Outside In: New Dialogues Project

“Who has the authority to interpret and talk about these works?”

KATE DAVEY, OUTSIDE IN TRAINING PROGRAMME MANAGER

Quotes from New Dialogues participants

Mental Health Museum: RECOLLECTIONS MAY VARY

Introduction

Images from the exhibition

Artists biographies

Project diary: Paige Lyons

Project diary: Doll

Quotes from New Dialogues participants

Glenside Hospital Museum: LOOKING TO THE LIGHT

Images from the exhibition

Artists biographies

Project diary: Natasha Harrison

Quotes from New Dialogues participants

Glasgow Museums: UNLOCKING THE EXTRAORDINARY

Images from the exhibition

Artists biographies

Project diary: Kin

Virtual exhibition: ANOTHER SPACE WITHIN

Thank you’s Image credits

NEW DIALOGUES

New Dialogues was a two-year programme generously funded by the National Lottery Heritage Fund, the Art Fund and the John Ellerman Foundation and delivered by Outside In in partnership with Glasgow Museums, Glenside Hospital Museum (Bristol), and the Mental Health Museum (Wakefield).

The programme focused on supporting over 30 artists to gain the skills needed to explore, research and interpret collections that relate to the history of mental health and mental health treatment in the UK. In doing so, projects delivered in three geographical locations have facilitated those who perhaps have their own lived experience of mental health issues and the mental health system to reinterpret the work. This has enabled the participants to bring their own unique understanding, expertise and new perspectives to the collections and raising the question of who has the authority to interpret and talk about these works.

The project consisted of six Step Up: Exploring Collections courses, where artists were supported to gain skills in research, interpretation and response, and three Step Up: Curating Exhibitions courses, where artists gained experience of the practical and conceptual considerations that go into organizing an exhibition. The courses make up part of Outside In’s training and professional development programme, designed to support artists to gain the skills needed to find employment, self-employment and voluntary opportunities in the arts.

The programme supports strong relationships between Outside In artists and arts partners across the UK, creating opportunities for artists to discover more about their local arts organisation and to take up positions of authority, helping to diversify exhibitions, collections and public programmes across the country.

Culminating in four physical exhibitions across the UK in 2022 and one virtual exhibition on Outside In’s website, the project highlighted the importance of recognising lived experience as a valid form of expertise, and in putting the artists’ voice at the heart of research and curation.

ABOUT OUTSIDE IN

Outside In is an award-winning national arts charity working to create a fairer and more inclusive art world.

Outside In’s work covers three main areas: artist development, exhibitions, and training. These activities, supported by fundraising and communications, all aim to create a fairer art world by supporting artists, creating opportunities and influencing organisations.

Please visit the website: www.outsidein.org.uk

“It’s opened a lot of doors because now I look at events but feel confident enough to go out there and say hello, I’m an artist, I’d like to do some art please, whereas before that wouldn’t have crossed my mind and it’s lovely in itself regardless of any work that happens, just being able to give myself permission to be in that world is a huge step.”

New Dialogues participant

“It was a huge change for me to go from someone who did art sometimes and had very low confidence to someone who had an art practice and felt permission to exist in art spaces.”

New Dialogues participant

“When the world shut down, you kept us going.”

NEW DIALOGUES PARTICIPANT

MENTAL HEALTH MUSEUM: RECOLLECTIONS MAY VARY

‘Recollections May Vary’ was the culmination of the research, artistic exploration, and in many cases, personal resonance to the history of the Mental Health Museum’s collection by twelve artists.

Mutiple challenges were faced during the discovery and exploration phase. The first cohort group completed their 10week programme entirely online due to Covid-19 lockdown restrictions, and the second group had the Art House as their setting as the pandemic guidelines were revised. The Art House is an arts venue in Wakefield inviting artists and audiences of all kinds to engage with the creative process through a programme of residencies, exhibitions, events, workshops and personal development opportunities.

The individual resourcefulness and collective commitment shown by those involved is nothing short of remarkable. When the world shut down, you kept us going.

The museum is managed by South West Yorkshire Partnership NHS Foundation Trust and houses a remarkable collection of mental health related objects that span the history of mental health care from the early 19th century through to the present day. The museum also has vibrant outreach displays in changing locations and an exciting learning programme.

The Mental Health Museum collection

“There is flow and energy and movement, everything my disability has taken away.”

CARA MACWILLIAM, ARTIST

ARTISTS RECOLLECTIONS

MAY VARY

JOANNE TIFFANY, IDLE HANDS

Joanne has a multi-disciplinary practice that explores the hidden within society, informed by her own lived experiences of disability and chronic illness. Her work includes digital elements that employ a strong graphic aesthetic in their use of text and photography..

LOUISA HAMMOND, A TANGLED MIND

Textile artist Louisa tells the stories of vulnerable people who are often misrepresented, using carefully chosen materials and techniques that best realise her vision. Recently her work has focused on mental health, informed by her own personal recovery journey.

Exploring themes of mental health, addiction and spirituality Jo uses art to process her thoughts, feelings and experiences. Her hope is to be better understood through her work.

