Hospital Rooms Digital Art School comes to Sutton Integrated Recovery Hubs
At our Trust, we are always looking for opportunities to use creativity as a tool for supporting people’s mental health and wellbeing. Our 20 world-class artworks at Springfield Hospital, delivered in collaboration with long-term partner Hospital Rooms, are testament to this. Similarly, across our services, teams regularly use art, music, writing and more to support people’s self-expression and recovery.
Continuing the legacy of our work with Hospital Rooms, Susie and Melissa, Occupational Therapists from the SuttonIntegrated Recovery Hubs, have recently been making use of the charity’s Digital Art School workshops. We spoke to Susie to find out more.
“We were lucky to receive one of Hospital Rooms’ Art Boxes, which contain different high-quality art materials, such as paints and colouring pencils, to use alongside one of their free Digital Art School sessions. These are artist-led workshops designed for use by NHS mental health services and explore themes such as surrealism and landscapes, as well as specific techniques and skills like poetry, watercolours and stencilling.
“For our session we selected ‘The Secret Language’ by artist José Parlá. The workshop focuses on exploring abstract mark-making using watercolours and acrylics, and expressing emotions and ideas through colour, movement and texture to create your own ‘secret language’.
“We invited patients from our IncreasingParticipation in Everyday Living group, as well as others who have previously told us they enjoy creative activities, bringing together five Suttonservice users. By using the workshop, we had a clear structure to follow and could discuss different techniques or tips that the artist spoke about, making it an opportunity to socialise as well as be creative.
“Together we created some lovely pieces, and we are looking at where we could display them to brighten up our clinic spaces. The feedback from participants has also been incredibly positive, with most saying that it made them feel happy, peaceful or inspired. One service user particularly enjoyed the workshop we had chosen and said they enjoyed being able to create abstract artwork and that using the acrylic paints was meditative.
“Everyone that took part was provided with an information sheet about local community art groups, to encourage them to continue being creative outside of the session, with the hope that this supports their wellbeing long-term. And we’re now thinking about opportunities to run similar sessions with other patients and staff in Sutton.”
Find out more about Hospital Rooms and their Digital Art School
