ART vs REHAB is a platform for people working in art and rehabilitation; including those working creatively in addiction, the criminal justice system, homelessness and mental health.

It is a catalyst for criticality and change in the field, based on the principles of open innovation and collaborative practice.

ART vs REHAB produces live events and resources to stimulate critical thinking, research key issues and develop support networks.

Who’s behind this initiative?

This initiative was conceived by artist and researcher, Hannah Hull, and is supported by Arts Council England, TCCE (The Culture Capital Exchange), ICCE (Institute of Creative and Cultural Entrepreneurship, Goldsmiths) and C4CC (The Centre for Creative Collaboration).

What’s the thinking behind ART vs REHAB?

Hannah studied BA Fine Art and PGCert Innovation in Practice at Goldsmiths, University of London. Through her socially-engaged art practice she became aware of the need to innovate and strengthen the relationship between art and rehabilitation.

“A key obstacle to innovating this field is the diverse routes from which people enter it. Numerous professional qualifications lead into this field, and, as with much of the third sector, unqualified volunteers are essential to maintaining services. As there is no standard route to – or site of – rehabilitative art activity, it is difficult to innovate via policy or training.

“This diversity has led to communication issues: logistical difficulties in disseminating to the entire field, and linguistic difficulties in producing information that is understood by all.

“Another key issue is that the use of evaluation to prove results and maintain funding – rather than as a vehicle to improve practice – has caused a lack of criticality. A culture of optimism within the field – where criticality is seen as the opposite of inclusion – has also contributed to this.

“As such, autonomous, cross-disciplinary discussion can be seen as key to innovating the rehabilitative arts. ART vs REHAB and the Critical Tool Kits provide a platform for critical thinking that will generate the shared language and tools that can be understood and applied by all.”

Contact…

Hannah Hull

Email: hannahchristinehull@gmail.com

Twitter: @hannahhull_uk

Website: www.hannahhull.co.uk 

So far, we have focused on six key themes, as identified by our collaborators. These themes are explored through the Critical Tool Kits, Critical Writing and Podcasts…

Artists vs Art Therapists

What are the pros and cons of employing either an artist or an art therapist within rehabilitative art projects? And what we can learn from each other’s approaches? Are there alternative connections between art and therapeutic practices – ones which are less obvious than the production of drawings and artefacts?

Criticality and Evaluation within a Culture of Optimism

How do current evaluation processes hinder the critical reflection needed to improve practice in the field? And how is it possible to be both inclusive and critical?

The “Other” and the Mental Health History of Practitioners

What are the pros and cons of practitioners having personal experience of the issues they are working with? How do we deal with the practitioner or participant being seen as the “other”?

Providing and Promoting Social Inclusion: One in the Same?

Providing social inclusion for individuals and promoting social inclusion to the public are two different aims. When can these aims go hand in hand, and when might they conflict? Are we further stigmatising our participants by the way we exhibit their work?

The Role of Art Institutions in Art Outreach

With a large proportion of social art projects being funded via galleries and museums, what affect do these institutions have on such projects? What conflicts of interest arise when working with institutions? What does a good model for this relationship look like?

The Role of Art Practitioners’ Own Art Practice

What is the relationship between art practitioners’ personal art practice and their outreach art practice [i.e. community projects, gallery education, art and health, etc]? How do artists maintain creative autonomy for themselves and their participants within rehabilitative settings?

How were the themes chosen?

The six themes emerged from a seminar held at the Centre for Creative Collaboration in October 2010.

50 people attended, including individuals from: NHS, BBC Arts, Mind, Paul Hamlyn Foundation, Lankelly Chase Foundation, CALMzine, University of Arts Magazine, CIDA (Cultural Industries Development Agency),  Artsdepot, Queen Mary’s, Goldsmiths, Look Ahead, The Camden Society, The Bluecoat, BPP Law School, Bath Spa University, London Borough of Lambeth and Studio Upstairs.

Contact…

Hannah Hull

Email: hannahchristinehull@gmail.com

Twitter: @hannahhull_uk

Website: www.hannahhull.co.uk

These FREE Critical Tool Kits will help you explore six key themes currently affecting the relationship between art and addiction, homelessness, mental health and the criminal justice system. They will help you think more critically about the relationship between art and rehabilitation, challenge current conventions and improve your practice.