CARA MACWILLIAM, THE LETTER

Cara is a self-taught, disabled, visual artist. Her practice involves travelling into surreal landscapes and mythologies using watercolour, dip pens, textiles or clay.

“There is flow and energy and movement, everything my disability has taken away.”

MANDY SHEPHERD, UNRAVELLED

“I am the person that thinks ‘what happens if I just...’?” Inspired by items that other people have discarded, Mandy enjoys experimentation and recycling alongside techniques like mark-making, drawing, embroidery and pattern making.

JO HENDERSON, YOUR INSANITY IS MY REALITY

ALABAMATHIRTEEN, THE SHRINKING

Largely self-taught, Leeds based artists alabamathirteen creates tactile, engaging work exploring, navigating and negotiating spaces, places and memories as a disabled woman. She is also greatly inspired by the rich and subversive history of textiles as ‘women’s work’.

SAM METZ, RESTRAINED LINES

Sam is an interdisciplinary artist, curator and researcher inspired by movement. Sam’s work researches, creates and reflects on the concept of what they refer to as ‘choreographic objects’.

JO DOLL, TYPE

Doll uses art for processing thought, practical problem solving and private expression. A multidisciplinary artist with a conceptual approach to creating pieces, they explore themes of identity and perception often juxtaposing textural elements with illustrative expression.

DONNA COLEMAN, STRONG DRESS

An artist working with painting, drawing and film, Donna explores the fragility of the human condition. She creates disintegrating figurative forms using acrylic paint, biro pen, oil pastels and ink. Donna has made two films that showcase mental states including distress, anxiety and peaceful calm.

ANGELA CHUDLEY, PHOENIX IMAGE

Angela enjoys mixing materials, traditional and digital techniques to create new works. A key part of her practice is the inclusion of poetry or written elements, using them to understand ‘what being alive means to me’. Evocative, textural and poignant, her work explores themes of humanity, empathy and selfreflection.

PROJECT

DIARIES Mental Health Museum: Discovering Mary Frances Heaton and other narratives

Illustrator Paige Lyons discovers the challenges and rewards of trying to uncover narratives at the Mental Health Museum, Wakefield, during her time on the Exploring Collections – Patient Artwork Project course.

Diving into the collection at Wakefield’s Mental Health Collection I was struck like most people to discover the small but significant collection by Mary Frances Heaton, who was a patient at the West Riding Asylum from 1837 to 1873. Being an illustrator my interests lie in all things narrative

and I was keen to learn about the lives and experiences of the people who spent time in the asylum. Finding personal antidotes was difficult, hints of stories here and there, mixed in with medical medical reports and admission documents – it was definitely research you could spend along time on.

Collectively, Mary Frances Heaton story had the most information relating to her personal experience. Interestingly, there wasn’t many medical reports kept about Mary which I was a little disappointed

about as in the reports there was of her, I read she was referred to as ‘Miss H’ hinting to the fact she was well known amongst the staff and doctors.

Mary from Doncaster was admitted to the asylum over causing a disturbance in a local church. She called out the Mayor who owed her money for music lessons that she had been giving to his children for sometime. After going to trial in court, she was admitted and unfortunately spent the rest of her life in asylum care before dying in 1878. Mary disagreed with

her admittance and her treatment and in her time at the asylum tried to vocalise this, even at one point trying to smuggle a letter out in a patients clothes who was being discharged. She turned to creative expression in the form of her samplers which she spent days stitching in her room on. Her samplers are packed with information, stories, symbols, numerical’s, and even receipts of payments which all hint to Mary’s story, voice and experience.

It’s easy to think that Mary was put in the asylum for merely speaking out but

looking closely at reports on Mary by medical staff, which contained details of ‘visions’ she had, there seemed to be an element of her accepting that she had some struggles with her mental health. Regardless of Mary’s mental and physical state, she wanted to share her side of the story in relation to the incident that led her to being admitted and protest her injustice. In a sampler to the ‘British Government’ she gives a detailed account of this and how she should be able to tell her story of how she felt unfairly treated in court and denied opportunity to

“When looking broadly at how people were treated in asylums, personal voice and experiences were heavily missing.”

PAIGE LYONS, ARTIST

get bail from friends.

Gathering Mary’s story I discovered there was lots of gaps and unconfirmed evidence in her story, this created multiple views of Mary and her story. Most recently a Blue Plaque has been put up in Mary’s name as part of ‘The Forgotten Women of Wakefield’ project which also lead to some local news coverage. I found this and other representations differed, and differed from what maybe I thought of her, which I came to conclude that regardless to if I agreed with Mary’s admission or not

that this shouldn’t disregard her story of injustice or allude to the fact that she didn’t have difficulties with her mental health.

When looking broadly at how people were treated in asylums, personal voice and experiences were heavily missing. This was due to how people were viewed who went in the asylums and how asylums were ran, like institutions.

Mary used a craft to her advantage to document and voice her protest against how she felt, but she also recorded personal moments in her time in the asylum which created some record of Mary’s own experiences.

Being a millennial, I have seen the change in how we are looking after our mental health and wellbeing more and more, and I’m also aware of how many platforms and spaces there are for me to express my own views, stories and opinions if I felt I wanted to.

