Review by
London City Nights (19/09/2016)
You feel a weird combination of reassurance and worry walking
through the doors of an NHS clinic. The staff are busy yet friendly,
the walls are festooned with upbeat primary coloured posters and
there's a pleasantly paternalistic atmosphere. This is a place
designed to make you well, doing its level best to send you out the
door in better shape than you walked in.
But then you notice the damp on the walls, the peeling paint and
furniture that hasn't been replaced in 20 years. The NHS is suffering
the death of a thousand cuts: the victim of a government
ideologically opposed to a free at the point of use publicly owned
health service. Jeremy Hunt assures us that they're merely
'modernising' the NHS when anyone with a glimmer of sense can see
that he's setting it up to fail, its carcass fodder for the circling
corporate vultures of the American healthcare industry. I mean, if
it's not making investors any money, what's the point of it?
So it's wonderful to see an exhibition like The Art of Caring - a
collection of work from nurses, patients and artists depicting their
ideas on the theme of caring, specifically nursing. The exhibition is
collaboration between Kingston University, The Arts Project and
Camden & Islington NHS Foundation Trust, featuring work that
ranges from photography, painting, performance and sculpture. Some of
it is professional and polished, some is rough and passionate, but
all displays a tenderness and empathy that perfectly suits the
surroundings.
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| (Fractured Memories) Doll Therapy by Aran Illingworth |
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There's a lot to take in here, but I particularly enjoyed the
following. (Fractured Memories) Doll Therapy by Aran Illingworth.
It's a quietly devastating canvas piece about Alzheimers, capturing a
painful morsel of misery in the eyes of someone whose memory is
gradually eroding away. The arts n crafts textile look adds to the
emotional wallop, not only looking like something a kindly
grandmother might make, but the rough shapes and soft fabric
underlining the subjects humanity and increasingly blurry edges.
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| Comfort and Joy - Susie Mendelsson |
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On a slightly different wavelength is Susie Mendelsson's Comfort
and Joy, a bizarre mixed-media sculpture of a creepily wizened
homunculus approaching a baby from behind while a tiny man stares on
in horror. It's disturbing stuff, the soft manufactured plastic of
the doll contrasting with the hand-carved chaos of the monster. That
title has got to be a joke, because there's precious little comfort
or joy in this. If I had to pick out a meaning, it seems to speak of
a mother's trauma at losing a baby, then feeling guilt that the next
one survives. Even as she cares for her healthy baby, she cannot help
but imagine the forgotten one, balefully staring on in jealousy.
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| One Day at a Time - Susie Mendelsson |
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Also by Mendelsson is One Day at a Time, depicting a worried
looking person weighed down by faceless little men. This is a little
easier to parse, but no less effective. Here the effect of the
paranoias, traumas and miseries of the past is literalised, showing
them crawling all over an apparently normal person going about their
day to day life. It looks suitably nightmarish, the haunted
expression of the central figure conveying a palpable desperation.
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| Charlotte CHW |
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Sunday's event was capped off by a live performance from Charlotte
CHW, who was also exhibiting photographs. Dressed in a suit that
perfectly matched the brickwork of the building, she writhed about
against the walls and on the floor accompanied by a soundtrack of
breaking glass. Watching this it's difficult not to look up at the
gently spooky Victorian brickwork and wonder just how long this
hospital is going to last. Generations of Londoners have walked
through these halls, each with their own individual ailments and
stories to tell.
The performance understands this history, treating the building
like a psychological sponge that's sucked up a century of trauma and
needs to be squeezed dry. Charlotte's movements are slow,
painful and precise - it's like you can see dust crumbling from her
joints as she repeatedly collapses and rises, trapped in some
infinite loop of pain, healing and more pain. I dug it.
Anyhow, The Art of Caring is well worth checking out,
demonstrating not only the public's affection for the NHS and its
nurses, but just how critical its long-term support systems are.
Whether you've sprained your ankle, suffered trauma in Blair's oil
wars or are watching an elderly relative succumb to dementia, the NHS
will always be there. But it also needs us to fight for it.
Art is Caring is at The Conference Centre, St Pancras Hospital, 4
St Pancras Way, London NW1 OPE (9am-5pm) until 13 October 2016.
The Exhibition finishes with a Closing Event on the 13th
October 2016, 5.30-7.30pm.
