New exhibition showcases how art is helping Preston people and UCLan students tackle mental health issues

People taking part in art sessions at Lancashire and South Cumbria NHS Foundation Trust (LSCft)’s Guild Lodge in Preston and Skylark Centre at Royal Preston Hospital worked in partnership with students at the University of Central Lancashire (UCLan), developing art that represented the concept of ‘Being Human’, during a period of uncertainty and strain.

The pieces, created by students and service users, will feature alongside each other at an exhibition this November in a UCLan art gallery.

The project, led by UCLan lecturers, occupational therapist (OT) at Guild Lodge, Mark Love and consultant rehabilitation psychiatrist at Skylark, Dr Emily Kaye, saw inpatients and students take to the drawing board to create art based on personal experience.

Mark Love said: “We put a lot of emphasis on patient-centred care, which is all about being human and treating our service users and carers with the same respect as any human.

Lowri Dowthwaite, UCLan senior Lecturer in psychological interventions, added: “The exhibition is the culmination of an exciting creative collaboration between our students, staff, and service users.

“For our students, they had to produce one piece of any type of art form as part of their studies while it was part of the occupational therapy treatment for the service users. Our module is about exploring what it means to be human and how creativity is integral to being human. It makes the students think in a different and creative way and the results are fabulous.”

The exhibition will run from November 23 to November 26 between 6pm and 8pm at UCLan’s PR1 gallery.

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