Artists were given seed grants to produce proposals based on site-visits and periods of research in the hospitals. This time was used to identify individuals, groups or departments within the hospitals who are interested in collaboration. Functionsuite supports many different approaches to research, co-authorship and collaboration. The evaluation and documentation of the research’s development is an integral part of the project, observing and reflecting on collaboration.
The proposals mark a first reflective point in the research process. They are not intended as description of fixed outcomes. They are a tool by which the project can support and extend critical debate. The proposals will develop through talks, interventions, consultations, screenings and other appropriate activities.
Justin Kenrick, our affiliated social anthropologist, is involved throughout the project looking at the collaborative process engaged in by artists. Before compiling their proposals all the artists have had a discussion with him.
The artists are working to staggered deadlines, and proposals will be published as they are submitted. Please visit again if you don’t see the proposal you may be interested in as it could be online the next time you visit the site.
We welcome feedback, comments and suggestions on any of the published proposals and are keen to support debate around them via our notice boards so please contribute to the research...

In developing the New Republic proposal I found that going out to St John’s and talking to people ‘on the ground’ , in situ, was the easiest and most successful way of communicating. Of all the initial discussions that I had with staff those concerning the courtyard between the Children’s Ward and SCBU (one with Mary Benson from the Children’s Ward, one with Lynn Haddow from the Children’s Ward and one with a male nurse from SCBU) were the most dynamic and fruitful. I had also made links with Physio and the Chaplaincy early in the research, but subsequently found that my contacts with the Children’s Ward and SCBU grew to occupy all of my time researching the proposal. This is how I came to concentrate on the children’s/SCBU courtyard.

The initial conversations that I had with Mary and Lynn on the Children’s Ward quickly came to centre on what involvement the children who visit the ward could have in the development of the courtyard. The fact that most of the children are outpatients would have a bearing on the nature of the children’s involvement, meaning that their initial input into the designs for the courtyard, in many instances, would have to be quick. I talked about my interest in direct action, guerilla tactics and ownership of space through creating something in that space. These ideas, through discussion, began to couple up with the question of how the children could be involved in the development of the courtyard. The potential for the children to take control of the courtyard and, in a sense, occupy or take ownership of the space through the act of creation became an exciting possibility. This also felt natural in that the majority of the wards looking out onto the courtyard are involved with children and babies.

The idea of creating a New Republic, a new order, within the courtyard arena came from these initial discussions. This could be achieved by asking the children in the children’s ward to make drawings, maps and make written descriptions of houses, buildings and landscape features that they consider to be ‘ideal’. These drawings and descriptions would then be treated as complete architectural drawings and would be followed ‘to the letter’ and built (on a small scale) within the courtyard. The New Republic would be viewable from the balcony on the children’s ward. This basic approach would mean the children, in a sense, creating a utopia that they could look down upon. The issue of access to the courtyard is one which would need further discussion but, if access was not possible, the idea of ‘utopia’ as a place that can never be entered would be strengthened and problems of some children not being able to go outside to the republic avoided.

The conversation that I had with the male nurse from SCBU resulted in the proposal developing to include the balcony at SCBU. He told me that the corridor from which the balcony is accessed is used by parents as a waiting area, but that it is not at all user friendly. He was keen for the balcony to become a part of the project proposal to allow parents to use it during the summer (and even on dry winter days) while waiting or having a coffee. This desire to open up the balcony was also driven by the fact that the SCBU ward has limited visual access to the courtyard from its windows. The development of the balcony would allow everyone at SCBU to get a good view of the courtyard and the New Republic and also provide a place for the SCBU staff to sit on their breaks.

Physical Description of the Courtyard at the Moment
The courtyard between the Children’s Ward and SCBU is overgrown with shrubs and trees at the moment. It is on a slope, which makes it interesting and different to most of the other courtyards around St John’s. The ‘wilderness’ feel of the courtyard could be seen as adding to the idea of the creation of something new, with the children as pioneers in a new land.

Physical Description of what might be Constructed in the Courtyard
(the New Republic)
The nature of the buildings and the landscape features of the republic would be decided upon by the children in the ward who chose to do a drawing or a map or a description, so can only be imagined. The other factor governing the nature of the buildings within the courtyard will be the budget. I propose that using wood to construct the buildings would allow a large number of buildings to be built within the budget constraints. Using wood will also mean that the buildings can be partially constructed offsite and then transported to the courtyard for final installation. The use of wood will also affect the aesthetic of the New Republic and give a ‘pioneering’ feel to the overall installation. The buildings could even be raised on wooden stilts, meaning that the vegetation could be left much as it is - a wilderness -, again strengthening the reference to pioneering and requiring less expense in landscaping. Wooden buildings could be easily painted and, imagining that may of the children's drawings will involve bright colours, remain true to their initial designs. My first draught proposed that the New Republic be walled in some way; either by being encircled by a wall or by having a single wall built blocking the view along the length of the ground floor corridor. The wall would have acted to make the New Republic in some ways exclusive to the children by being viewable only from the first floor and above. The best - or perhaps only - way to view the ‘utopia’ would be from SCBU and the children’s ward windows, and balconies and the corridor between. Building a wall would take up a major part of the budget, and may not be a popular idea as it would deliberately adversely affect the view of the courtyard from the ground floor windows. A ‘gentler’ way of manifesting the exclusiveness of the project would be either the construction of a high wooden fence circling the buildings further away from the windows, or the raising of the buildings on stilts. The raising of the buildings would allow them to be enjoyed best from the top floor, with only the undersides visible from the ground floor corridor. Another advantage of wooden constructions ( over concrete or steel) would be the ease with which they could be removed. I would like to imagine that the New Republic would continue to look good for around 10 years, or more, but at some time the constructions would have to be removed.

