Artists such as Beatriz Milhazes, Celia Paul, Chantal Joffe and Jeremy Deller have created a number of limited-edition posters that will go on show in more than 1,000 National Health Service (NHS) mental health hospitals across England.
The initiative, known as 10 Posters for 10 Years, marks the tenth anniversary of Hospital Rooms, a UK charity “transforming mental health hospitals through contemporary art”. Founded in 2016, the organisation has commissioned over 200 works and worked with 360 artists at NHS mental health sites across England.
Daisy Parris, I Feel Everything (2020) from 10 Posters for 10 Years
© The artist and Sim Smith, London
“A total of 10,000 artworks [the 10 Posters for 10 Years posters] will be distributed directly to acute, secure, and locked NHS wards throughout 2026 via the charity’s Digital Art School programme. The campaign aims to radically disrupt the sterile environment of psychiatric units, ensuring patients experiencing severe distress have immediate access to ambitious visual culture,” says a statement.
The first set of anniversary posters can be purchased for £100 each in a series of time-limited online sales from next month, raising funds for future Hospital Rooms’ NHS mental health hospital projects.
Niamh White and Tim Shaw, a curator and an artist, respectively, co-founded Hospital Rooms in 2016, with the aim of bringing art and creativity to people in mental health facilities by commissioning artists to produce site-specific work in these facilities. The pair were inspired to take up their cause after a close friend was sectioned following a suicide attempt.
Joy Labinjo, Sunflowers Court, Goodmayes Hospital, North East London NHS Foundation Trust.
Photo © Hospital Rooms (Studio Damian Griffiths)
The tenth anniversary will also be celebrated with an exhibition opening at Victoria Miro gallery in London later this year (Host|Guest, 3-12 September), featuring artists such as Lonnie Holley and Boo Saville. “The works on display were originally created for NHS mental health settings and are rarely accessible to public audiences outside the hospitals they were made for,” adds the statement.
“The artworks will be re-created in Victoria Miro—we are painting them onto the walls of the gallery so people can experience something of our work at scale without the complexities of going into a mental health hospital site,” a spokesperson told The Art Newspaper. The show will coincide with a fundraising exhibition at Bonhams in London.
The health benefits of engaging with the arts has been subject to considerable attention in recent months. Earlier this year the results of the research from University College London (UCL), published in the journal Innovation in Aging showed that participating in arts—such as singing, dancing, painting and crafting, as well as attending art exhibitions and visiting heritage sites, museums and libraries—helps people stay biologically younger.
