we weren't trying to change every single unit in the country. But that was never true. We believe deeply that anyone in a mental health hospital, or any healthcare setting, deserves to be treated with dignity. Compassion shouldn't just come from incredible staff doing the caring; it should also come from the physical environment itself. Art and artists can be key players when it comes to collaborating and giving access to extraordinary artwork, new perspectives, beauty, joy, and intellectual stimulation. Having the opportunity to experience and create things yourself is a fundamental human right. And really, at the very least, people should be cared for in a space that isn’t a depressing, clinical vacuum. Surely that is the minimum.

I hope that in 10 years we will be able to say things have come on a long way - that artists have given a new frame of reference for how a hospital can look and make you feel about yourself, and have had a big part to play in that change for the better.

Tim A Shaw

Artist, Co-founder and Artistic Director of Hospital Rooms