News Update #4: January 2024 |
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News: Annual General Meeting
Location: The Old Bath House, Wolverton
22 November 2023
A big thank you to everyone who joined us pre-Christmas for our AGM, to hear how we’ve been supporting the hospital staff, patients and the wider MK community’s health from April 2022 - March 2023, and for our Director Ben Heyworth’s update on current and future activity. It was lovely to see so many of you! If you couldn’t be there please see the video Ben recorded afterwards sharing his report via this link.
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Here is a flavour of what our reporting year included!
AfHMK Creative Communities Programme:
- Securing a multi-year grant from the Big Lottery Communities Fund and meeting our first year activity target of delivering six 12 week Arts on Prescription “Headstart” courses in visual arts, music or drama for young people in MK, by partnering with Black Sheep Collective Theatre Company and MK Music Hub.
- Ongoing partnership with Milton Keynes Arts Centre to deliver Art, Nature & Wellbeing workshops for young people.
- Engaging an artist to deliver “Art Bubble” visual arts workshops to explore anxiety around Covid-19
- Providing a mindful art activity at the 2022 MK Disability Awareness Day
- Partnering with MK Islamic Arts and Culture and others to continue delivering “Creatively Minded, Ethnically Diverse”, a CPD and wellbeing programme funded by the Baring Foundation to supporting artists from diverse backgrounds, and resulting in outreach projects in MK’s Chinese, Eastern European and Islamic communities and LGBT groups.
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- Maintaining a popular wellbeing weekly art group at The Old Bath House in Wolverton supported by our volunteers
- Providing weekly, hour-long musical activity sessions for patients in The Campbell Centre, an acute inpatient mental health unit at MKUH
- Securing a grant from MK Council Public Health for workshops aimed at reducing the risk of suicide and self-harm
Courtyards, Collections, Exhibitions and Engagement at MKUH:
- Starting to upgrade the “The Wheel” courtyard into a Sensory Garden thanks to funding from the Postcode Trust and MKUH.
- Resuming (post Covid restrictions) wellbeing volunteering opportunities in our Creative Courtyards, and broadening the range of volunteers to include pupils from Slated Row School, local businesses and hospital staff.
- Complementing the hospital Collection display with temporary exhibitions by Astrid Bärndal, Naomi Kendrick and David H Jones, refreshing Gabrielle Radiguet’s long-term loan exhibition in the x-ray department and preparing local artist Sharon Paulger’s mixed media display of work exploring intersections between arts and health.
- Beginning work on a strategic Art Plan for The Collection and how to maximise its use for people’s wellbeing, and to consider how to apply MKUH’s ambitious environmental sustainability plan across our activities.
Image: The new Sensory Garden at MKUH
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Partnerships: Feel Good Foods
On 13th October we held a book launch for our new cookbook Feel Good Foods at the Eaglestone Restaurant, Milton Keynes University Hospital (MKUH), and thanks to the Head of Catering several of the recipes were available as lunch options that day.
Feel Good Foods is a collection of 35 recipes gathered from MKUH patients, staff and visitors.
It was compiled by Lizzie Merrill, an Open University PhD student, who donated her time to the project (and cooked and tested all the recipes!). Piecing together the culinary heart and soul of the MKUH Community she included the stories behind each of the dishes, from recipe origins to their feel-good histories. This book project aimed to explore the numerous ways that food can ignite our creativity and make us feel good. We hope that you will buy a copy and feel inspired to sprinkle a little extra love and care into every recipe that you try for yourself!
Image: Francesco Fiore, Head of Catering at MKUH with Lizzie Merrill
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Music workshops in Mental Health inpatient settings
In our latest video, Ben (Director, AfHMK) and course tutor Josh Fowley discuss the impact of facilitating music workshops for people with mental health concerns in inpatient settings in Milton Keynes.
We have three music sessions a week taking place at the Campbell Centre, Cherrywood Mental Health Unit and Topas centre in Milton Keynes and Josh is our musician in residence.
We also have some sound clips from our workshops that we would love you to listen to. The first one is called Fizzy Rain, the second one is called Misunderstood.
Click on Watch Video to access the blog post and media files.
Sessions held for Arts for Health MK in partnership with Central and North West London Foundation Trust.
Image: Josh and Ben discuss the music workshops.
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Projects: Creatively Minded, Ethnically Diverse
Arts for Health MK has partnered with Milton Keynes Islamic Arts and Culture (MKIAC) and Milton Keynes Arts and Heritage Alliance (AHA-MK), to deliver a programme called “Creatively Minded, Ethnically Diverse” for adults, teenagers and children. The programme is being created and delivered by professional artists from diverse communities who represent culturally centred practice in their chosen artform.