Click on a description to download each tool kit…

The tool kits are designed to be used by a mixed group of practitioners working in the field. This may include artists, therapists, academics, service users, service providers, funders and commissioners.

If you are working as a group, it is recommended that the group is as diverse as possible. However, many activities can be undertaken alone or in pairs.

The amount of time you will need to complete tasks will depend on the size of your group. As a guide, a group of ten people should allow 30 minutes per task, approximately three hours per tool kit.

The content of these tool kits have been contributed by a range of practitioners on the basis that it is freely available to support development in the field. You may not sell or charge for access to any tool kit content.

How were the Critical Tool Kits developed?

In June 2012 artists, therapists, academics, service users, service providers, funders and commissioners attended focus groups on the key themes. The focus groups were carefully curated to include a broad range of angles and experience. Participants contributed a mix of tasks, quotes and further reading suggestions to the focus groups, which subsequently formed the basis of each tool kit.

Contact…

Hannah Hull

Email: hannahchristinehull@gmail.com

Twitter: @hannahhull_uk

Website: www.hannahhull.co.uk

These podcasts document discussions between ART vs REHAB collaborators in response to the key themes…

Click on a title to listen or download via SoundCloud…

Artists vs Art Therapists

Criticality and Evaluation within a Culture of Optimism

The “Other” and the Mental Health History of Practitioners

Providing and Promoting Social Inclusion: One in the Same?

The Role of Art Institutions in Art Outreach

The Role of Art Practitioners’ Own Art Practice

Discussion facilitated and recorded by Paddy Gormley

Audio edited by David Vannen

Contact…

Hannah Hull

Email: hannahchristinehull@gmail.com

Twitter: @hannahhull_uk

Website: www.hannahhull.co.uk

Commissioned articles written by our collaborators in response to the key themes. All articles are currently pending publication in other places and will be posted here at a later date.

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Go Tell It to the Birds
Simon McCormack – Writer and Recovering Addict
In response to The “Other” and the Mental Health History of Practitioners

‘When you say paranoid – what do you mean? Exactly?’

He picks up a biro to make notes.

Tell him. Tell about trips and night time marches into the concrete. Tell about the weeping woman on the train and her reflection in the big, rectangle windows. Tell about covering mirrors in net curtain. Tell about obsessions with numbers. Tell about the music. Tell about the numbers and music.

Tell. Tell him about the movie, the drama, the soap opera, the game-show. Tell about the focus, the magnet, me, me, me. Tell about the foot going down wrong, the walking, tell about the walking and the foot going down wrong and getting shouted at in the street.

Tell him. Tell about the non-stop. Tell him rejection fuels rejection, breath fuels breath, tell about love, lack of love, blackout. Tell him this is not you.

‘What I mean,’ he says, ‘is if you see a red ball rolling towards you, down the street say, do you think it’s meant for you?’

Go Tell It to the Birds was published in The Big Issue

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With art as a tool for reflection and change, is foreshadowing a past the artist might want to move away from merely the way forward?
Linda Bartoli – Creative Therapeutic Practitioner
In response to Providing and Promoting Social Inclusion: One in the Same?

“In the back yard where I am residing leans a mirror against a wooden fence with a sentence written on it in permanent marker – Something good is gonna happen to me soon.

“As the words were put to glass, I was not part of the experience; I was nowhere to be found. The letters standing on their own are meaningless. The impact has no specific significance to me. I am unmoved but alerted.

“S o m e t h I n g g o o d I s g o n n a h a p p e n t o m e s o o n .

“At a second examination, I notice that a capital letter starts the string of letters and a period; a full stop makes it a sentence. When I step in front of the letters, I see my image and I am attached to the words. It is a personalized message, “Something good is gonna happen to me soon.” I smile. Placed together the words give way to a context that evokes a present, a past and a future; a fantasy of what I wish will happen, where I am now and what I know has already happened.”

