Cassel archive connects art and wellbeing
The positive connection between art and wellbeing was the theme of three recent creative workshops at King’s College Science Gallery, inspired by The Cassel Hospital’s unique archive.
The workshops were part of a programme of events taking place to mark the centenary of The Cassel, one of the world’s first therapeutic communities for patients with personality disorders.
The embroidery workshop, “Mental Floss”, was led by expert embroiderer Hannah Cadogan and oral historian Laura Mitchison, On the Record. The idea emerged from Laura’s engagement and research with the Cassel Hospital Charitable Trust’s centenary project.
Alongside lessons in running stitch and french knots, the workshop explored the connections between embroidery, art and mental health.
Workshop teacher Hannah Cadogan had had her needles and floss confiscated when she entered the mental health system as a patient, despite being so gifted that she was invited to work on a royal wedding dress. Hannah owes her recovery to The Cassel, where she was a patient and was able to continue with her therapeutic embroidery. Hannah now works as a nurse and, in her spare time, brings embroidery lessons to current inpatients at the hospital
Sophie Herxheimer, award-winning artist/poet, and Laura Mitchison also presented an oral story-gathering workshop loosely inspired by the Cassel therapeutic community.
Participants were encouraged to work in pairs to listen and create a collaborative artwork about a significant relationship in their own life. They were able to draw on inspiration from Sophie’s art practice, and Laura’s research into The Cassel ‘“therapeutic community” – a blend of psychoanalysis, psychosocial nursing and peer support.
The third session entitled “Creative writing: remix the psychiatric record “, provided an opportunity for participants to work with unique texts, case histories and psychoanalytic texts from the Cassel archive.
They were able to create new poems from old words, using collage, and experimental writing techniques. One participant commented: “ It was inspiring to feel the real documents from the time, such as the notes of psychiatrist Maurice Craig, who was instrumental in founding The Cassel and was also Virginia Woolf’s psychiatrist for 22 years. The idea of making an eight page book is also something I would use in my own creative writing practice.”
Others felt that the workshops provided “ a safe place to share and speak about things they have never shared before”.
These events were part of a series of workshops curated by oral history company On the Record as part of the Science Gallery London’s Autumn 2022 exhibition ‘Testing Ground’. https://london.sciencegallery.com/
This project was delivered by On the Record in partnership with The University of Roehampton, The Cassel Hospital Charitable Trust and King’s College, London.
Funded by BIG South London, and King’s College London.