Thinking about Mary and her experience I couldn’t help thinking ‘What would Mary do now ?’. She seems a strong minded and obviously talented creative woman of her time, I could imagine Mary on Instagram now, in the local newspapers, organising some creative protest events like yarn bombing and stitched signs. I feel like she would also be a person of change, and continue to challenge points of view around mental health.

PROJECT DIARIES

Mental Health Museum: A creative and emotive journey

As part of the second Step Up course Exploring Collections at the Mental Health Museum, artist Doll shares their journey to a New Dialogue. The result is part creative response and part emotion diary, both reflecting on the process to help further understand the difficult history and potential trigger points.

Content warning: Pregnancy termination

Chapter one: It’s always interesting when you start a new project, no matter how much you try to go in with an

open mind you carry some prior notions with you.

I have found this on my first foray into the Mental Health Museums collection; listening to the presentations has challenged some of my perceptions around the idea of the role these institutions played both in individuals and communities lives.

Perhaps the most poignant moment this week was discovering that part of the admissions process involved the cutting of hair, this fact unsettled me far

more than many of the other depersonalisation practices.

Something about an act that can be one of self care, pampering or even reinvention being used in this way feels so invasive. It’s certainly been unsettling to sit with, but something that I feel deserves exploring – the people who lived it deserve the lessons from it to be honoured.

Chapter two: This week has been challenging for me, some of the topics explored have led me down rabbit holes of thought I

was not prepared for.

I want to say that challenging doesn’t equate to bad –uncomfortable, difficult, draining but not bad.

Paperwork, notes, risk assessments, ledgers and reports – we ‘the ill’ are reduced to piles of text in a system that has not seen true advancement in over 20 years.

So apparent is this need to document that much of the real interactions or expressions of those that spent time in institutions

like The West Riding Pauper Lunatic Asylum are lost. The personal art works of many patients were simply thrown away en masse while the handwritten notes of a nurse have been preserved along with countless frigid photos of ‘life at the asylum’.

In all the text the thing that is missing is context.

Each case file is a life recorded, but not a story told.

In relating this to my own turbulent mental health I can’t help but wonder

what my file says about me. Does it list my symptoms like a builder’s estimate, items that need to be fixed and ticked off? Where is it recorded that I hate my voice because it betrays my past and invites questions from strangers? Has any one of the many professionals I have seen over the past decade written about how I was told to ‘be happy’ so as not ruin the family Christmas as I grieved the forced termination of my baby.

Trauma is not a list to be compiled. It’s convenient to ask what happened,

easier to document and send you home after an hour or place your name on yet another waiting list.

Its an interesting concept, the information we keep versus what we omit. How much can you manipulate a narrative? Can you recast the roles, change a dynamic….even label someone as insane?

Chapter three: After some intense reflections, prompted by complex nuances of mental illness, it is with a smile that in this diary I can share more creatively centred ponderings.

Wading through the echoes of the past it can be all too easy to be pulled into the undertow of ethics and morals – seeing things in a linear way, each revelation undoing the anchors you had set to avoid drowning in the ‘what ifs’.

The temptation to pursue the ‘story’ is one I am trying to battle, not least because in the absence of personal corroboration everything I discover or articulate is essentially adding to the problem.

As I prepare for my trip to the archives I am reminding myself that I entered into this project to cut the red tape restraints and reconnect the compassion, empathy and context of those of us that live with mental illness – past present and future.

Part of this reminder for me has been creating, exploring and allowing my mind to wander while I feel. It may sound like an odd thing to say in reference to the subject matter but I am drawn to playing with materials, concepts and techniques.

Inviting the unfettered imagination of my inner child is refreshing, beneficial and freeing.

The importance of this feeling of freedom is a bittersweet counterpoint to the constraints of adulthood, rules, perceptions and inherited self image.

I sat watching my peers industrious in artistic expression and I wondered how many of the names we have been researching had felt this exact same kinship – almost content

to be allowed to just…be.

I was struck by this correlation as I wiped by ink-streaked hands in the printmaking studio at The Art House (our amazing home for the duration of this course). The afternoon had been full of experimentation and chat, we existed as equals without barriers or labels, each of us focused on individual tasks but more connected than ever.

My process is being refined, recalibrated and ultimately improved as a result of the consistent balancing of the information and imagination. I have often told those wishing to get to know me that I am ruled by my contradictions, once said with a tone of thinly veiled contempt, I now have an appreciation for this duality and the influence it casts over my art.

So, before I give in to the impulse to make a sarcastic or self deprecating comment on ‘my art’, I am going back to my earbuds, Goldfrapp and creating like nobody is watching.

“It’s the first time I’ve ever felt like an artist, ever. I’ve always been careful about how I identify my creativity, so I’ve said ‘Oh I’m a designer,’ or ‘I’m really arty, I create a lot.’ But never artist. And the difference in me today from when I first saw the advert for Exploring Collections it’s not just night and day it’s black hole and stars maybe.”

