Art has a role to play anywhere it’s needed

Four examples of art in clinical environments

Artmongers.org

Artmongers believe in…

Live Spaces

Place Making

Public Ownership

Example 1: Journeys We Make

@ Snowsfields Adolescent Unit, Maudsley Hospital, London UK. Spring 2014

A partnership between the NHS, Artmongers and Dulwich Picture Gallery finding common ground while moving away from the commonplace

Artworks:

Up and Down and Up Again:Coast on a FenceCloud Appreciation SocietyThe Horizon Lounge

We used the existing feature of the safety panel on the staircase…

… and the concept of journeys and travelling from patient workshops…

To develop a life affirming artwork where the art takes precedence over the functionality in our response

Using landscapes in a cramped and limiting space and the patients’ interest in the natural world…

… to create a wider and more engaging horizon in “Coast on Fence”

The Cloud Appreciation Society draws on fragments of Dulwich Picture Gallery paintings to give sidelong glimpses of open skies

The Horizon Lounge offers serenity and spaciousness, inspired by another Dulwich Picture Gallery landscape

Example 2: The Newcomen Centre Children with serious neurological conditions come from all over the UK. We created two Play areas (kids and adolescents) to reduce stress for families while waiting.

The theme throughout the space is wind.

Here the Doughnut artwork is inspired by a 3D mathematics used to develop thermal dynamics and propellers.

Also known as a torus.

Younger children can interact with the weather on this magnetic wall map

What happens above the Clouds?

Technical information about wind for older and more scientifically minded children

Ye Olde London Wind – city skylines are interesting for some children in the autistic spectrum. The theme here is adapted to fit with the original tiles which wererestored. Children can find the effects of the wind in the details

Hot Air Balloon Race

Site specific artwork in the Measuring Roomwith views of Parliament across the Thames.

Example 3: Royal Free Hospital, Children’s Outpatients

Light, fresh and welcoming

Doors with narratives and bright coloursThe doors where all vinyl wrapped and had animals, blossoming cherry trees or precious minerals printed on them, all life affirming images.

Happy green grass so children to feel as if there were giants.

Visual Treasure Hunt, an activity for parents and children to do while they wait

Example 4: The Nest for Premature Children, Argentina

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Adapting the narrative to the space

Fictionalising the outside and screening the window bars

Example 5: National Children’s Hospital, Baku, Azerbaijan Play area on the theme of numbers

Workshops and installation with local students and activists to transfer skills and trigger future projects

Room for imagination

Art won’t save the world, but it can definitively improve it

Typical Artmongers Approach in a Clinical Environment

Understand context, target audience and participants

Desk researchSite visit

Objective Approach

EXPLORE

Phase

Identify primary needsInitial ideas

User workshops

Online project spaceFeedback loopENGAGE / DEVELOP

Develop and create artworks – open dialogue

Online project spaceFeedback loopCO - CREATE

Produce and Install artworks

Observe Fine tune

Local Multimedia production

Site visitINSTALL

The way we feel about colours

• One centimetre of yellow is completely different to a square metre of yellow Paul Gaugin

• All colours are from the same colour group to meet the needs of the spaces

• The repetition of a limited colour palette brings a rhythm to the spaces

• The colours are selected for their physiological and psychological impact. The application of the colours is based on the spaces, the changing light and the interactions

• Patricio Forrester set up Artmongers in 2003, borrowing the model of an architect or design studio but delivering Public Art - in the streets, in hospitals and in other public spaces. Catherine Shovlin has been part of Artmongers since 2010

• We believe that working within the context of Public Art, user and site specific cultural productions based on user engagement and research can benefit individual behavior and society at large.

• Artmongers has made environmental artworks involving homeless people, youth at risk, children (including autistic and special needs), community members, performers and other artists.

• Many hospital environments are “accidental” or designed by default, most likely nobody thought about them in an integral way especially not the user experience

• Artmongers.org