At CW+ we work with a range of art forms, including digital, visual and performing arts with innovative design, to transform the hospital experience and environment for patients, their families and the staff who care for them.
Calming imagery and music has been shown to reduce the anxiety of those using waiting areas. It decreases pulse rate, respiratory rate, metabolic rate, oxygen consumption and blood pressure, as well as reducing stress hormones such as cortisol and adrenaline and instead increasing immune response.
From 1998-2002, CW+ part-funded an academic research project which explored both the psychological and physiological benefits of arts in health. “A Study of the Effects of Visual and Performing Arts in Health Care” by Dr Rosalia Staricoff found benefits included calming anxiety and stress; lowering blood pressure; increasing the production of endorphins and serotonin in the body; and reducing the body’s need for pain management. Most significantly, the study’s introduction of art into treatment rooms found 80% of patients said it improved their mood, and 87% said art was a main factor in creating a pleasant environment.
Our arts programme reflects Dr Staricoff’s findings which show that the integration of visual and performing arts into the healthcare environment has a range of outcomes of clinical significance. The study used accepted evaluation markers and scales regarding, for example, blood pressure, fetal heart rate, immunoglobulin levels, cell counts, amount of analgesics, staff evaluation and patient questionnaires.
Following this research, we began our RELAX Digital programme; a curated selection of commissioned films with calming themes, to be displayed in patient treatment areas and waiting areas. As part of our programme we offered students from the Royal College of Art (RCA) the opportunity to create/show work on our digital screens, which would form part of the RELAX Digital programme which is displayed 24 hours a day.
We had a chat with RCA graduates Eda Sarman and Kit Mead about their films and experience with CW+.
Hi Eda! Tell us about yourself and how you came to work with CW+.
I moved to London for my master’s study at the Royal College of Art in 2017. I wanted to build upon my architectural practice and concentrate on our relationship with our environment. Moving image became a tool with which I can investigate this relationship. Thanks to my tutor, Jordan Baseman, I was introduced to the CW+ and the Relax Digital programme they run in hospitals. I immediately sympathised with the programme’s aim to use moving image for the wellbeing of patients. The CW+ RCA commission gave me the opportunity to create a calmer experience for the patients and their relatives waiting at the lounges of the hospital.
What attracted you to the RELAX Digital project with CW+?
I am the daughter of two doctors. I have always been fascinated with their dedication and care for their patients. RELAX Digital aims to transform the hospital environment with moving image works displayed around the hospital. Producing work for RELAX Digital was a way for me to help doctors and the hospital staff with their everyday effort using my art practice as a soothing tool.
Can you tell us about the inspiration and concepts behind your film?
Favourite Colour was created by current patients for future patients. Having the opportunity to engage with patients, I hoped to introduce something new, fresh and colourful to them. Looking for a common cultural heritage between Turkey, where I am from, and the UK, I found marbling to be the perfect medium. This thousand year old technique of painting on water has travelled from Japan to Turkey and from there to the UK. Today this abstract painting method is classified as an endangered craft by the Heritage Crafts Association. Its long history can be attributed to the alluring patterns one can create on water with every new splash. Holding marbling workshops at the Nell Gwynne Ward and Jupiter Ward, I gave the brush to children and stroke patients and asked them “What is your favourite colour ?”. The resulting piece is a composition of the patients playing with their favourite colours and creating ever-changing patterns to be displayed in the waiting lounges of the hospital.
What has your experience been like doing a project in a hospital environment? Did it meet your expectations?
Hospitals are always sensitive places to be and I had proposed to work with patients for this commission. I hoped this technique of painting on water would help ease patients’ time spent at the hospital. The CW+ staff have been very supportive with every step of the project. After deciding on the most suitable wards, I held four sessions with the youngest and the oldest patients. Some sessions were messier than others. The younger the patient, the more splashes of colour spread to the rooms and I was lucky to work with nurses who were so supportive and enjoyed colours as much as the children did. Overall my experience surpassed my expectations. Seeing how intuitively patients were able to engage with the technique and their enjoyment was all I hoped for.
What advice would you give to other artists who want to work in a hospital setting?
I would encourage them to visit the hospital, get a sense of the environment and talk to nurses. For me, the wellbeing of the patients came first and later the work itself, so while preparing for my project, I adjusted my work to the hospital environment. Also during the sessions I held at the hospital, I saw that leaving something for the patients encouraged their participation. I had brought paper with me, so we dipped and printed each patient’s marbled design on paper. When they were ready to be discharged, they had something to take home with them.