New Dialogues participant

“I loved the fact that a previous cohort was co-facilitating on my course which indicated it was an opportunity. Rather than talking about it we were at in the presence of an artist who had been on the course and who was about to have an exhibition in her own right and I have always said that the strongest tool we have in recovery is role modelling.”

New Dialogues participant

GLENSIDE HOSPITAL

MUSEUM: LOOKING TO THE LIGHT

Glenside Hospital Museum has an extensive collection telling the story of Bristol Psychiatric and Learning Disability Hospitals. The museum is set inside the Asylum chapel within the grounds of the purpose-built hospital. It has over 80 documentary drawings of life at the hospital in the 1950s produced by Denis William Reed, an artist and patient at this time.

Looking to the Light was an exciting exhibition of contemporary art exploring mental health care and mental health treatment that took place at Glenside Hospital Museum.

The theme of the exhibition was inspired by the patient Charles West, who was photographed in 1897 at Bristol’s psychiatric hospital and the stained-glass windows depicting saints and healing that bathe the Museum in coloured light. Many aspects of the museum and its history – from a padded room to the use of mosquitoes in treatment – caught the imaginations of the 10 artists involved.

“The New Dialogues project enabled me to unpick what art means to me including its connection to life. It encouraged us to take the plunge and grow in confidence, to believe in our own creative processes and get creating.”

,

NATASHA HARRISON, ARTIST

LOOKING TO THE LIGHT GLENSIDE HOSPITAL

ARTISTS LOOKING TO THE LIGHT

JACKIE BENNETT

Jackie Bennett is an artist-weaver. She gained a postgraduate diploma in Tapestry Weaving in 1997 and continues to learn. She teaches weaving and runs bespoke workshops for groups and in community settings. Her work is exhibited locally, nationally and internationally and she undertakes commissions. She is a member of Outside In, The British Tapestry Group, the East Sussex Guild of Weavers Spinners and Dyers and Sussex Arts Collective.

STEVE BURDEN

Steve Burden graduated from Goldsmiths College, London with a First Class Honours degree and from Bath Spa University with a distinction for his Masters Degree in Fine Art. He works with paint to investigate dystopian themes and ideas associated with British housing estates; he is driven to understand what it means to be workingclass in today’s society. The urban context in which he grew up continues to influence his visual aesthetic. His current practice explores the underrepresentation of those from lower socio-economic backgrounds in the arts and education, partly inspired by his personal experience of growing up on the Pepys, a brutalist high-rise council estate in Deptford, South London.

GEORGE J HARDING

George J. Harding is a fine artist, based in Bristol, who specialises in oil painting. George says of his work: “my art is an exploration and journey of discovery. My aim is to find a greater sense of self, vision and spirit through the process of art making, finding authenticity and enjoyment in the many forms, styles and approaches that painting offers. I believe that art is for everyone and want the value of art to be seen and felt by all.”

NATASHA HARRISON

This summer (2022) it will be the tenth year since I started developing my art practice. I cultivated this by attending art classes in museums around the city of Bath. In 2015, two of my portraits featured in the National Portrait Gallery’s ‘Understanding British Portraits’ Annual Seminar. My work has been exhibited in various locations; Bath Abbey, The Roman Baths, the Holburne Museum, No. 1 Royal Crescent, Royal United Hospital and Fringe Arts Bath.

JASMINE JANIUREK

Jasmine Kata Perinovic Janiurek is a mixed media fine artist and experimental musician based in Bristol. She toured Europe and the UK as half of the experimental duo Red Kites; an artist in residence at the Nog Gallery, London, with a collective of other artists and musicians and worked at the Brick Lane Gallery. Jasmine works with themes that link her art with the present and with pertinent issues.

STEVEN EDGAR

Steven Edgar moved from Scotland and lives in the South West of England. He sees himself as primarily a photographer of things that are left behind, or overlooked. His work has been exhibited widely, including the Royal West of England Academy, the Architecture Centre and Tobacco Factory in Bristol, and been featured in the Guardian. He experiments with sculpture, pottery and painting in conjunction with the Pathways to Wellbeing team at the Holburne Museum, Bath.

ALLY SCHOOLER

My interest in art runs deep through my digital photography. I imagine altered states of objects and nature through photo editing. I am a poet by nature and I started making images as a means of self-expression or poetry without words. I express myself through the distortion and enhancement of imagery. Photo editing is my paintbrush. I filter the world through my own lens – it’s how I see the world around me.

DAMIEN MORAN

ALISON WILLS

Making things takes me somewhere where nothing else bothers me.

ANNA RATHBONE

I am a maker of things based in Bristol. I work with whatever interests me the most at any given time. Often this is a mix of textiles, performance or live art and installation. Making my work accessible to a range of audiences is a very important part of what I do. Recently I made a digital version of my piece ‘All the threads you left behind’, a performance-installation exploring the theme of grief which was live streamed as part of Bristol Old Vic’s ‘Sudden Connections’ series. I can also be found facilitating workshops with Many Minds (a mental health and performance charity) and performing in Frozen Light Theatre’s outdoor multi-sensory show ‘Night out in Nature.’

