Waiting projects

As I mentioned in my last post I did indeed go to the launch of Waiting Projects at Truro's 'Knowledge Spa' the other night. The Spa is a new building that's part of Treliske Hospital and (I think) is a building dedicated to learning for the health profession. So why was Waiting, a series of artists' films, being shown there I wondered. In the blurb about the project it says

The Waiting project is aimed at providing a more relaxed and enriching experience in a waiting area.

Waiting is a necessary aspect of attending a GP surgery or other health care building. Everyone will experience waiting in a different way; for some people it may be unfamiliar and stressful whilst for others it is well-known routine.

These artist films have been specially selected to enhance the waiting experience.

I was intrigued by this. In the past I've always felt very sceptical about 'arts and health', feeling that it was a glorified way of providing decoration for the mundane, labyrinthine hospital corridor walls, or was encroaching on the art therapists' role.

When I arrived at the launch, late as usual, the films were playing in three areas that were laid out in typical 'waiting area' style, with seating in rows so that no normal social interaction might take place. Two were set up in seminar rooms and the third in the main atrium of the spa. Lights in the seminar rooms had been dimmed and, being night time, were dim enough in the atrium too, though I did wonder how this might transfer to the usual gp surgery. How were they shown in surgeries, perhaps more practically on a tv screen rather than projected onto a wall? How would this affect the experience? In my local surgery there's an awful lot of noise with people coming and going children playing, children crying, people chatting and catching up and the inevitable 'Muzak', in this case provided by some mind-numbingly dull Cornish radio station... In an environment like this how would these films even be noticed?

There are some 54 films, selected by Steven Paige and Michael Donnelly, with much variation in style and length, and budget too. I watched several films right through and caught glimpses of others while talking to those around me, probably like the average person might in a waiting room. Most of the films seemed to be serene and contemplative in some way, interspersed occasionally with the sparse (Paul Carter and Alexandra Zierle Round and Round we go ; Katie Welsford Glue) and the humorous (Sam Thompson The Making of a Machine to get Brain Waves).

I was particularly struck by the number of films that might offer an interesting metaphor or two in a health setting. In Spilled Measures Dancing at My Feet (Zierle) a woman (we never see her face) in a long red dress and black flamenco-style shoes tugs at a constricting pearl chocker around her neck to release the pearls bouncing to the ground at her feet. The camera focuses on the regular, circular indentations left on her neck. It's a simple but extraordinarily beautiful film, rich in colour and texture, that made me think about the constricting nature of illness and the release a cure might offer and the impressions it might leave on someone's life. Other films got me thinking about life's journey: the candles burning in Akiko and Masako Takada's Volcano, a newt swimming in a pond in Adela Jones' One Minute Newt Minute and David Sants' Pushchair in which we follow a baby's journey around a city. The split screen of this film gave us both a view of the baby and the restricted view she had through the plastic tent of her pram. She was wheeled around following someone else's journey, just like we were, and ever present was a very colourful, dangling toy spider... I was mesmerised by this film: the changing scenery, the lack of clarity as the condensation built up and a rhythmic soundtrack that sounded like it was made from a child's toy. There was also a lot of 'nature' in the selected films, from rocks, sky and trees drawing in the wind, to water. There was a lot of water. Seas went backwards, we watched the reflections on the surfaces of water, water filling a glass... Don't know why but watching rhythmic waves or focusing on the surface of a river always make me think of death, a kind of urge to dive in and sink. I'm not sure how this would affect my thoughts in a surgery waiting room with my history of depression! But that seems to me the great thing about the films that have been chosen: many of them have a kind of ambiguity that can be interpreted in a whole host of ways significant only to the viewer.

Picture: Still from Rupert White's film Drawing Made by the Wind

I think the project is ambitious in its attempts to engage with this particular audience, after all we go to a surgery for a very specific reason, which doesn't include viewing contemporary art. In that sense the art is incidental, something you might stumble over and engage with, if for just a few minutes you can forget your introspection, your worries about health. There are some fantastic films here and I for one, would far rather be gazing at them than the usual NHS posters on my surgery walls. That would be my worry: that the films become like the posters on the walls, or the Muzak, something that we don't really notice because our minds are elsewhere. And these films deserve much more than that. They are quiet (many of them don't have sound tracks), but that doesn't mean they haven't got a lot to say.

I commend Paige and Donnelly and Arts for Health for having the guts to do something experimental in a setting like this, it's certainly making me rethink my attitude to art in a health setting, and I think this project deserves to succeed. I look forward to hearing how it goes!

By the way, there's a great booklet that was available at the launch listing all the films and artists and I spent yesterday afternoon having a look at some of the artists' own websites. Here's a few for you to browse, in no particular order!

www.zborough.co.uk
www.rozcran.co.uk
www.alexandrabettencourt.com
www.rupertwhilte.co.uk
www.evaolsson.net
www.ciclover.com