Methods
The designs could be developed from drawings, verbal descriptions and written descriptions done over time in the children's’ ward with the help of Lynn Haddow, the staff and Paul. Paul could also come in on various occasions and work with the children on their ideas.

The resulting drawings could be realised in wood and other appropriate materials after being taken to 3D design stage by Paul. (No compromise of the drawing’s aesthetic would be made). The fabrication would require a team of people (possibly a group of older local school children, as Lynn Haddow has contacts with school children’s groups who may be interested). When, and if, appropriate any of the children on the wards could become involved in the fabrication and view/ take part in the construction of their designs. It would be important that the people working on the fabrication came to the ward and met the children and staff.

How the Project Might Maintain a Relevance Over Years
The structures could be built in such a way as to allow them to be altered frequently, perhaps every year. Perhaps New Republic workshops could be arranged every spring with new designs being installed onto the stilted structures every summer. Much of the budget on the initial project will go on the construction of strong wooden platforms or on the wooden fence. These could remain year after year , meaning that the changing of the actual buildings would cost far less than the initial installation.

Hallo to you all, I am still in post general anesthetic headspace so.... err; if this is really a bit odd forgive me...

I arrive in the hospital rather fazed.... the long train trip; half asleep, half spent asleep, half staring dumbly at the beautiful landscape and wishing I could live in it.

I want to not know what I am doing for longer. I want to wander about and think. I cannot launch my mind before my mind is ready for it. Arriving. Wandering the territory. Finding out what's going on. Research, search.

Imagine the hospital context in a way that no one has ever imagined it before. Why is it here? What existed before ospitals (misspellings - ospiotal, glottal, spittal, spit, horse, horse spittal,) hospitals?... is it not one of the ultimate hierarchies that supports the imbalances of our structure? I want to avoid wanting to have ideas, I want to let go of having ideas, and let, hell, let go of ways of getting ideas, and want to wander and find. Find what to do? No find out what’s going on, and therefore find out how I can insert what I want to do, what might be relevant to do. Here. Yes this is a response BUT first there is the groundwork. As much as is possible and feasible. Is there a level of knowledge that is specific to each place, a generally applicable amount of knowledge that you can use anywhere? No, not at all. This place is deeply unlike that place for example, it may look alike, but is not so....

[A writing process that echoes the idea of malfunction, incompetence, illness, disease, overlaod, overlaid, overlord, overload, im- and anti- perfection.]

...After my first day I feel I have failed myself and fallen, inexplicably, into old ways of doing things, into habits and patterns... getting on the phone, random approaches, a lack of focus and intention, completely...

I no longer am interested in this ‘performance research’ idea, that every phone call I make is an art moment in the making, every encounter and oncversation (oncology, with-verse-poetry-between-us-station), conversationcould be part of the process of production, my production process.
It’s worn out its usefulness a strategy for widening the field, widening the possibilities - of a project…

Staring at an avalanched mountain I thought I would (wooded path) be climbing, and to find that mountain gone and realise slowly I must find another path. I am at this point now. The ground under my feet is full of Pavlov crevasses and slush. Literally on thin ice.

I think I cannot collaborate with a patient. I cannot abide that feeling that I am being employed to alleviate a situation. I cannot abide feeling so privileged and yet so distant through my innate disconnection and other status – artist.

I propose to add my name and title to the internal phone book, and see if anyone rings that number before 2005. Why is the artist the proactive enquirer? Why not appear in the context in a delicate, kit kat manner and wait humbly to be implicated within the system? Is anyone out there as curious as I am?

Am I as curious as I could be?

I have not chosen this context, and that is the biggest problem, it has not evolved out of my own experience, I have been invited in and I cannot see what I am doing there, I cannot see how I can perform. From the frothy streets of London to here. I am all at sea. Completely out of it.

Wary and worried. What an experience, keep an open mind.

I am exhausted by inout inout seesaw and the battle with my own inclinations versus the idea of a good idea. A clever strategy, surely one of the things that that makes art a separate space from life is the possibility for elegant solutions and strategies, for nimbleness a space where we can practice and bring things back to our lives, others lives. Or is life where one learns and practices nimbleness, to then work with art in an a=entirely a=clumsy, entirely and clumsy, fraughtly ignorant, open-ended manner. But surely they are the same, one cannot be a better space than the other, for the artist, the artist’s capacities will shine in all their activities.

This morning I walk behind an incredibly classic walk of the lithium shuffle and later in the afternoon I pass by a woman in a fur coat who suddenly laughs, manically and catchingly. In the middle of the day I was on a bus looking down, sheltered by the pane of glass and watched a group at a crossing, a man with one foot forward in a joking pose as if about to start a marathon, everyone around him was slowly affected and beginning to laugh...

(People are friendly here, they really are, you notice it, its different from South and different from London.)

