Open Spaces Creative Workshops
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Award winning Artist, Art Therapist and Animator, Tony Gammidge (www.tonygammidge.com), will screen a selection of extraordinary animated films co-created in prisons, secure units and with asylum seekers from Calais and Freedom from Torture.
These films will be used as a starting point for an in conversation with Consultant Psychiatrist and Professor of Offender Healthcare, Annie Bartlett (St George’s – give link to Annie’s profile) opening up to a wider discussion with workshop participants. The evening will explore the importance of working with narrative with people who are often disempowered and traumatised and how working in this way can give participants a sense of agency and responsibility for their own stories. It will highlight how the animation process can be a safe and powerful medium through which to tell trauma narratives and through conversation between two experts approaching the topic from different perspectives, raise urgent questions around whose stories are heard, what is the line between fiction and non-fiction, through whose language are such stories told and what is the value of story to healing?
Watch the full video here
Date: Monday 18 October 2021
Time: 5:30pm - 7pm, On Site
With Professor Alison Baverstock, Kingston University.
A follow up to last years successful workshop, we are pleased to offer a practical and informative workshop exploring how and why it’s worth building a writing practice – even though your life is already packed. Alison will cover both the benefits and the practical stages involved, and the workshop will be peppered with opportunities for practical involvement – with plenty of opportunities for questions.
'Open to Write' facilitated by Sharon Morris
We will look at types of poetry and Sharon will set some practical exercises in ways of writing. You are welcome to write in any language and/or bring languages together. Please bring a pencil or a pen and a piece of paper for a workshop aimed at opening up your writing.
There will be no requirement to share your writing and no previous experience of poetry necessary.
This is a writing workshop designed to help you to start a piece of creative writing, with suggestions as to how to write into the blank page. We will be looking at a selection of short poems as examples of how poetry harnesses the power of language to bring together feelings and ideas. The writing exercises centre on prompts to enable you to write what you most want to say. You are welcome to write in more than one language and to include translations or not.
Prof Sharon Morris has published 2 collections of poetry and an artist’s book of poems and images with Enitharmon Press and Editions. As part of her teaching at the Slade School of Fine Art, UCL, she set up the Slade Poetry Shed as an on-line resource for writing and writing workshops. She has also run poetry workshops for asylum seekers, including a series entitled ‘Mother and Other Tongues’, focussing on different languages. Register for the workshop here.
We are pleased to offer a practical and informative workshop exploring how and why it’s worth building a writing practice – even though your life is already packed. Alison will cover both the benefits and the practical stages involved, and the workshop will be peppered with opportunities for practical involvement – with plenty of opportunities for questions.
In the long run, writing and reflecting builds empathy, objectivity, and can provide a means of further income in the future (as Dr Adam Kay knows well).
The session will draw on a range of sources for inspiration, including ‘Airhead’ by Emily Maitlis — the book chosen for this year’s Big Read at St George’s. The session is also part of the Big Read’s schedule of activities. Alison is the author of ‘Is there a book in you?’ and ‘Marketing your book, an author’s guide’ – both published by Bloomsbury – and jointly established Kingston’s MA Publishing at Kingston (now the top such course in London).
Prof Alison Baverstock, Kingston University
The Experience of Portraiture in a Clinical Setting
A unique opportunity to see the paintings of celebrated artist and researcher, Dr Mark Gilbert and hear about his process during collaborations with patients and clinicians exploring the value of portraiture in healing and clinical interactions.
Dr. Mark Gilbert will discuss the challenges and rewards of using the artistic medium of portraiture to explore the experiences of patients and their caregivers. Gilbert has built up an extraordinary practice, projects including Saving Faces at The Royal London Hospital and Portraits of Care at the University of Nebraska Medical Center (UNMC), both exhibited widely in venues across Europe and the US, including the National Portrait Gallery, London. Drawing on these he will describe ways in which the arts/sitter interaction parallels salient aspects of the doctor/patient relationship.
This workshop will also include a drawing exercise, in which Dr. Gilbert will encourage the class to explore how drawing enables us to better see and feel.
No particular skill or previous experience of drawing is necessary, just a willingness to have a go in order to understand the ways in which drawing can refine the way we look and observe. See Mark Gilbert's profile here. Sign up here.
Drawing with Onya McCausland
The workshop will provide a structure enabling you to develop both your observational drawing skills and creative imagination by experinenting with each of these three perspectival methods in turn: point linear perspective, isometric drawing and aerial perspective.
Date TBC.
Facilitated by Onya McCausland, visual artist and research fellow, Slade School of Fine Art, UCL.
Movement workshops are taught by Anusha Subramanyam, a choreographer, movement therapist, and Asian dancer from the Beeja dance company. These workshops encourage participants to find and explore their own possibilities of movement by building awareness of sensations within the body and exploring improvised movement and the use of breath. Accompanied by live music, vocal, and percussion.