What do you think the future of digital art looks like?
Digital art may still be trying to fit in amongst the more traditional art practices such as painting and sculpture, yet it already has a prominent place in our everyday lives. I see digital art to progress as our engagement to the world takes place more and more digitally on online platforms. As our eyes adjust viewing art on screens, whether on our phones or TV screens, so will digital art thrive. The way CW+ RELAX programme is using existing TV screens to show commissioned artwork is an example of how digital art can be integrated into our lives as a transformative medium.
Since your time with CW+, what other projects have you been working on?
I have always lived in cities with water and London was no different with the Thames and many of its canals running through the city. I wanted to engage with this body of water as an act of interdependence. With two of my friends, we put together a performance, a dance/walk, along the Thames Path during Art Licks Weekend 2019. Then came the crisis of 2020, Covid19, which coincided with a solo show I was preparing in Istanbul. As an artist who produces work by closely engaging with her environment, I created a moving image piece from the last walk I went on to the tulip garden of Istanbul before lockdowns started. The gallery and I shared “spring’s arrival wrapped the earth with mutation” on online platforms for everyone to get a chance to see the blossoming spring from their homes.
Where can we find you on social media/online?
You can check out my website www.edasarman.com. I use my website somewhere along a portfolio and mind map, so anyone interested in my work can have a sense of what I am up to. As a moving image artist, I also use instagram regularly to post quick sketches and ideas @edasarman.
Hi Kit! Tell us about yourself and how you came to work with CW+.
I am an artist based in London and predominantly make composited and layered moving image collages, installations and durational prints that respond to how digital technologies manipulate and modify reality. I moved to London in 2017 to study and complete an MA at the Royal College of Art in Contemporary Art Practice – Moving Image. I came to work with CW+ during my MA through an open call for students on my course to submit proposals for video and film work to be commissioned by CW+. This collaboration was set up by the CAP – Moving Image Pathway Leader Jordan Baseman at the RCA and Trystan Hawkins of CW+.
What attracted you to the RELAX Digital project with CW+?
Art can play an important role in the process of healing and supporting a person’s wellbeing, while also offering a space for escapism or a momentary welcoming distraction. It’s wonderful to know that having worked involved within the RELAX Digital Project will hopefully be there to act in this way and have a positive impact. I also find the challenge of producing digital video work and installations in situations where site specificity is a crucial consideration and component of the work valuable and affecting as it enables change and new dynamics to come through in the processes and methods of making within my practice.
Can you tell us about the inspiration and concepts behind your film?
The digital screen is made up of pixels; slippery things that morph and change continuously into new and different forms. Within the interface of the screen, hierarchy has been removed as the pixel sees no differentiation in where something has come from or what it portrays. Indexicality has been lost with everything capable of turning out to be not what they seem. For the Relax Digital commission I used this mutability of the digital screen to generate an exploratory animation where a collection of objects merge and metamorphise into one another in an apparently endless flow and causing the forms to lose semiotic meaning and significance. These forms are not solid and instead constantly shift into something new and unexpected, setting up a vision where the viewer can be swept away in the malleable sea of the pixel.
What has your experience been like doing a project in a hospital environment? Did it meet your expectations?
It made me appreciate how much of a lived-in-space a hospital is. People are always coming and going but equally returning and spending a great amount of time there, along with the professionals and key workers who are their day and night caring, supporting and looking after patients and their loved ones. I found that people care deeply about the hospital environment and are vocal about it and it was wonderful to hear the positive reactions and enjoyment of having art within and around the hospital. Making work in a hospital environment also enabled conversations and input from people with incredible knowledge and specialisms on different subject matter. Through CW+ I was able to have meetings with specialists in neurosciences which I was able to use in the work itself.
What advice would you give to other artists who want to work in a hospital setting?
Patience is vital. Don’t expect to complete a work in a short amount of time and use that longer slower time to your advantage. Also listen, be open to adjusting the work and responsive to the hospital environment and its sensibilities.
What do you think the future of digital art looks like?
It will become something that isn’t what we would currently and recognisably consider to be digital. Its immaterial qualities will be shown to be a mask and its physicality will become more apparent. The distinctions between living and machine will be evermore blurred and seamless.
Since your time with CW+, what other projects have you been working on?
I completed my MA and continue to develop projects with similar themes and subject matter to the work produced for CW+ and delving ever deeper into the medium of animation.
Where can we find you on social media/online?
IG: kit_mead Website: http://www.kitmead.co.uk/
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