Anyway I thought about laughing, and I heard about that laughing club, people go to instead of yoga, and the idea of hysterically and laughter

(God there’s a bunch of pissed up ladies in the carriage really whooping and screaming... maybe they’ll get off at Newcastle they seem very northern)

...The week has been amazing. New areas for me. I did arrive feeling I don’t want to do anything that involves working with people. I have had the opposite impression. I mean I have been immersed in an approach to people that is considerate, interested, and open to change and not a big deal. Justin is a social anthropologist with the project. He has worked with sex workers, and an African tribe of tree dwellers. And now he lectures at Glasgow University. He talked about participating with societies he has studied. That its not about observing, but about taking part as much as possible, learning to dance, cook, do all the things the tribes or whoever it is are doing. He said he was stopped from singing at a festival for rain because his voice was so bad and they thought he might put off the spirits.

Maybe I am dyslexic as well…

I said I usually don’t describe what I do as collaboration. I am in a crisis about how I work, I want to change. I cannot however abandon my practice, I just need to work certain things out, hone my thinking and my practice to a way of working. How is it that I want to work? That seems to be my question. I felt many crossovers. Justin talked about bringing as much of your self with you when coming to work with a group.

(We are in Berwick. I know it is beautiful and it’s on my left and dark as pitch, the sea will be there unseen.)

Justin said the research should be made on the ground. Meaning responding to what happened in the physical engagement with place. Like engaging with chance; he almost described the ‘Occasional Sights’ methodology. How weird. Like that woman in the Turner Centre who seemed to know exactly what I was talking about…
I realise now Functionsuite is an opportunity to explore collaboration still further. I mean it is a chance to work in a way I really want to work, and with others. Anne said how can you not? As if it might even be possible. I agree it is a tendency I have, to be in conversation with people, to involve others in my thinking process. I get so doubtful on my own.

I seem to have deleted a whole load of sentences about wondering if this way of working is a female trait… this voracious connection making… and re. The Saul Albert’s article thinking my equivalent of free software is chat, conversation. Hanging out allowing people to speak, and thinking out loud. Free software seems to be all about how to avoid solo authorship.

(Anyway, drove through to St Johns Hospital with Anne. Mountains, sunrays, chocolate smells, or shortbread, from factory, houses getting more normal. Arriving in Livingston. Seeing the red quarries, The Binns, like Ayer’s rock (or Arthur’s seat).

Go straight to the laundry at St Johns. Shown around by Bill, the laundry manager, who I had talked to earlier that day. Everyone seemed to mellow after five minutes or so…
The laundry also got him fired up. It’s an amazing place. He had gone off to work for Sunlight Laundry for ten years. Not a local. Very hard work folding pillowslips, fast, towels and sheets get folded by huge machines. Clothes go in between huge rollers covered in felt.

(The tea I’m drinking tastes of wet moss)

I dreamed about textiles work. Putting felt through the wash (85 degrees) and seeing what'll happen t it. Wanting to use the power of the laundry. Printing onto sheets, stories that people can read in bed.
Like the sheet my dad gave me as a kid, with bits of comic on it…. reading bits of novels, an overnight stay, just a part of a story, a chapter, a story that gets added to bit by bit. Sweet idea. Not very exciting. Encouraging graffiti. The sheets would be sent all over the place. Be alleviation amongst the blankness, blankets, a respite from logos. Something to read or entertain or comfort the patient. Would it be seen as inappropriate? Is it no more than those horrid wooden boards with poems on along the corridor? But on sheets. Iron-on labels, printable sheets. There’s an interesting space to communicate or document within.

My mum is now lying in a hospital. What would I like to make for her? What would cheer her up? A story about someone else that anyone can relate to. - Sheets covered in drawings by kids. It’s like Grennan and Sperandio – she would like a word game she could play or some rude jokes.

Anne talked about a place where they live by self-sufficiency, south of Glasgow. I am interested in alternative power, in what it means to be self sufficient, and in sustainability. But it could be a form of isolation from the world, does it mean a rejection of the mainstream, or of unknown others, could be a narrowing of the mind?

The steam vent is great. It is the only surplus condensate steam not used by the laundry. It could be a hot house, a tropical jungle, a steam room, sauna for patients staff who are tired of folding and lifting, whose muscles ache, heads ache. It’s more for staff really... it’s on the way out. How could it be funded? A glass ceiling so can see the sky? Will it be too steamy for the Scottish, Calvinistic work ethic? Stoicism. I imagine an ecological recycling space, where the initial steam run-off is made as much of as possible. It could be another reason to go to hospital. To visit your relatives and also to go to the hot house. To stop the separation of one thing from another. The laundry can power a leisure dome, like the Cornwall glass place. Eden. Livingstone’s Eden. Formed like a __________-
Whelk?

(Just realised the landscape is covered in snow outside the train. It is quite cold I must say.)

Snow when thinking of steam

(Those screamers seem to be excited; maybe they will vacate the train.)

When they talked about patients, I felt but I am a patient, we are all patients.

The patient escape alarm goes off…people are locked up here, forever. The people who have not left, who live in the hospital. That was interestingly talked about by Sue... there used to be asylums, complete communities that catered for the very long term ill. They were employed in jobs in the asylum/village services - gardening, catering, sewing etc. This is now all gone, patients have nothing to do, and they can suffer more from boredom than from their actual illness. There is literally nothing for them to do. The fact that the old asylum, build round turn of century is now sold to property developers and will soon house the elite of the area, the most privileged, it makes you think. And those patients are often placed "in the community", the community from which the elite will gladly be moving out of perhaps. They are now able to buy the security and space and sense of belonging that the ill-used to "enjoy". The idea of a hospital as a sanctuary, asylum, and active community is pretty much absent from where I visited. Andrew Duncan is the only one devoted to mental health that I spent time in; it does not feel like a place of sanctuary. The idea that when you are ill you need rest, ‘retreat’ and the possibility to recover is not catered for anymore at all. It seems all those jobs from Asylum days have withered away to become ________ occupational therapy. Activities, which are there because activity is important for sense of well-being. Duh, how could anyone miss that? Surely the only drive behind last 3 decades of health service _______ has been Thatcherite priorities - a profound lack of regard for the ill, the underprivileged, the disabled, the poor, and the unemployed? Surely the mentally ill have just been fucked over along with the working class redundant, and the consumers who’ve got spare money too, conned to go and spend it all?

