Thirteenth International Conference on The Arts in Society

Abstract

Creative mediums, including visual arts, have long been used within mental health, often through the lens of therapy such as art or music therapies. Less common is for artists – untrained in mental health – to undertake residencies in such settings. This paper presents the first stage of an artist-in-residence program and research study undertaken at an inpatient unit for mental health consumers from rural and remote settings in South Australia. In this project, trained artists were engaged to work with mental health consumers to explore the theme of recovery in mental health. In the first stage of this qualitative research study, interviews were undertaken with mental health consumers who engaged with the artists at the unit. Emerging findings suggest the program provided consumers with opportunities to explore, relax, feel comforted and be distracted from their surroundings. Working with the artists was described as inspiring and instilled feelings of happiness, purpose and pride for participants. This project has been a coming together of many things - of artists and academia, of country and metropolitan, and of reclaiming a sense of comfort and hope amongst immense loss and grief.