Hospital Rooms partners with Norfolk and Suffolk NHS Foundation Trust to launch their most innovative project to date, commissioning 15 major new artworks and leading 70 art workshops for new mental health services in Norwich.

Including: Alan Kane, Dolly Sen, Errol Francis, Fabian Peake, Ghislaine Leung, Heather Phillipson, Holly Sandiford, Jade Montserrat, Ken Nwadiogbu, Mark Titchner, Michael Landy, Nengi Omuku, Rosa-Johan Uddoh, Sarah Dwyer and Sola Olulode.

Architectural renderings by Murphy Philipps

From 2023 until summer 2024, the arts and mental health charity, Hospital Rooms,
will collaborate with Norfolk and Suffolk NHS Foundation Trust (NSFT) and the current Hellesdon Hospital community to bring museum quality artworks and creative activities for people using mental health services. The collaboration coincides with a £49 million project by NSFT to establish three new state-of-the-art wards and refurbish two existing wards at Hellesdon Hospital.

NSFT service users, staff, carers and families will have the opportunity to take part in art workshops that will inform artworks being created for the communal areas for both new buildings and existing wards. Hospital Rooms has programmed 70 artist-led sessions across the inpatient wards at Hellesdon Hospital as well as partners venues at Norwich University of the Arts, Sainsbury Centre and Norwich Castle Museum & Art Gallery for community members who have used inpatient mental health services. The conversations and work made in these workshops is an integral part of the co-production process for the fifteen ambitious artworks made specifically for the people at Hellesdon Hospital.

Workshops led by artists at the Sainsbury Centre will be inspired by an item selected from the museum’s extensive collection. Other workshops hosted at Norwich University of the Arts and Norwich Castle Museum & Art Gallery will also use their resources and facilities and the sessions will go on to inform the artwork the artists create for the hospital. These workshops are free and open to anyone who has used inpatient mental health services. Sign up details can be found here.

Hospital Rooms will work with the clinical teams at NSFT and researchers at Norwich University of the Arts to record and evidence the impact of the commissioned artworks for mental health environments.

The project is also informed by a research collaboration with a Lived Experience Team that works with the NSFT Recovery College, NSFT People Participation Team, Norwich University of the Arts and Hospital Rooms to consult on best practice and develop an evaluation framework for the project.

The diverse and internationally acclaimed artists commissioned for the fifteen artworks on the project include: Alan Kane, Dolly Sen, Errol Francis, Fabian Peake, Ghislaine Leung, Heather Phillipson, Holly Sandiford, Jade Montserrat, Ken Nwadiogbu, Mark Titchner, Michael Landy, Nengi Omuku, Rosa-Johan Uddoh, Sarah Dwyer and Sola Olulode.

The project is supported by partners without whom it would not be possible. We are very grateful to: Arts Council England, COAT Paints, Hauser & Wirth, Norfolk and Suffolk NHS Foundation Trust, Norwich University of the Arts and Norwich Castle Museum & Art Gallery, Queen’s and Sainsbury Centre.

Previous workshops from 2023 at Hellesdon Hospital and Norwich University of the Arts by Shepherd Manyika,

Here at Hellesdon Hospital we feel extremely honoured to have the opportunity to work alongside hospital rooms and the Norwich University of the Arts. I have been aware of the fantastic work they have already completed in other areas of the Trust and the positive effect it has had on both service users and staff. We look forward to this most recent collaboration and ultimately creating more interesting, inspiring, and therapeutic spaces to provide care and treatment to those we serve.

- Nicky Shaw, Lead Nurse for the Norwich & North Norfolk Care Group

Having experienced the difference Hospital Rooms can make to these often lonely and clinical spaces, this involvement will be such a positive asset to our Norwich wards, which is desperately needed.

- Service user

“We are delighted to be collaborating with Norfolk and Suffolk NHS Foundation Trust and Hospital Rooms once again, having completed two successful projects with them at Northside House in Norwich. The Rivers Centre Hospital in Hellesdon will be a landmark project for both the Trust and for Norwich. We are excited to play our part by working with the staff, service users and the Trust Recovery College team to learn from their experiences and expertise as we analyse the impact of the Hospital Rooms project on Rivers Centre.”

- Professor Larra Anderson, Pro Vice-Chancellor, Norwich University of the Arts

 

Notes to Editors

  • The project is supported by partners without whom it would not be possible. We are very grateful to: Arts Council England, COAT Paints, Hauser & Wirth, Norfolk and Suffolk NHS Foundation Trust, Norwich University of the Arts and Norwich Castle Museum & Art Gallery, Queen’s and Sainsbury Centre.

  • Hospital Rooms is an award-winning arts and mental health charity that was founded when a friend of artist Tim A Shaw and curator Niamh White was sectioned under the Mental Health Act and the unit she was required to stay in was squalid, dilapidated and devoid of any sense of imagination or creativity.

    We now work collaboratively with artists, mental health patients and staff, NHS Trusts, universities and cultural organisations to bring high quality artistic environments and opportunities to people with severe and enduring mental health diagnoses who are often otherwise ‘completely culturally invisible’ (Staff 2020) and are held in the most re- strictive mental health settings from Psychiatric Intensive Care Units to Forensic services. We believe all people in mental health hospitals should have access to extraordinary creative and cultural experiences.

  • NSFT provide specialist mental health and learning disability care for people across Norfolk and Suffolk. We support a population of just over 1.6 million people and employ more than 4,700 staff. Our biggest bases are at Hellesdon Hospital, Nor- wich, Wedgwood House, Bury St Edmunds and Woodlands Unit in Ipswich but our staff are based in more than 50 locations.

  • Norwich University of the Arts is a forward-thinking arts university, a place where the debate about the future of creativity and creative arts education is most passionately engaged. The remarkable award-winning city campus, made up of studios, media labs and creative spaces is at the heart of the creative quarter of Norwich. Excellent teaching across a wide range of creative subjects including design, media, architecture, creative science and technology leads to industry-relevant qualifications. Students graduate with the confidence, critical thinking and creativity to shape the world in which they live. 175 years old, yet still pioneering, the university ranked in the Top 10 for Teaching Quality in The Times/Sunday Times Good University Guide 2022 and Top Two Creative Arts Universities in The Complete University Guide 2023.

  • The Sainsbury Centre is a genre-defying art museum with world-class collections and a unique perspective on how art can foster cultural dialogue and exchange.

    It is one of the most important public university art galleries in Britain. Founded in 1973 at the University of East Anglia (UEA) with the support of one of the nation’s great philanthropic families, Sir Robert and Lady Sainsbury, who donated their extraordinary art collection which includes works dating from prehistory to the late 20th century from across the globe. A radical new building by Norman Foster was designed to house the collection and was his first public work. The Centre holds one of the most impressive art collections outside of the national institutions and is located on the edge UEA campus which is set in 350 acres of parkland. The Centre itself looks over 20 acres of our sculpture park threaded through meadow, forest and lake. It has the largest temperature-controlled gallery spaces in Eastern Eng- land and operates an only pay what you can ticketing system to help bring the best art in the world to anyone who wants to meet it.

  • One of the city’s most famous landmarks, Norwich Castle was built by the Normans as a Royal Palace over 900 years ago and is now a museum and art gallery and home to outstanding collections of fine and decorative arts, archaeology and natural history. It is part of Norfolk Museums Service, a multi-award-winning service comprising ten museums and a study centre. NMS is a partnership between Norfolk County Council and Norfolk’s district councils, funded through council tax, earned income and grants.