… could make some research or work about the people who move into the asylum properties – that whole scenario…

That was something amazing Justin said actually... that the whole world is held together invisibly by people who work together with mutual respect and quietly get on with enabling others and each other and themselves to work in another system altogether, like the traveling community we spoke about last night. The Appleby Horse Fair . Anne has been. Thousands of gypsies selling horses. The alternative network that simply functions outside the system. I would love to go.

Why I like the fact of the grey or recycled water that’s run-off from the roof of the hospital, and that is used 3 times before going into steam or down the drain. (25 percent less volume as that lost in evaporation - like the soul that weighs x amount and the body getting lighter at death) Because it’s the idea of existing independently from the mains. Getting a supply from outside the system altogether. Like having an allotment and planting own food and bypassing Tesco for ever after.

(I hear a cat meow on the train.)

more NOTES (in a variety of provisional papers and notes I find)
Occupational Therapy run Art classes. I have a problem, perhaps a preconception to be dissolved, with the way Art is thought of as dabbling in painting and drawing in O.T. and other such activities. As if it’s not the most high-risk conceptual activity of them all.
Met Ruth in Horticulture O.T. Ruth very nice. Up for doing something for sure.
Beth Again an amazing self motivated woman. Very up for connecting. There’s a voluntary library run entirely voluntarily
Went to laundry, met Malcolm, who introduced me to the woman working in the sewing room, who introduced me to the facilities manager... all very interested
Met another professor - brain scanner, radiographer. Works in tandem with psychiatry. What is psychiatry? The medical approach to a mental illness. Looking at biochemical and physiological abnormalities as much as or more than social or environmental circumstances. Therapy, psychology is more about personal life histories etc.

Part of me thinks to create a project here that utilises many people’s skills and inputs that could be completely anonymous.
A kind of expanded AA meeting, Anonymous meeting of authors, AMA, AAM, anonymous authors meeting. Typical recipe for community art?

The connection between one’s name, identity, past and Authorship and the AA methodology of meetings and organizing, probably a bit like Quakers, and the idea of creative commons and collaborative authorship, all the rage, Sophie Hope of B+B just written a text about it, after Saul Albert’s. She mentions ‘Q’, which I have been reading up in Edinburgh, by Luther Blisset.

Would it, like Paul is encountering, create a room full of wind chimes? and sculptures of abstracted dogs etc.? Hundreds of wind chimes sounds brilliant!

I can imagine a construct/event that is multivocal. Various. Chaotic. Transportable. A traveling show. I keep thinking it would be interesting to work with theatre in this context, with live performance, or with song.

It is easy to think these things. They are like petals blowing across the sky, ideas from elsewhere and disappearing.

(The trolley comes along and we have a weird conversation. I say is there a buffet (buffay) on the train, he says only in the bar. I don’t understand, he repeats, I say is the buffet open, he says I thought you said muffin, I say buffet. he says buffy (! - the vampire slayer) then accuses me,'its your accent!')

A WEEK LATER I AM HOME IN LONDON

The courtyards within acute admission wards

(out of the window a small girl is playing tennis of sorts with a teacher on the green pitch at the school. When she hits the ball she goes into a jumping ecstasy of delight)

You can see the courtyards from outpatients in the Andrew Duncan Clinic, and the 2nd courtyard is by the alcohol problems unit. They used to employ patients - Now its occupational therapy. This strikes a chord with the idea of art for arts sake and the idea of a service or function, a connection to the world of circulation of goods and services… art is something that is more like ideas, a different currency. Mutable, hard to pin down.

Beth runs the volunteering services. She is building relationships. She does etchings.
Government wants to increase volunteering in 1998 thus she got this brand new post. She applied because she had been redundant and made hundreds of applications elsewhere and it suited her well. Self motivated, working solo, she had to start the whole thing, and nothing was in place. She created the job for herself. It is a new resource, staff could see it like that but on the whole they don’t. They don’t see how it could actually relieve them of work and responsibility, see it as a service that’s useful for them, but they don’t. Staff don’t support volunteers. Volunteers are total mix of backgrounds, ages etc, From 16-80, probably 40 percent male, 60 female. She trains them, according to their skills and experience and what they want to get out of it. There are 140 volunteers, 70 in tearoom. It’s like a "job centre dating agency" - a pool of people waiting to be placed. There are different motivations of volunteering. To learn, get experience. Sometimes from patients, relatives of patients. People do want to do something useful. They become Ward Buddies, tea, manicure, reading letters, and writing, going for walk… Volunteers attach to specific groups, like in Church Centre, which is a social space and also one to relationships that last a very long time. There are other volunteer organizations, WRVS, League of friends etc.
Volunteers must be flexible and responsive to others’ needs. Patients have little motivation due to context. BOREDOM is bigger problem than "illnesses", more than one person says this, staff don’t help, they sit in the staff room together all day and lose sight of the fact that patients are people.

