Untitled 4, a collaborative piece between TAG artists and service users.
Making Sense, an exhibition exploring issues surrounding brain injuries is on show at the Conservation Centre in Liverpool until May 15 2005.
Often called the ‘hidden disability’, brain injuries affect around one million people in this country each year. The new display features work created by patients from the Brain Injuries Rehabilitation Unit at Rathbone Hospital, Wavertree in Liverpool.
Artists Steve Rooney and Sue Williams, from community-based TAG (The Artists Group), worked closely with Mersey Care NHS Trust staff and service users in over 30 workshops from April 2003.
The project went beyond the traditional concept of art as a therapy, encouraging patients to examine their own experiences and convey some of the issues they have encountered through individual artwork, helping them make sense of it all.
© National Museums Liverpool.
Resulting work is a colourful and positive collection of photography, print, vivid paintings and 3D sculpture, which intimately illustrate the different aspects of the aftermath of a brain injury.
The exhibition challenges the perception that injuries that can’t be seen are less devastating than those that are more obvious.
"The art group has helped me greatly in getting over my brain injury," explained Kevin McKevitt, a patient who worked on the project. "It has helped me gain confidence and given me a new outlook and made me realise that I can achieve anything I want to achieve."
the face you dont see by Paul Sealeaf.
Although many head injuries can be successfully treated for a small minority life is never the same again. The long-term effects of a haemorrhage, road accident, fall or assault can lead to behavioural and emotional changes and affect people’s thinking skills such as memory, concentration and organisation.
While illustrating the difficulties of the aftermath of a brain injury, the exhibition also aims to demonstrate how people can produce powerful and inspiring artwork.
A collaboration between Mersey Care NHS Trust staff and service users, The Artist Group and National Museums Liverpool, the exhibition coincides with Brain Injuries Awareness Week (March 14-20 2005).
The Conservation Centre is staging a series of events, including opportunities to talk to those involved in the project, formal education sessions and workshops run by professional artists.