PROJECT DIARIES

Glenside Hospital Museum: Curating Memories

Natasha Harrison provides an overview of the curating course that led to ‘Looking to the Light’ exhibition which highlighted the collection and artist responses at Glenside Hospital Museum.

curate and to consider how to curate he exhibition due to take place this summer at Glenside Hospital Museum. The exhibition consisted of 10 artists’ work in response to the museum’s collection.

In January 2022, I attended and assisted with the curating course run by Stella Man at Glenside Hospital Museum in Bristol, as part of a wider National Lottery Heritage Funded project delivered by national arts charity Outside In.

he group met fortnightly to learn the skills needed to

On week three we arranged to visit exhibitions taking place in central Bristol. The trip was planned with the intention for us as a group to look at the exhibitions from a design perspective and to try to unpick the story the curator wanted to get over to their audience.

We looked at two exhibitions

at the Arnolfini which were Dame Paula Rego’s ‘Subversive Stories’ and Donna Huanca ‘Cuerva de Copal’ art installation. Both exhibitions were stylised quite differently for instance Donna Huanca

used sound, mirrors with sand, while Dame Paula Rego’s etchings were framed behind glass and hung more traditionally onto white walls. Other etchings were hung on painted blue walls which made the work more cohesive. We thought the storytelling embedded in her work would appeal to a variety of audiences.

Later on that day we continued onto the Bristol City Museum to see The Grayson Perry Art Club Exhibition which consisted of work done by artists

during the lockdown in 2020. There were three pieces that really caught my eye, one of Banksy’s stencils hanging from the balcony which he used for ‘Create Escape’ which was a piece he placed on the wall of Reading jail.

‘Triple Art Bypass’ by Lucy Sparrow, which was an art installation that consisted of a mock up of an operating theatre which was fully kitted out with a wide variety of hand-sewn felted objects.

Lastly ‘Ticket Rug’ by Simon Fraser, using wool on canvas

was hung on a wall and protected by perspex.

I feel the Exploring Collections and Curating course have deepened my understanding to the point that the three pieces that really impressed me, on reflection could in various ways be connected to memories of Glenside Hospital Museum.

I found the exercise thought provoking, fun and meaningful. And I learnt that curating an exhibition is an art within itself.

“It has given me research skills, looking at archives and talking to practitioners about how things are archived, what gets collected and the ethics around collecting people’s work. I’ve also learnt about the history of different psychiatric care in Scotland because the collection was collected from different institutes. The research was really exciting and it was something I’ve not done before.”

New Dialogues participant

“Because some of the work I was responding to had been made by people who have passed away it felt like reaching back through time. That felt like quite a big responsibility.”

New Dialogues participant

GLASGOW MUSEUMS: UNLOCKING THE EXTRAORDINARY

Joyce Laing was Scotland’s first art therapist. From the 1970s onwards, Joyce collected art she considered ‘extraordinary.’ Much of this work was rescued from mental health institutions before it was destroyed. In 2012 she donated her Art Extraordinary collection of over a thousand pieces to Glasgow Life Museums.

‘Unlocking the Extraordinary’ showcased new work made by artists in response to the collection. Most of the artwork was made in artists’ own homes during the Covid-19 pandemic, with limited resources and is testament to the fact we each have a story as unique as our art.

The Process

Lockdown restrictions created conditions that limited access to spaces, materials, money, facilities, and support for the artists. The artists highlighted the resonances and tangible connections this created with the makers of the Art Extraordinary collection who made astonishing work using limited resources whilst often living in spaces of confinement.

Discussions around the nature and role of making as therapeutic process and working with found materials raised questions of applied value and of hierarchies in art materials and the art world. Working together online but physically separate, a phenomenal space came into being built on new community and compassion, where artists shared personal experience and creative practice, giving new insights into the collection. This openness was underpinned by a deep respect and value for the Art Extraordinary makers, their fragments of history and art, and resulted in two exhibitions of dynamic and sensitive work.

“A phenomenal space came into being built on new community and compassion, where artists shared personal experience and creative practice, giving new insights into the collection.”

UNLOCKING THE EXTRODINARY PROJECT ABILITY EXHIBITION

20 AUGUST – 24 SEPTEMBER 2022

KELVINGROVE MUSEUM AND ART

GALLERY EXHIBITION

20 AUGUST – 21 NOVEMBER 2022

ARTISTS UNLOCKING THE EXTRAORDINARY

Bel is interested in the everyday art we make to survive hostile times. They try to respond to injustice through small acts of accessible protest, often by adding overtly political details to everyday objects. Bel’s practice is fatigue informed and ground in the queer, mad and chronically ill communities they live in.

I identify as an artist but for a long time the thought of being an artist felt very alien to me, it was, after all, another culture. Artists were confident, sophisticated, well-educated people. That’s not how I saw myself even though being creative was important to me. Over time I have been able to overcome many personal, cultural, and social barriers and making art is central to who I am not. As an Outside In Ambassador the journey of exploring and interpreting the Art Extraordinary collection with other artists has been incredible and profound.