Beth set up the library, it was almost an accident. The Royal Edinburgh never had anything like that (but the Western General hospital did). Could volunteering be a life changing service for patients? No, it is done incrementally, in tiny bits… One of biggest hurdles is changing the minds of staff. Institutional care has big effect on patients. O.T. and nursing staff often at loggerheads, a professional rivalry.

On ringing Dr Jonathon in the alcohol problems unit I found myself unmasked and transferred to O.T. I learn quickly that "art" is associated directly with O.T., the community art of hospital life I guess… He is lead consultant of alcohol problems unit.
Speak to Louise in Outpatients at 20 Morningside, range from those with chronic dependency to those who will change - "Changing lifestyle group". Watercolour pastels calligraphy
Links into community, like going to art class, they copy paintings from books. It’s psychodynamic. Used to run a treatment centre and it included pottery.

The laundry at Andrew Duncan is a port of call to the laundry in St. Johns
Where manager Bill knows about the grey water in St Johns.

TALKING WITH JUSTIN KENRICK, FUNCTIONSUITE AND OTHER ‘SEED’ ARTISTS

Illnesses, Explaining roles, Questions around collaboration. My crisis, that I feel uncomfortable as a researcher. I wonder whether collaboration is possible at all
I have too many of my own assumptions. I am too busy perhaps questioning the brief, in art world brief and proposal structure terms. Which I am sick of.

Bodily experience is vital - Justin says this: embodied learning, building trust, trust is key; participation deepens trust, (although can’t always participate, like when he worked with sex workers). When he, the anthropologist, can offer something useful to them
(an exchange). I say: I don’t know what I’m doing, or what if you don’t know what you might be able to exchange? What do they really want or need? How do you talk to someone who doesn’t want to talk to you? Beth, the volunteer co-coordinator, in her ‘stand alone’ post. ‘Natural relationships’. Identify a bigger structure.

Someone else says, "policy orientated", Can be seen as powerful and powerless.
Justin talks about clowning, that it can be swapped for genuine relationship. How do you build up trust? Colombo’s strategy, the clown.

Bringing normality into institutions. What we, artists, are doing is really normal and we are bringing that normality into the institution, which is totally abnormal.
Mutual exchange, looking for mutual ground. Mutual relationships are always there, always possible… Asking questions, who asks the questions, who is the interrogator?
Can there be an equal exchange?

Where does the power lie? Link jobs and personal experience. Funding issues can lead to paralysis. Talk about ideas and not just being a facilitator. "How much money have we got, what can we make?"

The problem with equal exchange, is it ever equal? Justin talked about my spiel being about - Bringing in more of myself. How can I build in hesitation? Bring as much of yourself in as possible. He said juxtaposition of meaning makes you see something deeper. Challenge one’s own ways of approaching work. Synchronicity. Ask what comes from the ground, the site, and the place. Can you instigate chance?

Paul - courtyards – talked about nor resolving any problems, about creating a subject for discussion and action.

How can I get something out of it, personally, not as an artist? (what’s the difference?) In the collaborative process you erode each other’s prejudices, like in a friendship.

Anne – you can’t avoid working with people.

Anne says Proposal phase is so you can have ideas without compromise.

PROPOSE MORE RESEARCH

Justin - Re. Empowering, giving power is an insult! Not placating, not prettify, not offering.

AT ST. JOHNS WITH ANNE
Bill, the laundry at St Johns. The spare steam, finding a suitable use.
"Condensate" = spare steam. Spare steam in ground, cost of piping steam to hospital is prohibitive.
Talk to Jim and Brian- Engineers in estates dept
15 hospitals in Lothian. Don’t need to segregate the laundry/sheets etc
How long does a sheet last? Might get 100 or 150 washed, and then the linen will die.
Company recycles cotton. Elma has been working there since 70’s.
Bulk linen top 85degrees, 10 mins at 65 or 3 mins at 71 kills all bugs
NHS insists on thermal disinfection, some others use chemical disinfection.
Water down the drain, 25 percent evaporates off during wash cycle
More water gets used than goes down the drain.

PHARMACY
We meet the secretary at St John’s pharmacy
Maggots and leeches grown in Wales
Hirudo medicines kept in fridge to keep inactive
57 staff in pharmacy
Pharmacists know more about drugs than doctors
4yrs + 1 yr to qualify as pharmacist.
Pharmacist applies drug to illness.
Pharmacologist makes the drugs.
Clinical pharmacist, pairs up with Dr on ward to help prescribe
Martindale’s Encyclopedia of drugs and updates (like a shipping chart)
Harm dispense medicine to inpatients and discharge medicine before go home and some outpatients. Always bring your medication in with you. They make stuff up like special blood for hematology, chemotherapy etc. There is a special company who discards and disposes of medicine all the diff hospital departments are ‘represented’ in the pharmacy
(It’s a kind of map of the hospital and the illnesses…) They bulk buy drugs, its all centralized, take responsibility for drugs and correct labeling, if any mistakes it comes back to them/… Drug makers are in UK; some products have to buy in,
Are there any local drug makers?
Homeopathy, have to get remedies from Napier University in Edinburgh
Vaccines, vaccinations.
Pharmacy on lower ground floor as it’s easier to handle deliveries.
The secretary says she thinks people believe too much in drugs being a cure all and that thinks positively is the best way to recover. Dispense positivity!

