Future Happiness (continued)
While the practices and function of St Ita’s have changed, traces of the original vision where clients are cared for and empowered to have a degree of autonomy in their recovery journeys is still very much present. In parallel to this, the NFMHS recently demonstrated their contemporary approach to patient-lead / patient-focused care through their support of an ambitious pilot project by OPP with CMH clients at Usher’s Island where high quality arts engagement was placed at the centre of the recovery journey, not as art therapy but as a meaningful route to independence, to express without judgement and engage in necessary moments of collective joy that comes from making art together.
I invited OPP’s first generation of resident artists—Glenn Loughran, Emma Finucane and Jonathan Cummins, as well as OPP’s director, artist John Conway, to the new context of Portrane in 2020 for Resort Residency to reflect on their experiences and observations as arts practitioners in the NFMHS and explore possibilities to continue their practice in its new home. For Resort Residency / Revelations 2021, we are delighted to present a diverse array of new work encountered as a promenade style circuit around Portrane and Donabate. The show, titled Future Happiness, features new work by each of the artists. Jonathan Cummin’s series of works, Compliance / Insight, were developed with service users during his residency in Usher’s Island, Emma Finucane’s work explores the local community’s historical affiliation with mental healthcare and the sea through site specific communal action in a work titled FLOAT, Glenn Loughran reflects on the local area and its history
using archival audio material in his work PARA-RADIO and John Conway invites us to look forward while prompting us to consider the present moment, with a site specific work titled Future Happiness, a phrase contained in a letter by Johnathan Swift to his love Stella, whom a famous Portrane landmark is named after. On Saturday 9th October between 15:00 and 17:00, St Ita’s Hospital Radio (available worldwide online and locally on 89.5FM) will broadcasta short interview with John Conway about the exhibition, followed by a series of experimental audio documentaries produced by John with family members of patients and a former patient of the CMH during his initial research into the NFHMS context. This will provide a deep insight into the complex lived experience of forensic mental health care.
These collective works leave a visible imprint on the landscape as the CMH completes its transition and remind us of the value of art in animating this conversation locally. Fingal Arts Office have initiated the beginnings of an Arts & Health Strategy which will seek to place a structure where art will always have ways to support us when we need it most.
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1 Resort Residency was home to An Urgent Enquiry in 2019—an Arts Council partnership with Fingal County Council, Wexford County Council and Dublin City Council that focused on the effects of climate change on the east coast Special Area of ConVersation by resident artists Joanna Hopkins and Mary Conroy was presented on themes of home and biodiversity loss on Portrane’s Burrow Beach. www.anurgentequiry.ie