BEL PYE

BRIAN GIBSON

CLIFF ANDRADE

Cliff Andrade’s work draws on personal and social histories, referencing migrant and particularly Portuguese disapora experiences, to explore notions that dominate his lived experience: belonging & unbelonging, place & memory, displacement, labour & poverty, hope & hopelessness... and especially the idea of ‘home’ and its importance to our sense of personal identity. He is interested in how walking as an art practice intersects with those concerns and their potential implications for mental (ill) health. Through the summer of 2021, and living with the consequences of surgery for bowel cancer, he walked from John O’Groats to Lands End to put his research into practice.

MORAG MACGILCHRIST

I live and work in Glasgow but was raised on the Isle of Arran. I practice at Project Ability, a Glasgow based arts charity. My work explores my mental ill health and my special interests of dolls, superheroes and anime. I use popular culture influences in the custom dolls and costumes I make. I primarily work in print making using all the various processes and have recently been combining text with photographic imagery.

GRANT GLENNIE

I’m a neurodivergent artist based in Glasgow. I am influenced by a wide variety of things, sometimes subjective and personal. My work often involves exploring the system continuum between highly ordered and highly disordered. I have ben part of Project Ability since 2010, when I was first referred there by a community psychiatric nurse. I make art because it can help give me structure, purpose and improve my mental wellbeing. I enjoy learning through art about everything and anything. I work in a number of mediums but retain a computational, rule based and systems approach.

KIN (AKA CULTURA PLASMIC INC)

Kin (aka Cultura Plasmic INC) is a multi-pseudonymous new media artist and essayist working with video, sound, installation and digital technologies. Her core areas of interest include how power and control operate in different environments, along with how behaviours and psychologies are shaped in relation to these. Since 2020, she has been part of the cohort on Autograph ABP and Shape’s Transforming Leadership programme, an initiative supporting artists who have experienced disadvantage. Over the last few years, she has also produced several radio shows broadcast by Radiophrenia at CCA, Glasgow.

STUART LOW

I was born in Glasgow in the 1970s and I like most artwork. I like to make drawings and paintings that are inspired by my written work. My art explores movement within the constricts of gravity; the changing seasons and the changing skyscapes inspire me. I have my own style taken from nature and I use mostly paint and acrylic pen in bold, bright colours. I have not much formal art education and have accessed Project Ability studio for ten years or so to make and explore my creativity.

ORNAIDIGH THOMPSON

Research is central to my practice: a flux of thought, research, making; each part overlapping the other, informing each other. This body of work was made in response to investigating concepts of inside / outside in the world of art and beyond. Through concluding that our human instinct is to classify ourselves into social structures, organizations, movements, eliciting questions: What is Art? Inside/Outside; a space in between, a merging of all creativity?

“The New Dialogues project enabled me to unpick what art means to me, including its connection to life. It encouraged us to take the plunge and grow in confidence, to believe in our own creative processes and get creating.”

New Dialogues participant

PROJECT DIARIES

Glasgow Museums: Artist Kin’s reflections on Antonia Jabloner

Artist Kin reflects on her time on Outside In’s New Dialogues programme in partnership with Glasgow Museums with a focus on making work in response to that of Austrian artist Antonia Jabloner (1908–2002).

How many of us have had the experience of speaking and yet not being heard? Despite having the tools and means to communicate –whether that is music, dance, voice or any other method of expression – barriers divide what is being said from a listening audience or partner-in-conversation. Repurposing confectionary

packaging to create a series of miniature concert halls, the first two sculptures in this series house a means of creative expression (in this case, a grand piano a little more than 1cm in diameter). On the outside is a layer of insulation that resembles acoustic sound-proofing foam. In one work, the audience seats are made from lollysticks and the layers of a chocolate box provide the basic architectural structure of a tiered theatre space.

Using discarded materials to build with is a key theme running through the ‘Art Extraordinary’ collection,

but so too is a historic undervaluing of artworks made within spaces of confinement (the collector and art therapist Joyce Laing worked tirelessly to address this in her preservation of these artworks). So many artists who have created pioneering works from within hospitals, prisons and so on are omitted from art history books, their creative outputs reaching a miniature audience.

One interpretation of these sculptures might be that the foam covering them is preventing the creative expression taking place within from being heard

– a struggle that many non-mainstream artists experience. From another perspective, perhaps the spiky outer shells provide protection and comfort to the artist within; spaces in which we can express ourselves freely also need to feel safe, and sometimes that arises in spaces of privacy, spaces in which no audience is granted access. A deterrent set up to protect the sensitivity and vulnerability that arises from creative expression. While on the Stepping Up course with Outside In and

Glasgow Museums, I was drawn to the work of Antonia Jabloner and her sketchbook titled ‘Plans for Another World’ containing several detailed designs for what appeared to be spaces of creative expression, many of these featuring rooms with grand pianos. She created these sketches most likely around the 1970s while either in Aberdeen Royal Cornhill Hospital or Seafield House in Ayr, imagining vast spaces far beyond the walls of her confinement. It is thought that Jabloner may have been aware of the

Austrian architect Rudolf Steiner, not least for the similarities between her sketches and the intersecting dome-like features of his First Goetheanum, a space designed for hosting artistic expression in the name of spiritual enlightenment. One of the cornerstones of his thinking was the relationship between built environments and communication, stating ‘buildings will begin to speak’ and that ‘architectural thought becomes the thought of speech’.

