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‘As long-time supporters of Hospital Rooms, we have witnessed first-hand the extraordinary impact of their work in changing lives across NHS mental health inpatient units across the country.’—Neil Wenman

In partnership with arts and mental health charity Hospital Rooms, ‘Holding Space’ is a new multisensory exhibition that will transform Hauser & Wirth London’s North Gallery this summer.

The interactive presentation is made up of components drawn directly from artist programs developed within NHS mental health services, filling the gallery with immersive commissions, mixed media artworks and site specific installations. The exhibition follows last year’s collaborative exhibition ‘Like there is hope and I can dream of another world’ and is part of Hauser & Wirth’s ongoing three-year collaboration with Hospital Rooms, which aims to raise £1 million for the charity to dramatically expand and deepen their impact.

‘Holding Space’ features artists Valerie Asiimwe Amani, Sutapa Biswas, Victoria Cantons, Rachael Champion, Giles Deacon, Alvin Kofi, Katharine Lazenby, Richard Mark Rawlins, Jonathan Trayte, Richard Wentworth and Abbas Zahedi, as well as Hospital Rooms Lived Experience Team, National Opera Studio with South West London Recovery College Students.

Sutapa Biswas’ monumental mural originally created for Springfield University Hospital, London, UK and conceived with patients in the OCD clinic will wrap the gallery space. Abbas Zahedi will share a magnetised sun created with patients in forensic services that contains a kinetic poetry piece, written by a group of people with lived experience of mental health services that met over the course of a year. Artists Alvin Kofi, Victoria Cantons, Valerie Asiimwe Amani, Giles Deacon, Richard Mark Rawlins and Katharine Lazenby use their experiences with Hospital Rooms to create a series of large-scale beds and cushions for visitors to lie on and gaze up towards a ceiling installation by Richard Wentworth. Sculptural works by Rachael Champion and illuminated sculptures by Jonathan Trayte will be encountered throughout the space.

On each hour, a piece created and recorded by students from the South West London Recovery College, with the help of composer, Alex Groves, working with National Opera Studio will resound within the space. Together the students developed new ways of breathing, humming, droning, making harmonic sounds and vocalising to develop a collective ‘fabric of sound’. During the opening reception, mezzo-soprano Joanna Harries and cellist Lucas Robson will interact with the piece as a live performance.

Over the course of the exhibition there will be two participatory workshops, one with an emphasis on the value of breath, sound and harmonising in collaboration with the National Opera Studio and another with an emphasis on movement in collaboration with the Ballet Boyz. A wider series of talks, tours and events to activate the space will take place throughout the summer.

The exhibition will be accompanied by two auctions hosted by Bonhams; a live auction on 12 September and an online-only auction, which will be open for bidding from 1 – 13 September. This funding will support Hospital Rooms projects in mental health hospitals, in particular a Children and Adolescent Service in Sandwell at Black Country Healthcare NHS Foundation Trust.

About Hospital Rooms
The charity Hospital Rooms was founded when a friend of artist Tim A Shaw and curator Niamh White was sectioned and admitted to a NHS mental health hospital. On visiting her, they were shocked to find the hospital environment was cold and clinical at a time when she was so vulnerable. Having both worked in the arts for 10 years, Shaw and White felt they had the skills and community to be able to transform these spaces with unique and site specific artworks. Hospital Rooms envisions a new world where abundant and meaningful creative opportunities are readily accessible to people with severe and enduring mental health diagnoses, and where mental health hospital environments are inventive cultural spaces offering solace, comfort and dignity. Since 2016, Hospital Rooms has undertaken a number of acclaimed projects, completed in some of the most challenging mental health settings. A roster of artists is carefully selected for each Hospital Rooms’ project according to the needs of each community.

About Hospital Rooms 2023 Summer Auction
This year, Hospital Rooms will run a live and online-only auction, both hosted by Bonhams. The live auction will take place on 12 September at 101 New Bond Street, London and the online-only auction will be open for bidding from 1 – 13 September. Both auctions will be available to preview at 101 New Bond Street, London from 4 – 12 September. Artists Martin Creed, Chantal Joffe, Do Ho Suh and Caroline Walker have donated original works, and Hurvin Anderson is donating two works on paper created in preparation for his Hospital Rooms commission at Springfield University Hospital, London, UK. For the online auction, Hauser & Wirth artists Martin Creed, Charles Gaines, Catherine Goodman and Allison Katz have generously donated new works responding to the theme of the exhibition.