Wakefield artists invited to apply for free course exploring historic artwork by former asylum patients

Charity Outside In is partnering with Wakefield's Mental Hospital Museum to deliver the Step Up: Exploring Collections course, which aims to provide a platform for local artists and work to catalogue historic artwork.

The course, which will run for five weeks over Zoom in March, is run by charity Outside In, which aims to provide a platform for artists who face significant barriers to the art world due to health, disability, social circumstance, or isolation.

The course will focus on the museum’s collection of patient artwork as part of a bigger, nationwide project called Patient Artwork: New Dialogues.

As well as helping to interpret and catalogue the historic artwork, the artists will be encouraged to create their own responses to the art they are shown.

As part of the course, participants are encouraged to find a theme, artist or works from a collection or exhibition that they would like to focus on, they are then encouraged to produce creative responses to this research.

Kate Davey, Outside In’s Training Programme Manager, said: “This course is a wonderful opportunity for contemporary artists with their own lived experience of mental health issues to provide unique perspectives on collections of art made by mental health hospital patients.

“Working in partnership with the Mental Health Museum, we’re looking for artists who see themselves as facing a barrier to the art world who have a strong interest in exploring and responding to the history of mental health, archives and collections to apply to take part in this free, unique online course.

“The museum 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.

“Since 2014, when Outside In delivered the Graylingwell Heritage Project in Chichester, West Sussex, the charity has been involved in championing, discovering, cataloguing, interpreting and showcasing artwork created by patients historically housed within psychiatric hospitals across the UK.

“This ambitious project, made possible thanks to a grant from the National Lottery Heritage Fund, will span two years and three museums which will continue this work to interpret and share these largely unresearched collections.”

The collection holds a number of decorative art and textile works created by patients who were at one point at the Stanley Royd Hospital and includes samplers created by patient Mary Frances Heaton, which incorporate her ideas of activism and protest relating to mental health treatment.”

Applications for the free course close on Monday, February 1 at 5pm, with interviews to be held later in the month.

To participate you must live in Wakefield and surrounding areas and either already be an Outside In artist or meet their criteria. Submissions can be made via their short form, or via audio, easy read, or large text.

To apply or find out more information, please visit the Outside In website here.