Bethlem Gallery celebrates its 25th year with exhibitions focussed on care
A gallery in the grounds of a hospital is celebrating its 25th year with a programme of exhibitions focussed on care in all its forms.
Care as political action, response to injustice, support, community or living well together is at the core of Bethlem Gallery’s 2022 programme, which marks a quarter of a century since the space opened in 1997 in the grounds of the Bethlem Royal Hospital.
Artists, scientists, therapists and other practitioners will work together on sound, sculpture, video and textile works exploring ideas relating to mental health, climate change, racism, the home, and the power of music.
Director Sophie Leighton said, “Bethlem Gallery has an important role to play with, and for our communities, a role that has come to the fore during the pandemic, as we all think about mental health, society and the importance of care.
“We are working with artists, the hospital and local communities to open conversations that can be difficult and messy, but also playful and healing.”
On show now until April 15 is In this Moment, an immersive sensory installation exploring ideas of nature and the cosmos through interactive sound sculptures, furniture and textile works.
For the last four years, artist and composer Gawain Hewitt and musicians from the City of London Sinfonia have been collaborating with young people at Bethlem and Maudsley Hospital Schools to create a series of improvised soundscapes.
In this Moment presents the soundworks together for the first time, in the form of large interactive sculptures and a new online work made via Zoom during lockdown.
The exhibition also showcases furniture and textile works by artist and researcher India Harvey, in collaboration with young people from the schools.
Working with the students, Ms Harvey has investigated relationships and responses to texture and the unusual materiality of our lived environments.
In this Moment gives an insight into the processes used by artists working in psychiatric settings to encourage young people to refocus their attention away from illness towards more immediate and spontaneous improvisation.
Future exhibitions include Black Men’s Minds from April 27 to May 7.
Presented for the first time in a mental health setting, the audio-visual installation by artist and psychotherapist Stephen Rudder is a stream-of-conscious exploration of masculinity, power and culture, social pressures and lived experience.
Ecology of Mind, on show from May 18 to August 27, explores art, ecology and mental health.
The exhibition re-imagines the grounds of the Bethlem Royal Hospital in Beckenham and The Maudsley Hospital in Camberwell as a ‘commons’, making cultural and natural resources accessible to all members of society.
From September 3 to November 11, solo exhibition Lifestyle will show pencil drawings spanning a 10-year period in the life of Raymond, an artist who has exhibited at the Royal Academy of Arts and the Southbank Centre.
Working from images in lifestyle and interior design magazines and the world around him, Raymond creates stylised drawings of people, domestic interiors and objects, characterised by an individual sense of perspective, heavy outlines, and flat blocks of colour.