Falmouth artists take part in creative projects by mental health charity Hospital Rooms

Artists from our Falmouth School of Art (FSA) are involved in the work of Hospital Rooms - a charity initiative which harnesses the power of art to improve mental health patient wellbeing in hospitals.

Founded by artist Tim Shaw and curator Niamh White in 2016, Hospital Rooms collaborates with artists, service users and NHS mental healthcare units to craft innovative artwork and creative programmes, while dispelling stigmas and advocating for culture and creativity in mental health care.

Hospital Rooms in Cornwall

Led by a core programme team, the charity runs projects across the UK. Fine Art BA graduate Izzy Eastick joined the team in 2023, in the role of Project Assistant, which sees her help with the general planning, organisation, and running of the project in Cornwall.

On her experience working for Hospital Rooms, Izzy told us: "One of the most valuable things has been spending time on the units and getting to know the staff and service users and getting to know the environment; how it works and how people access creativity in those spaces. One of the things we noticed was that the service users didn't have access to high quality equipment; there's a men's forensic unit that we're working in, for example, where all they had access to was coloring books. So that's been really interesting, seeing how we can introduce more meaningful engagement with creativity for them."

She added: "Working with Hospital Rooms has had such an impact on who I am as an artist and person. As a job it has been so rewarding, being able to make such a tangible impact, and so I'd love to continue working for organisations that care as much as Hospital Rooms does about their impact. Ultimately it has shown me that I really want to make a difference to people."

Falmouth academic staff Ben Sanderson, Maria Christoforidou and Lucy Willow are three of the artists working on Hospital Rooms projects with Cornwall Partnership NHS Foundation Trust to create artworks for the inpatient mental health wards in Redruth and Bodmin, aiming to put culture and creativity at the heart of mental health care in Cornwall.