'The Five Senses' Laura Aikenhead/ Susan T. Grant. Collage of digitally manipulated images. (photo credit: Susan T Grant) and 'The life contest is primarily a competition for available energy: $78.40/ barrel: July 2006' Susan T Grant,  One of 5 digital duratrans xray images on lightboxes

Pathways @ Inverurie Health Centre

The culmination of the unique arts and wellbeing project ‘Pathway’s, art on referral’ was celebrated with an exhibition at Inverurie Health Centre which was launched by Patricia Ferguson MSP The Minister for Tourism, Culture and Sport.

Last April, Inverurie Medical Group took the lead in Scotland by exploring the potential benefits of an artist residency in a Primary Care Health Centre with the aim of encouraging patients to actively participate in the visual arts.  ‘Pathways’ aimed to act as an an enabling process for individuals to consider change in their lives.  If patients embraced this opportunity, we hoped that feelings of stress and anxiety would be reduced, and thereby, the negative impact that these emotions have on both their medical condition and their lives. 

Artist Susan T Grant led workshops with small groups using creativity, experimentation and play to challenge individuals to consider themselves and their lives from a new perspective.  She then progressed to working on a one-to-one collaborative basis with five participants to produce the final works, which along with a piece by Susan have now been installed in the Health Centre. This has vastly improved the environment for all users of the building. 

Dr James Beattie, Senior Practitioner states that “‘Pathways has been more about the nature of positive  health than it has been about extra medical treatments.  A professional artist has acted as a guide to a group of patients, who are known to have  specific medical conditions that are affected by  emotions. The patients have explored both  the nature of art and their own potential to express themselves.  The visible results of their short alternative journey are remarkable, and have  demonstrated  that enabling close collaboration of artists with  patients can positively change their attitudes towards, and their beliefs about their conditions and their treatments.

Hazel Mclaren Project Manager comments that ‘Pathways has been a wonderful opportunity to bring art into a purely functional environment and demonstrate how it can not only transform the environment itself, but can also have a very positive effect on individuals.’

Artist Susan Grant has felt that  ‘This project has been a really positive experience of collaborating with others both patients and staff to bring creativity into an institutional building where people are working and visiting under challenging circumstances. Its been great to be a part of people growing in confidence to make artworks that can be decorative, reflect their personal interests or challenge the viewer in different ways.’

Catriona Forsyth says ‘I got a huge amount of enjoyment out of the project.  Not only did I learn to relax and have more time for me, which has undoubtedly helped my condition, it also opened doors in respect of the different things I can do in 'my-time' which are enjoyable and fun.’ 

The resulting exhibition can be seen at Inverurie Health Centre from Wednesday 21st Februrary 2007 the work will be on display indefinitely.

Pathways has now been completed and as this initial project has proved itself a success for the Health Centre and the participants, we are now working on a new two year project called Mindspace, in association with Aberdeenshire Council and NSF (Scotland) .