Date: 1 December 2021
Time: 5.30 – 7pm Online
Register here
The first in a series of inclusive dance movement workshops, informed by experiential anatomy, imagery and movement improvisation practices. All welcome.
Each session will begin with a brief introduction to the day's theme.
The workshops will encourage participants to find and explore their own possibilities of movement. Through building awareness of sensations within the body, exploring improvised movement, breath, and some experimentation with the use of voice. Elements of Indian dance and yoga will also be incorporated. Accompanied by an eclectic range of music that connects us deeply to ourselves. This Workshop is suitable for all abilities, wheel chair users.
If you feel you have restricted movement or just that you have sat staring at a screen or sitting at your desk for too long, this is exactly what you are looking for!!
Come and have fun moving together and discover your inner power, power of movement!
Anusha returns to St George’s in 2020 with a series of inspiring and exhilarating workshops. The workshops will encourage participants to find and explore their own possibilities of movement by building awareness of sensations within the body and exploring improvised movement and the use of breath. Elements of Indian dance, yoga, and somatic practice will be incorporated into the session, highlighting the value of movement to health promotion and well-being.
Sessions will be delivered remotely for the time being. No previous experience of movement necessary and the workshop is suitable for all abilities. Previous attendees described the sessions as: ‘inspiring’, amazing’, ‘exhilarating’.
Join upcoming workshops here.
Creative approaches to body, breath and voice for healthcare professionals.
Open Symposium: Music for Well Being
Click here to register.
This first of the Open Spaces Open Symposiums is a rare invitation to join them at St George’s for this one off event to hear about the highly successful Connection Through Music events (including working with the Regional Staff Wellbeing Hub, set up to deal with the psychological fallout of the pandemic on staff) and the online Music for Wellbeing playlists. Come along, engage in conversation and ask your questions. Read more about Music for Well Being.
With wellbeing researcher Dr Paras Patel, Dr Kennedy and Prof Osborne have worked on neurophysiological measures of human emotion in music (in particular HRV) and have collaborated in bringing together experiences of dealing with trauma in the health services and in the NGO sector respectively - something of particular importance during the pandemic.
They have developed a number of interventions for mental health, including the highly successful Music for Wellbeing website on NHS TEWV Recovery College online, weekly “Connection through Music” webcasts, and creative projects for NHS staff resilience hubs.
A special feature of the work is X-System, a technology invented by the late Professor Paul Robertson ARSM, Professor of Music Medicine at the Peninsula Medical School, and Nigel Osborne, which models the musical brain and can predict with accuracy the neurophysiological effects of music in all cultures. This is now being trialled and deployed in a wide variety of areas, ranging from perinatal care and prevention of epilepsy to psychiatric care, and care of the elderly.
Nigel is working in music and well being programmes in various music hubs across the UK, in particular a pilot with Dorset Council as well as composing a chamber opera, Naciketa, with libretto by American/Chilean poet and writer, Ariel Dorfman. A concert performance of Naciketa will be at the Queen Elizabeth Hall on October 15th 2021 produced by Opera Circus and streamed to a wider audience through the Southbank. More information on this soon.
Angela and Nigel will share stories, a couple of short films, explore the x-system process with you and encourage questions and conversations.
Dr Angela Kennedy is one of the UK’s leading innovators in mental health care. She is currently the North of England Clinical Network Lead for Mental Health, and NHS England Lead for Trauma Informed Care. She is a former Board member of the European Society for Trauma and Dissociation, and Compassion leadership SIG Chair of Compassionate Mind Foundation.
Prof Nigel Osborne MBE FRCM FEIS FRSE is a composer, aid worker and former Reid Professor of Music at Edinburgh University, who specialises in using music to support children who are victims of conflict.
Singing for Lung Health
An introductory workshop facilitated by Phoene Cave (www.themusicalbreath.com)
• Background and context for the work within the arts and health field
• An overview of the impact of chronic lung conditions & dysfunctional breathing
patterns (and the difference between the two)
• Brief precis of current & future research
• Singing for Lung Health objectives with overview of delivery, content and best
practice
• A demonstration of the practical application utilising music, movement, mindfulness
and singing to support breathlessness
Phoene Cave is an HCPC registered music therapist and clinical supervisor. She is a singer, vocal coach and a qualified shiatsu practitioner. She has worked in music with communities in nurseries, schools, hospitals, prisons and refugee hostels as well as lecturing across education, community music and music therapy settings.
She set up Singing for Breathing at six major London hospitals and was the first singing leader in 2008 at the Royal Brompton Hospital. In 2015, she was invited to write and deliver a Singing for Lung Health training programme for the British Lung Foundation and has trained 200 new singing leaders, 80 of them funded by the BLF. She was later Head of Music Services London at Nordoff Robbins before spending 2 years in clinical music therapy practice working at HMP Bronzefield with the prison’s most challenged and challenging women, as well as in the mother and baby unit. In 2018 she moved to the south coast of England working with children and young people with social, emotional and mental health needs.
Phoene is director of www.themusicalbreath.com where she continues to be involved in research and to deliver training courses.