Here, designing architecture

becomes a radical, potentially liberatory act: if built environments are bound to the acts of communication and expression that happen within them, does that not also include who gets to speak in these spaces and, indeed, who is silenced?

Continuing to explore the synergies between architecture, music and hierarchies of who is listened to, I created a larger work to stand alongside the miniatures in the summer exhibitions. This time I brought together a smashedup guitar that I found on the street and multiple tracings of Antonia’s architectural sketches; both emblematic of the latent potential of discarded materials and the ideas and expressions that are side-lined as a result.

As far as we know, Jabloner’s building designs only ever remained in 2D form. They were plans for creative spaces that never materialised and remained confined to the pages of a notebook marked within the walls of a psychiatric

institution. This was one of the starting points for my creative process – how could I begin to lift these designs off the page and open up new avenues for understanding? Jabloner never left any detail as to how tall her buildings might be, how the external façade might appear, what materials they may be constructed with, or an overall sense of scale; the designs are only ever shown from above. A

circular space could be an indication of a dome, or it could be a tall column with a flat roof, such are the ambiguities of the birds-eye perspective.

Hanging tracings of her work across strings that are stretched across a towering cardboard frame, the sculpture itself alludes to a building that is both an architectural space and a musical instrument.

Here, both buildings and instruments are shown to be resonant spaces in which expressions are heard in AND with. Flowing from the broken guitar neck are the words: “I could have been a space to be heard in / with.”

Although a smashed instrument found on the street could be read to indicate a disregard for creative expression, it could also speak volumes about the rejection of traditional music tuition and its rules and regulation. I’m reminded of

Nam June Paik’s destruction of instruments in the 1960s against the background of his classical music training. This move has since been interpreted as antiestablishment, a challenge to the elitism associated with this training and ideals of ‘beauty’ and perfectionism, a stance that also resonates with artforms that fall outside of the mainstream.

In any case, the links between space and freedom of expression, of music and architecture, and of

tools and apparatus are pushed to the foreground. It is not enough to have the means of creative expression – whether that is a musical instrument or Jabloner’s clear skill in producing visionary architectural designs –when the apparatus is working to marginalise, ignore or silence the voices made with those tools.

For artists like Jabloner to be heard, the apparatus needs dismantling so that art produced by artists who

happen to be in psychiatric institutions is not undervalued, discarded, or regarded as unimportant. But it is these lingering associations and prejudices against art made in such contexts, by artists not currently in art academies and esteemed schools, that means so much of it is still overlooked.

The final piece I made in this series looked at

the creative potential of architectural sketches as existing in an imaginary beyond the limits of actual possibility and materialisation. Before taking part in the project, I had been reading about Polish artist Tadeusz Kantor’s ‘Monuments of Impossible Architecture’ so this became another strand of influence that recognised the creative potential of the architectural

sketch or design itself in priority over any actual materialisation. In Kantor’s work he proposed magnified versions of domestic objects for specific locations –a gigantic lightbulb, a humongous clothes hanger – and wrote about the value of theoretical musings over final concrete forms.

My sketch marks out a vision for a structure to be built on the site of Eton College, an institution that highlights class privilege and wealth disparity as wrought throughout the UK’s education system. Twenty (out of fifty-five) of Britain’s prime ministers have been former pupils of this one school, a statistic that speaks volumes about family income and power. It illustrates how unlikely it is for those from households that can’t afford the £48,000 yearly tuition fees to reach such powerful positions.

When I was researching Jabloner’s architectural sketches, it was unclear how she decided on the complex outer shapes

of her designs but if she was influenced by Steiner, perhaps it was through organic forms and how these might suggest individual and/or societal change. It is thought that Steiner’s first Goetheanum was based on the general shape of the human brain, the intersecting domes representing the frontal and parietal lobes (Perotti in Kiuntsli et al, 2020). If so, this would have been in keeping with his vision of architecture as being intricately connected with psychology and consciousness. Interestingly, the rear lobe is understood to play a crucial role in proprioception: spatial awareness and how we are able to perceive the location

of our body in relation to other things. Jabloner’s sketches appear as if she was designing spaces for music-making with her inclusion of pianos. If she was influenced by Steiner’s method, I wondered how her spatial arrangements and curved walls might relate to the behaviour and creative expression she was hoping to cultivate within.

Thinking about how architectural design might reflect behaviour and actions to happen within its perimeter and how these might relate to location, I based the outline of my proposed building on an image of collective behaviour – of protest

against class privilege in access to education. This initial image became iconic in representing the 2010 student protests in London, showing the moment when activists broke through police lines to enter Millbank Tower in Westminster.

Not bound by the limits of brick, mortar and traditional building materials, this structure is to be constructed with heterotrophic matter (i.e. fungi) initiating a process of decomposition, absorbing and breaking down an institution of social inequality and disproportionate wealth. In hindsight, perhaps this is a literal internalisation of the ‘eat the rich’ slogan.