Anne says water is a medicine. The secretary says the chief pharmacist, is a very busy woman, v. knowledgeable and off to conferences… "She’s on nodding terms with the seagulls" Her specialism is procurement and negotiating contracts, pediatric medicine, aseptic, education training. Anne says people are self-medicating from the Internet a lot now…

The Royal Edinburgh
Facilities Department run the sewing room, the supervisor says the patients have no money, coming there to get a fitted outfit is like retail therapy, all clothes are labeled with patients names

The Radiographer I meet by plucking a name from the phone book talks about using the x-ray work he does in context; it is linked closely with psychiatry. He tells me the diff btwn copy film and x-ray, emulsion on one side for copy film and on both sides for x-ray. He is annoyed when his craft is misrepresented in media.

He tells me the medical world is very complicated, hierarchies are difficult to see from the outside… hospitals are very internalized and self sufficient, or like worlds unto themselves, they go on all day all night…. (Like planets or space stations, or cities, or prisons)
I briefly meet a specialist in schizophrenia (she is introduced to me in the lift as Anna, an artist and I don’t think you’d want to meet her and she looks at him and me with a withering glance and says not) He says she is " a very practical person" Says psychiatrists all have different approaches.
He tells me that psychiatrists use language as the principle tool to diagnose mental condition, repetitive thoughts etc… To see is brain damaged (he can do a scan to see but very rarely that’s the cause). The psychiatric imagine is an esoteric subject. Psychiatry argues that people are biologically ill, it’s a biochemical imbalance or a structural abnormality e.g. damage. He goes into great technical detail about how scans are done and how they are read, sideways and downwards (?) he talks about the asymmetrical, sagital plane being more difficult to read than the symmetrical. He talks about the pleasing nature of the symmetrical, the aesthetics of brain scans, says you can see how old age atrophies a brain in a scan, as in Alzheimer’s. I like the absurdity of our way of meeting up.

ST JOHNS LAUNDRY
Long term patients washing gets done by them
7000 mops per week go thru wash
Colour coded bags fro washing:

Green – covers
Blue – personal clothes
Yellow - pajamas and undies
White – white linen, towels
Orange/red – dry cleaning

ALCOHOL PROBLEMS UNIT
Alcohol problems unit - Has 3 arms - 11 cpn, Alcohol specialists in different areas.
D.T. is a boundary line. People come in for 9 days to detoxify. Librium helps with dts
Maudsley is a centre of excellence for work with alcoholism and has similar service for people with alcohol problems. The aps has been in place for 30 years… it’s rare to have specialist beds for alcohol problems.
I meet Ruth in OT horticulture, its space, separate from hospital and one (if I was institutionalized there) I would depend on for my whole sense of sanity! Garden, greenhouse, woods etc

(See www Lothian primary care trust and click "services")

More miscellany, not in notebooks…

(I taste rice pudding)

There is an interpretation and translation service.
A medical library I chance upon in the oldest most labyrinthine hospital, the Western General.

I find my notes from the London meetings in December…

Some consent forms un-used.
There is a patient escape alarm.
I find my week’s questions.
Are there any professors or Doctors who also work in London on regular basis?
Is their social networking among staff?
(Just seen a video of a re-enactment of the cramps playing a gig in a psychiatric hospital in USA and all the patients going wild to the rock and roll. Done by Forsyth and Pollard in the ICA. (all about documentation and evidence.)

This is not a proposal, not a clear idea
(I haven’t got to that stage, and wonder if it’s necessary to do so)

I am interested by everything I saw. By the volunteers network, by the pharmacy a kind crown jewels, by the steam escape and recycled water, by Paul’s idea of a republic for kids, by Graham’s idea of a wireless network, by the bus routes that join the hospitals, by the idea of occupational therapy, by the garden up there in the woods, by the courtyards, the yards in Andrew Duncan, really bleak spaces, by using the toilets as a separate space in the institution, a private space, the volunteers library. All these thing share a kind of positive hopefulness about them in my mind. They are all locations in my mind that fill me with hope when I see them in my minds eye. I wan to avoid setting out to link to people, I want that to be very by the by. What has everything got to do with everything else?

I definitely liked St Johns atmosphere the most. I wonder how to operate there.
By making an invisible sculpture under a microscope.

My proposal has to include spending a lot more time in situ! I remember Justin’s comment about chance and synchronicity and there is a case for pursuing that way of operating in this situation. Because it is a kind of mental disarray and intuition and illogic brought into the working process. I would be very happy to let work-involving patients and staffs evolve. I like the idea that my position as wanderer in the hierarchical hospital space is fore grounded along with those I may work with or involve. I guess that’s what Functionsuite already do. I like the idea of trying to collage together the very unconnected departments and services and people and facilities into one extensive incoherent event or narrative. The hospital reminds me of the Internet, or a department store as in "error 404". It is striving for order, like a city-state, I would like to create some disorder. But this disorder might mess with people’s lives and I don’t want to do that, only on a virtual level. A drama. I am interested in incoherence, mental overload, and the periphery of collapse. In this case I am interested in dementia, in that starting point of random language construction. I would like to make something that could be in a gallery later on. Something that is compelling enough off site and in a blank context.

Do I take the hospital as my subject matter, my metaphor, and a subject of critique, or as an audience, or as a set of potential participants? How am I in relation to the hospital? I am a patient in another hospital but not here because I do not live here.
Don’t want to make another book. Guide to hospitals. Document of my process. (Not interesting for others) It’s a world unto itself, surely when I have a project I will want to make use of a variety of the services, people, structures that I have become aware of? Not just one area.

