Drop into artist-led workshops and activities and share your own experiences of encountering arts in a hospital setting. Explore how art and design within a clinical environment can affect mood, rehabilitation and overall wellbeing. Find out about site-specific and patient-responsive art projects.
Sam’s Saloon: The Islanders – 12-6pm
Drop into a Saloon-like setting hosted by Sam Ayre. Engage in philosophical enquiry and discussions about imagined animals, ecologies, roles, and future selves whilst creating new images using the work of Charles Avery’s ‘The Islanders’ as a springboard for ideas.
Designing for Dialysis – 12-6pm
Join Graphic Design students from Central Saint Martins as they develop ideas for Vital Arts’ forthcoming Community Dialysis Cookbook. Visitors are welcome to join the discussion and exchange recipes and tips on how to create flavoursome meals within the limitations of a renal diet.
Mindful Drawing: Draw Your Baby
12-1pm
2.30-3.30pm
5-6pm
Mothers and fathers are encouraged to bring their babies into Michelle Charles’ meditative and nurturing space to learn drawing skills that will engender a deeper connection between parent and child. Using a series of sketching exercises and guided meditations, participants are encouraged to use drawing as a means of seeing their babies, and depict them in a relaxed and structured environment.
Paper, pencils and other materials provided. These workshops, led by artist Michelle Charles, will include demonstrations and talks. Vital Arts hopes to introduce these workshops to Maternity Units at Barts Health NHS Trust to encourage meaningful bonding.
Drumming and South Asian Dance Well Workshop
1-2.30pm
3.30-5pm
Two of Vital Arts’ partners, Akademi and Music in Hospitals & Care, have joined forces to create a number of music and dance workshops throughout the weekend. Take part in Akademi’s Dance workshop and discover why these sessions are beneficial for those living with long-term health conditions. Then try a Drumming Workshop, led by Music in Hospitals and Care, and learn about the effects of music on rehabilitation. In between, enjoy a dance performance by Akademi’s dancer accompanied by Music in Hospital’s drummers.
Vital Arts 12-6pm
Make sure to visit the Vital Arts team who will be showcasing best practice in Arts and Health and offer information about their extensive site-specific and patient-responsive art projects—as well as the opportunity to handle ceramic artworks by Malene Hartmann Rasmussen, the current Artist in Residence at the V&A. Vital Arts is the charitably funded arts organisation for Barts Health NHS Trust, which devises, develops and delivers visual art, music, dance, literature and performance directly to patients across five hospitals serving east London: Barts (St. Bartholomew’s); Royal London Hospital, Whitechapel; Mile End Hospital; Whipps Cross; Newham University Hospital.
This event is programmed by Vital Arts, a Tate Exchange Associate.
About Vital Arts
Vital Arts is the arts organisation for Barts Health NHS Trust, the largest Trust in the UK, charitably funded to deliver arts projects for the well-being of patients, staff and the wider hospital community. With five hospitals in east London and over 2.5 million patients, we see these important civic spaces as ideal places to introduce new audiences to contemporary art.
Vital Arts was founded in 1996 and has grown into one of the UK’s leading arts and health organisations, with an international reputation for producing pioneering arts programmes that transform the experience of being in hospital for patients and staff.
Working in partnership with medical staff, artists and cultural organisations, Vital Arts devises and delivers therapeutic creative programmes--including workshops, artist-in-residencies, exhibitions, installations and public art commissions--that support medical goals; enhance patient well-being; provide continual professional development opportunities for staff; and create stimulating and uplifting healthcare spaces.