CLICK HERE TO READ FULL ARTICLE [PDF]

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The Deceptive Loving Power of Words
Sylvia Battista – Artist and Academic
In response to Criticality and Evaluation in a Culture of Optimism

“I am going to look at the interpretation and use that funding institutions make of terms such as growth, wellbeing and rehabilitation; exploring the underlying semantic conflict with the meanings attributed to them by artists and social workers. What is problematic for most artists and social workers is in fact that institutions, embedded in a political apparatus that is highly informed by a capitalistic and consumerist system, fail to understand the complexity of the projects they fund.

“The fact that political discourse is embedded within an economy that is capitalistic and consumerist dictates that its institutions employ models of interpretation that are rooted in a quantitative framework. For example, growth in these terms means an increase in the amount of goods and services that an economy is able to produce and consume in time. Therefore, following this logic, rehabilitation and wellbeing will be evaluated according to the capacity of individuals to contribute to production and consumption. A happy person will be understood as a person capable of producing and consuming in great quantities and in a short time. A rehabilitated person is an individual that, after a period of disengagement, comes back to this chain of production and consumption. Quantity in materialistic terms is the underlining narrative of this perspective.”

CLICK HERE TO READ FULL ARTICLE [PDF]

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Conflicts in Care: How do artists navigate notions of autonomy, collaboration and patronage in care settings?
Rhiannon Evans – Artist and Care Worker
In response to The Role of Art Practitioners’ Own Art Practice

“I am floating within a post-graduate space of consolidation of my personal art practice and my need to earn a living. I have a professional background in health and social care and my practice leans towards social engagement, collaboration and participation. I have a personal desire to make art and am also drawn art practice within a care setting. I know that art making is a therapeutic activity but recognise that I am not a trained art therapist.

“In addition, my personal position has changed recently through the uncomfortable recognition of my own physical limitations and a new label of ‘disability’ resulting from a diagnosis of a common medical condition that is, for the most part, invisible to others. Because of this alteration, I have taken on a new form of questioning which has lead me to consider, with some unease, issues around the intentions of my own art practice, of my commissioners and how these motivations may impact on clients and participants.”

CLICK HERE TO READ FULL ARTICLE [PDF]

A shorter version of this article has been published by The Rant – Axis Webzine

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Art of the Marginalised: Public Property or Social Transformation? 
Ian Patel – Academic
In response to Providing and Promoting Social Inclusion: One in the Same?

“Recent years have seen an increased interest in the creative work of specific groups of people. In particular, exhibitions hosting the work of former drug addicts, homeless people, and criminal offenders have been provocative examples of such interest. These exhibitions rely on public interest in self- or untaught works of art, but also trade on the interest of general audiences in the extreme experiences supposedly implicit in such art…”

CLICK HERE TO READ FULL ARTICLE

This article was published in ArtsProfessional

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Case study of a project: ART vs REHAB
Jessica Akerman – Artist and Project Coordinator
In response to The Role of Art Practitioners’ Own Art Practice

“ART vs REHAB was devised by artist Hannah Hull, following two years of research in diverse rehabilitative art settings. Generating open dialogue between practitioners and stakeholders, its ultimate aim was to improve art services for a range of vulnerable social groups. The project revolved around six focus groups held in June 2012, each encouraging critical engagement with a different aspect of art and rehabilitation. The tangible outcome of these conversations is a series of free online tool kits designed to support people working in this context. My role was to coordinate these sessions, and assist in the follow up evaluation, press and marketing…”

Pending publication in engage

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Messerschmidt & Me
Scott Farlow – Artist and Recovering Addict
In response to The “Other” and the Mental Health History of Practitioners

“I have never met Franz Xaver Messerschmidt. But I feel like I have. He died in August 1783; a little over 185 years before I was born. He was also German; I am not. Messerschmidt grew up in Munich and trained as a sculptor in Graz before becoming assistant professor of sculpture at the Imperial Academy of Vienna in 1769. In 1771 he suffered ‘confusion in the head’ and his expectations of gaining promotion to the Chair of Sculpture were sadly dashed. After further subsequent career disappointments Messerschmidt finally settled in Pressburg (now Bratislava) where he focussed his considerable talent as a craftsman on the production of a series of extraordinary character heads of ‘very strange aspect’ and for which he is best known…”