Date: Wednesday 20 October 2021
Time: 5pm - 7pm
Award winning international Artist Joy Gregory returns to St George's with an exciting photography workshop focusing on her work 'Breaking Barriers' with the Black Cultural Archives. An opportunity to see some of Joy’s extraordinary images and to experiment with creating your own photographic portrait, exploring your own identity.
From Rita Hayworth to Rita Ora good lighting is essential in the creation of a great image. This workshop will explore the components of good portraiture through the use of lights, reflectors, camera position and pose.
No previous experience of photography necessary
Following the success of her over-subscribed workshops last year, international photographer Joy Gregory returns with two new exciting workshops; one for Black History Month stimulated by her recent work on Matron Bell and other nurses who have contributed to the NHS and one on cameraless photography inspired by her new project exploring the healing properties of Jamaican plants. Part of Black History Month.
- 12 October 2020, 5-7pm — Workshop One.
- 9 March 2021, 5-7pm — Workshop Two.
The second workshop will be a space for small discussion groups to explore, reflect and share knowledge/stories on the use of plants as medicine in different cultures. There will also be an opportunity to reflect on the use of plants in present day pharmaceuticals and clinical practice.
Inspired by the work of Anna Atkins participants will make their own cyanotype prints in response to the discussions on medicinal plants. There will be a demonstration on how to make cyanotype prints from scratch during the workshop. All materials will be provided to enable you to make your own at home. There will be a follow-up workshop later, to share work, experiences and seek further advice.
Register for the workshops here.
Joy Gregory is an artist working with photography and lens based media. Her work often explores the politics of identity from gender and race. She is currently working on a commission for the Black Cultural Archives reflecting on images of black leadership, and is creating five portraits of prominent black women whose life stories are about breaking barriers.
During the lockdown her work was featured as Artist of the Week for Artist Residency Centre in Botswana, alongside Vanessa Jackson and Diana Hyslop. She was also one of the Arts Foundation Fellows who did an instagram takeover featuring the Black Cultural Archives commission, ‘Breaking Barriers’, and coinciding with conversations relating to Black Lives Matter. Her long-term project exploring language and identity engages with the last speakers of the endangered language Nluu.
She is an associate lecturer in Fine Art Photography at Camberwell School of Art. Her work is in many major collections and she exhibits across the world including at the Venice and Australian Biennales.
Using creative design methods: Making futures together for healthcare
Tuesday, 13 April, 5.30 - 7.00pm
This session is led by Professor Mike Waller, Head of Design at Goldsmiths, who has been working on building innovation skills in a number of sectors including healthcare, governments, businesses and charities. This workshop will introduce a creative design method to help us think together creatively and apply our own imagination to build scenarios for a range of possible futures.
It is important that we all have a voice and contribute to the futures we would like to be part of. This session is interactive and will apply creative design methods to your own areas of expertise in healthcare. The activity will involve a short talk about encouraging your own creativity and curiosity; the building of shared timelines of social, technological, and political change; the development of future scenarios; and the sharing of our imaginative ideas through the development of tangible stories with simple sketch design props.
You will need to bring a few bits of material to the online session. This could include a few of the following; some paper, a few pens, some tape, old cardboard packaging or boxes, silver foil or anything else to hand. Don’t worry if you don’t have materials - we can improvise. You do not need any design skills or previous experience of design or making, just a willingness to have a go and share ideas. All students and staff welcome.
Sound and silence: ways of listening
Facilitated by Dr Tansy Spinks
‘Walk so silently that the bottoms of your feet become ears’
(Pauline Oliveros, Sonic Meditations)
The practice of healthcare requires ‘deep’ listening and yet how much attention do we pay to sound in comparison to sight? Sound artist, lecturer and musician, Dr Tansy Spinks (Middlesex University), will facilitate two workshops introducing Michael Chion’s three modes of listening. In between sessions participants will be given a score or ‘sound walk’ to follow in their local environment and some short readings reflecting on ways in which we receive, analyse and filter sound. These workshops are introductory and participatory. All staff and students welcome.
Participants are encouraged to attend both sessions:
Workshop 1 — Monday, 16 November, 4.30–5.30pm
Workshop 2 — Monday, 30 November, 4.30–5.30pm
Register for the workshops here.
Art of Disease Workshop I: Exploring Specimens from the Pathology Collection
Facilitated by artist Dr Lucy Lyon and Museum of Diseases curator, Dr Carol Shiels
Date: Tuesday 16 November 2021
Time: 5:30pm - 7pm, On Site Register Here
An introduction to the museum of disease and to the art of slow looking.
In this session we will spend time looking closely at unique specimens from the SGUL pathology collection. You will be led through some short practical exercises and then have the opportunity to understand these fascinating specimens through looking and observing. By the end of the workshop you will have produced drawings that document your experiences and gained a greater appreciation of encounters with the unfamiliar.
You do not need to have any experience of drawing or of pathology to enjoy this workshop, just a willingness to look!