ANOTHER SPACE WITHIN VIRTUAL EXHIBITION

27 JANUARY - 21 APRIL 2022

Prior to the physical exhibitions, the New Dialogues artists had their work exhibited in Another Space Within; a virtual exhibition that showcased 30 individual journeys of exploration and creative responses.

853 VISITORS

The virtual exhibition brought together works and research in progress created by artists involved in the courses at all three partner organisations in Bristol, Glasgow and Wakefield.

Click here to visit the exhibition.

THANK YOU

ARTISTS:

alabamathirteen, Cliff Andrade, Steve Burden, Angela Chudley, Donna Coleman, Doll, Steven Edgar, Grant Glennie, Louisa Hammond, Joanna Henderson, Jasmin Janiurek, Kin, Stuart Low, Paige Lyons, Cara Macwilliam, Louise McLachlan, Morag Macgilchrist, Sam Metz, Damien Moran, Bel Pye, Anna Rathbone, Ally Schooler, Mandy Shepherd, Ornaidigh

Thomson, Joanne Tiffany, Alicia Wallace, Alison Wills.

COURSE ASSISTANTS:

alabamathirteen, Jackie Bennett, Brian Gibson, Natasha Harrison, Beth Hopkins.

COURSE TUTORS:

Tanya Harris, Morven Macrae, Stella Man

CURATORS:

Claire Coia (Glasgow Museums), Sally-Anne Evans (Mental Health Museum), Jane Stockdale (Mental Health Museum), Stella Man (Glenside Hospital Museum)

FUNDERS:

U T S

National Lottery Heritage Fund, John Ellerman Foundation, the Art Fund, Card Factory Foundation.

in

IMAGE CREDITS

Grant Glennie, A Number of Losing Lottery Ticket

Swans and Stuart Low, The Moon Phases

Bel Pye, Not-so-straight-jacket

George Harding, The space between thoughts

Art Extraordinary Collection at Kelvingrove Gallery

Alison Wills, Pages from the Green Notebook (middle right)

Natasha Harrison, Charles West (Bottom, right)

Steve Burden, Blue Collar

Jasmin Janiurek

Grant Glennie, A Duration of Time

Ornaidigh Thompson

Donna Coleman, Strong Dress

Cara Macwilliam, The Letter

Sam Metz, Restrained Lines (Left)

Joanne Tiffany, Idle Hands (Bottom, right)

Angela Chudley, Phoenix (Top, right)

Cara Macwilliam (Bottom, right)

alabamathirteen, The Shrinking (Top, left)

Mandy Shepherd, Unravelled (Top, right)

Donna Coleman, Strong Dress (Bottom, left)

Mary Frances Heaton’s blue plaque, courtesy of The Forgotten Women of Wakefield project

Paige Lyons, Mary Frances Heaton

Mary Frances Heaton sampler, Image courtesy of the Mental Health Museum

Paige Lyons, Medical Records

Jo Doll

Jo Doll, Unfettered

Kin, Building up, Breaking Down

Steven Edgar, photograph of details within the church

Anna Rathbone, The threads of what might be stories

George Harding, Glenside Hospital

Buildings, plein air sketches

Natasha Harrison, Bringing the outside in (Top, right)

Jasmin Janiurek, Body, Nurse, Moon, Straitjacket (Right, middle)

Anna Rathbone, The threads of what might be stories (Top, left)

Alison Wills, Listening, not listening (bottom)

Installation shot, Looking to the Light (Top, right)

Alison Wills, Acorn: not fixed, not broken (Top, left)

Alison Wills (Bottom, right)

Natasha Harrison, (bottom left)

Natasha Harrison, Bringing the outside in Jasmin Janiurek

Steven Edgar, photographs of details within the church

Grant Glennie, A Number of Losing lottery Ticket Swans

Cliff Andrade, Journey through a Therapeutic Landscape

The space at Project Ability, Glasgow

Kin, Insulated Auditorium 2 (Left)

Grant Glennie, A Duration of Time (Top, right)

Stuart Low, The Moon Phases (Bottom, right)

Morag McGilchrist, Waves (Right, middle)

Grant Glennie, A Number of Losing lottery Ticket

Swans and Ornaidigh Thompson, Cloud Top, right)

Cliff Andrade, Journey through a Therapeutic Landscape (Bottom, left)

Kin, Heard (Top, left)

Bel Pye, Not-so-straight-jacket (Bottom, right)

Morag McGilchrist, Etching of ‘Waves’

Kin, Insulated Auditorium 1

Kin, Insulated Auditorium 2

Kin, Heard

Kin, I Could Have Been A Space to be Heard In

Kin, Insulated Auditorium 2

Images from the virtual exhibition space, featuring Cliff Andrade’s work (Right)

Images from the virtual exhibition space, featuring Kin’s work (Left, top)

Images from the virtual exhibition space, featuring George J Harding’s work (Left, bottom)

Images from the virtual exhibition space, featuring Louisa Hammond’s and alabamathirteen’s work (Top, right)

Images from the virtual exhibition space, featuring Alicia Wallace’s work (Bottom, right)

Images from the virtual exhibition space, featuring Jasmin Janiurek, Steven Edgar, Ally Schooler’s work

Sam Metz, Restrained Lines