The range of artforms includes fashion, photography, visual arts, poetry, writing and dance/movement. Participating artists have been supported via a continuous professional development (CPD) programme.
In August, artist Amanda Holiday led a month-long poetry and art-making project with children aged 4-16 in Netherfield Meeting Place in Farmborough as part of the African Diaspora Foundation’s summer programme in collaboration with The Wisdom Principle. Amanda devised sessions involving poetry reading and discussion and artmaking.
This project was kindly funded by the Baring Foundation.
Image: artwork using hands as a template
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Creative Courtyards: Sensory Garden
The Sensory Garden at Milton Keynes University Hospital has been lovingly completed by artist Katie Ellen-Fields and is now open for all to enjoy! We look forward to welcoming patients, relatives, visitors and staff into the space, and will be using it for workshops, events, performances and other activities from Spring 2024.
Rosalind Stoddart’s, ‘Wheel’ sculpture Brixworth Country Park, has also been scheduled for repair and return to its original colour. The sculpture also has a sound element and musical mallets are provided to ‘play’ the fins of the piece. The original bamboo pole artworks can also be ‘played’ with these tools. Generous seating has been added to the garden, stained with an eco-friendly wood varnish. Wooden wind chimes decorated by patients provide subtle sounds. Instead of a water feature, metal ‘water-chimes’ in the garden create sound when rain falls onto them. Solar sensory pebbles provide soft light on overcast days and can be held and moved by visitors.
The Sensory Garden Project and the Creative Courtyards at MKUH are funded by The Postcode Trust and MKUH Charity.
Image: The Sensory Garden
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Volunteers Update: Weekly Art Group
Our weekly Monday drop-in Art Group for adults with mild to moderate physical and/or mental health challenges is going from strength to strength and regularly welcomes new members. Run by our team of fantastic volunteers, Sue, Gill, Laura and Naomi (above) it provides participants with a calm space in which to create artwork. Attendees can choose their own art projects and our volunteers are always on hand for inspiration or help using materials.
This year we are delighted to be sharing some of our Group’s artwork via a partnership calendar with MacIntyre group. The 2024 calendar is available to buy for £5 per copy at MacIntyre cafés and shops plus there will be copies available to buy at the Art Group.
With thanks to the Wolverton Science and Art Institute Fund for their support with this project.
Image: From left to right: Sue Norman, Gill Quinnell, Laura de Sherbinin and Naomi Lutman
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Opportunities: Volunteering
We have a number of volunteer opportunities to work with us both at the hospital where our offices are based, at our arts workshops in the community and also in our Creative Courtyards/Sensory Garden at the hospital.
Volunteering has lots of benefits; you can make new friends and learn a new skill plus gain in confidence and give back to your community.
So if you’re a student, retired or looking for work volunteering could be the perfect option.
Current opportunities include gardening, administration, curatorial support and associate artist volunteering on three of our workshop programmes.
For more details and how to apply see our website below.
Image: volunteers add a lick of paint to the Courtyard shed.
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Current Temporary Exhibition at
Milton Keynes University Hospital:
Lady Lump and Lockdown Collection by Penny Mitchell
Location: MKUH Cancer Centre Link Corridor Exhibition Space
A collection of photographs and spoken words compiled by a Milton Keynes University Hospital patient who walked the corridor many a time. They were kindly offered for display to bring a momentary sense of colour and joy, but also with the single hope that a person looking knows that the person who has made these artworks understands and for a moment doesn’t feel so alone.
During 2020, Penny was diagnosed with breast cancer - creativity became her comfort blanket - an opportunity to tell a different story, her story, as life around changed so dramatically but one thing remained constant.
Next to each image is written prose – reflections on the wider moment in time captured in the image. We invite you to read the text if you feel able to and play the audio to listen to the artist’s voice.
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Have your say! Milton Keynes University Hospital Art Collection and Temporary Exhibition Survey. In partnership with Milton Keynes University Hospital Charity, Arts for Health MK are actively fundraising to support the conservation and preservation of the art collection at the hospital, and the complementary temporary exhibition and arts activity programme. Please help us by completing this short survey: shorturl.at/FHTWY which we will use to shape our applications. All feedback will be kept anonymous, and we anticipate the survey will take 5-10 minutes to complete.
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Image: Beach Huts by Penny Mitchell |
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Funding Partners
With thanks to our core funding partners for their continued support of our projects and of our work in the Hospital and in the community.
Donations are welcome and can be made via our dedicated website Local Giving
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