I like the laundry, the creation of utter cleanliness.
I would like to make some clothes for people to wear. Some sheets for people to be ill on. Embroidered with stories. Printed with stories. Sheets printed with stories of the hospital.
Was it true, bored patients, what changes every day? The sheets, the linen,
get it interesting. Temporal work as the stories will fade and linen will start to fray and wear. Sauna, steam room on steam vent, a warm room, a greenhouse full of tropical plants, a hothouse, like the room in the commonwealth institute. Escape to another place.
A free launderette with service washes for the visitors and families. Something useful to do whilst visiting relatives, loved ones. Explore more about the water recycling of laundry.
To be playful and meaningful, to be worthy of praise, Praiseworthy, Plays worthy, Play worthy, Seaworthy

Thanks to Caz and Anne at Functionsuite for the colour coding and editing suggestions.

* Purple italic – personal reflections
* Dark blue – immediate observations describing real time moments
* Green – notes about The Royal Edinburgh Hospital
* Orange – notes about St John’s Hospital at Lowden
* Red – ideas or possible artistic methods as they come up
* Dark grey – to notify the main diaristic body of the text.

Saul Albert Selected Texts – http://www.twenteenthcentury.com/saul/
Simon Grennan and Christopher Sperandio – http://www.kartoonkings.com/blog/view.html/
Appleby Horse Fair – http://www.applebytownconcil.fsnet.co.uk/
Q nominated for the Guardian 1st book prize was written by 4 artists under the name
Luther Blissett – http://www.lutherblissett.net/index_en.html
B&B is a curatorial collaborative partnership between Sophie Hope & Sarah Carrington
http://www.welcome.to/b.b
Martindale’s Virtual Medical Center: Medical Dictionaries.
http://martindalecenter.com/MedicalD_Dict.html
Maudsley Hospital , London England – http://www.slam.nhs.uk/
Ian Forsyth & Jane Pollard – the project referenced is File under Sacred Music

My original proposal for working on privacy within the hospital has lead me to research the history of the psychiatric asylum and the philosophies that have dealt with aspects of the institution throughout it’s history. From this research I have found that the evolution of the institution itself through time has largely stayed the same in usage while the philosophies that govern it have changed, more classifications and more patients, but unfortunately not always for the best. In fact some of the original ideas from mental healthcare’s more productive periods during the enlightenment, lead by Dr. Phillipe Pinel, have been lost in favour of a more incarceration role. This research along with meetings with Ruth Rooney of the patients council and Susan Tennyson, a nurse working with planners of the new building, have lead me to feel my project would serve this community best by discussing the new PIF (private finance initiative) psychiatric hospital building that will be built soon. My discussions, initiated by Function Suite, with both Susan and Ruth made me aware of the need for the building to be considered a main factor in encouraging wellness in patients.

The project I am proposing is two fold. First is to create a portrait of the Royal Edinburgh Hospital by using some of the deconstruction methods practiced in environmental psychology. From my research I have found that spaces, especially in institutions, have a tendency to create more stress in terms of environment because they have not been thought about in terms of their psychology. The royal Edinburgh psychiatric hospital is a prime example of a stressful space because of the chaotic messages it sends out from its environment. I want to examine the reasons why the spaces are stressful and how they might be made better. The portrait of the building will be used in the next stage of the proposal.

The next part of the proposal is to create a focus group made up of nurses, patients, ex patients, an environmental psychologist, myself and other users of the hospital space to create a brief for the ideal ward. The first part of this process has already started and Ruth and Susan have already agreed to participate on some level in this group. Once all of the participants have been identified than I will discuss the portrait and what each of them might want to discuss in the meetings. From the beginning I am hoping to discuss a number of different models, theoretical and real, that have already been used, like R.D. Laing’s Kingsley Hall and Pinels’s moral therapy, and from them determine what to our group still seems relevant and can be used in the design of the space. Then we will meet to discuss the project together. My role will be to allow everyone to input into the process and formulate the ideas into a brief. This brief will be given to an architect to draw up the ward to our specifications. The brief and the drawings will then be presented to the politicians and planners in hope that it can be used and contribute to the design of the building.

The representational form of the research and focus group will be in a publication. Some of the research in this publication would be an interview I’ve done with Dr. Irwin Altman (an important environmental psychologist), photographs, transcripts of meetings and the portrait of the building. The centrepiece would be focus group and the documentation of that process. The overall idea of the project is to give the people who use the space the platform and tools in which to construct the space that they would want. To do this will require discussion and compromise and in this way the meaning of ideal is centred on the users and their ability to work together in creating the ideal. So the process is a model for how the space might work.

Primary Functionsuite Artist : Ilana Halperin
Primary Collaborator in the A&E Department : Dennis Purcell

When Alison Bonney first took me on a tour of the Accident and Emergency department at the New Royal Infirmary she explained when we were in the resuscitation room that all the lights could go out in the A&E and everyone would still be able to do their jobs because everyone knew everything so well in that environment, that they could almost work with their eyes shut.

Based on this idea, I began to wonder how this skill might apply to the world outside of the A&E in relation to the staff that work there - whether this muscle memory of environment might apply to daily life outside of the A&E. Combining this idea with an interest in the different tactics people use to cope with living or working in a high risk/high stress environment, I began to interview staff members using two primary questions :

How do you cope with working in such a high stress or high intensity working environment/ Is there anything specific you do to relax after work?