Pending publication in Asylum Magazine

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Names
Simon McCormack – Writer and Recovering Addict
In response to The “Other” and the Mental Health History of Practitioners

“Names is a short absurdist sketch that explores the nature of creativity within a wider context of mental health in the workplace. It was provoked by the ART vs REHAB focus group in which we discussed how the mental health history of a practitioner impacts on / informs delivery. I was inspired by the idea of addressing mental health problems and diagnoses without talking about mental health…”

Pending publication in  Asylum Magazine 

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Contact…

Hannah Hull

Email: hannahchristinehull@gmail.com

Twitter: @hannahhull_uk

Website: www.hannahhull.co.uk

ART vs REHAB  is an ongoing critical conversation that has so far involved over one hundred artists, therapists, academics, service users, service providers, funders and commissioners, including…

Abi Knipe, Aidan Gray, Aidan Moesby, Ailsa Hollond, Alberto Duman, Alexia Scott, Alison Rooke, Alison Trower, Amanda Whittle, Andre Penteado, Anika Carpenter, Anna Madeleine, Anne Barrow, Antenisio Santos, Barbara Dean, Beth Elliott, Caroline Horton, Cate Gordon, Cathie Cox, Chiki Onwukwe, Chloé Gayet, Chris Brown, Christopher Wait, Claire Brett, David Clegg, David Fried, Dawn Brecken, Dean Whittington, Eleanor Shipman, Elliot Tucker, Emilie Taylor, Emma Wolfindale, Erin Soros, Errol Francis, Frances Walton, Hannah Hull, Helen Ervin, Helen Gilbert, Holly Caldecourt, Ian Patel, Isabella Pitisci, Ismail Ali, Jacqueline McCullough, Jamie Griffiths, Jamie Scahill, Jane Fradgley, Jane Lloyd, Jenny Price, Jenny Richards, Jessica Akerman, Jessica Green, Jodie Sadler, Jon Abrams, Jonathan Banks, June Bianchi, Katherine Horsham, Kim Keith, Kim-Leng Hills, Lauren Squires, Lesley Oakley, Lili Barcroft, Linda Bartoli, Louise O’Hare, Louise Prince, Louise Shelley, Maeva Gonzalez, Manjinder Sidhu, Maria Tsartsali, Mark Prest, Martyn Cheesman, Matthew Taylor, Megan Bellamy, Michael Gerstein, Michelle Baharier, Myles Stewart, Myles Stewart, Paddy Gormley, Patricia Ferguson, Pauline Ubah, Rachel Sears, Rhiannon Evans, Rhiannon Sawyer, Richard Ings, Rowena Deletant, Ryan Campinho Valadas, Sam Curtis, Sam Hickson, Sara Kewly Hyde, Sarah & Thomas Tobias, Sarah Jay, Sarah Sansom, Scott Farlow, Shehnoor Ahmed, Silvia Battista, Simon Bond, Simon McCormack, Sophie Hope, Susan McNally, Tam Joseph, The Vacuum Cleaner, Theresa Nash, Vanessa Bartlett and Will Essilfie 

This initiative was conceived by artist and researcher, Hannah Hull, and is supported by Arts Council England, TCCE [The Culture Capital Exchange], ICCE [Institute of Creative and Cultural Entrepreneurship, Goldsmiths] and C4CC [The Centre for Creative Collaboration]

Supporting venues include Bethlem Gallery and Archives, Studio Upstairs, The Showroom, West London Day Centre and the Keynes Library at Birkbeck.

Project coordination by Jessica Akerman / Graphic facilitation and design by Jo Buchan / Discussions facilitated and documentated by Paddy Gormley / Audio editing by David Vannen

Contact…

Hannah Hull

Email: hannahchristinehull@gmail.com

Twitter: @hannahhull_uk

Website: www.hannahhull.co.uk

If you would like to be kept informed about ART vs REHAB, or wish to contribute to the initiative, please get in touch…

Hannah Hull

Email: hannahchristinehull@gmail.com

Twitter: @hannahhull_uk

Website: www.hannahhull.co.uk