Abstract

Hauser & Wirth is hosting a major exhibition showcasing the extraordinary work of arts and mental health charity Hospital Rooms. Hospital Rooms’ mission is to radically transform the face of mental health care in the UK and beyond, and to generate new knowledge around how the arts operate in the mental health sphere. They 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 held in the most restrictive mental health settings, from Psychiatric Intensive Care Units to Forensic Services. Hauser & Wirth has been a key supporter of Hospital Rooms over the past three years through annual auctions that have collectively raised over £200,000 for the charity. The gallery is now solidifying its partnership with Hospital Rooms through a new commitment to make collective and significant change through a series of events, exhibitions and fundraising initiatives taking place until 2025.
From 19 August through 14 September 2022, a new exhibition at Hauser & Wirth London is sharing Hospital Rooms’ extraordinary work. The show features ambitious new artworks by artists Mark Titchner, Harold Offeh and Michelle Williams Gamaker that have been created in collaboration with people with lived experience of mental health services and installed inside mental health hospitals across the UK. The exhibition will culminate in a fundraising auction on 14 September 2022, featuring Amy Sherald, Pipilotti Rist, Takesada Matsutani, Thomas J Price and more. The fourth annual auction will generate significant funds for a new art programme and a series of artworks for the Rivers Centre, Norfolk, and Suffolk NHS Foundation Trust. In addition to the live auction, numerous artists have generously created original artworks on 25 x 21 cm canvases that feature the word ‘HOPE,’ which will be available to bid online at Bonhams.com during for the duration of the exhibition.
The exhibition also plays host to an investigative and collaborative arts program that invites wider artists and arts organisations to join Hospital Rooms and Hauser & Wirth in imagining a new future for mental health services. This includes a Family Festival—a day of art workshops for young families to encourage play and creativity—on 20 August 2022, a series of art workshops throughout August and September, and a multidisciplinary research symposium on 10 September 2022 that will consider and critically reflect upon the spaces Hospital Rooms works in and the communities they work with.