Could you please describe one place you really like, in as much detail as possible, using the same skills you would use to describe the exam room?

A Sample Strata Study from the A&E
To destress Rachel walks her dogs - both collie crosses, but only one dog now because the other one died last year, she was 16. Megan is 13 and Rachel won't get another dog until Megan passes away, and then she'll get two, definitely both collie-crosses again. Jackie goes rockclimbing at Alean Rock with some of the other nurses. Sometimes people go hillwalking together.

Dennis : The weather is so mercurial. I remember driving up to Akureyri from Reykjavik and on that drive we had, it was summer, but we had snow, we had sun, we had skies that contained everything all at one time. One of the oddities about the weather in Iceland is that if you pass through the same place on different days, depending on the sky, because the place seems to have a longer horizon than Scotland, in Scotland you are always meeting your mountain...Iceland actually has a feeling...it's like a very large plane, it is mountainous but they are on the fringe and you see this very big sky and the way the sky looks determines the landscape, and on different days seeing the same landscape is not like being in the same place because actually the nature of the sky changes the experience completely.

Martin: In the A&E no two days are the same and in many ways every patient is different and it makes the work very varied and interesting. You are always seeing and learning new things - so I suppose that is what makes it enjoyable.

Strata Study continued
Anna : I think I would choose Arthur's Seat because it is my favorite place to go and relax. If I have to describe it, I like the roughness of the rocks, I also like the softness of the flowers or the green of the trees. I really like the rocks because they are brown but they are topped with black. They kind of look like if they had been burned so they're very active. I've been there yesterday, so it's beautiful now, blossoming with yellow bushes and the grass in front of Arthur's Seat is so nice and bright and smooth, I like the differences, or the contrasts and I like the color...

Dennis: There are places where the sub-earth is clay red and the plants that grow are also red, they must take in a bit of the clay. It's gourse or grass but it's red instead of green. It's quite weird, like being on the moon, most strange, it's so volcanic and that is what determines the landscape, it's remarkable.

Pauline : I love the night shift, I'm a bit of a bat. I go out whenever I'm not working, which is another good reason to do night shift...The patients are wee darlings, they are the ones that really keep everyone going. If you have a shit day at work they'll always be the one to give you a thank you or 'you're very nice' like that. It's the really really ill ones that don't ever say anything, never to shout for cups of tea or shout for bedpans or that...the last ones to complain.

Mary : I think you end up really trusting each other a lot of the time. People recognize perhaps one day you're not feeling 100% today, there's always somebody who will be there to look out for you...It's such a close knit community, people are very close friends within that because you trust each other as colleagues. It's a funny place to work, isn't it, for that. Very diverse characters within it though maybe in other spheres of life we'd never work together or be close friends, but you tend to get on.

Bringing the outside in
Continuing to work with the questions listed in section one, as well as related material, the aim of the project would be to combine stories from outside and inside the A&E department into one narrative; bridging the gap between indoor work life at the hospital and daily life/daydream life that happens outside. Reference points for this include the lack of windows (access to an outside viewpoint or vista) in the A&E department itself, an impulse to bring individualized experiences into an environment where community members are encouraged to 'leave themselves at the door' and to create a forum which makes the new hospital more at home in its own skin.

I propose to work towards a final talk/ performative lecture provisionally titled Stories from the A&E, a weekend supplement to the staff in the department and greater hospital community, based on interviews and field material collected during a research/development period through the A&E. This material will be titled The A&E Strata Study. To distribute the information in a complementary form to the talk, a weekend supplement magazine would be published at the same time, containing information from The A&E Strata Study, available in the staff room, patient waiting rooms and main artery hall of the hospital.

How to Design a Weekend Supplement
• As recommended by Dennis Purcell, I would like to deliver an introductory talk to the A&E staff on my own work, my approach, background on the project and what to expect for future development of the Weekend Supplement.

• Two - three hillwalks in the area surrounding the hospital will be organized for A&E staff members.

• A local geologist will be invited to contribute information on the geological history of the New Royal Infirmary site, adding to knowledge about the new hospital in a long term context, as equally little information has been passed along on its present incarnation.

• Set up an 'information booth' for staff members somewhere in the A&E, so they may feel free to contribute to the project in whatever format they choose, whenever is convenient within their work schedules.

• Commission Dennis Purcell to do a series of illustrations based on the A&E department and selected narratives from The A&E Strata Study.

• Develop illustrations for the Weekend Supplement, based on locations described in The A&E Strata Study that will complement Dennis Purcell's illustrations.

• Gather together all material collected over the research and development period.

• Develop a script for the talk.

• Deliver the talk on one or more occasions in locations agreed upon in the hospital context, or in a nearby venue outwith the hospital setting.

• Design, publish and distribute Weekend Supplement magazine in the A&E department and other related sites.

Additional Points
Within the research and development period, I would like to carry out as much work as possible outwith the hospital setting itself. The A&E department is a very active and changeable environment. Though this project is in essense a portrait of the A&E, a primary aim within it is to support staff that work there to express other interests they have outwith the A&E itself.

Proposal to build a temporary structure in the grounds of the Royal Edinburgh Hospital and programme events in it over a long weekend of May Bank holiday 2005.
By Kate Gray with Albert Nicholson and Paul Barham.

The Royal Edinburgh Hospital is a Psychiatric Hospital. The starting point for this proposal was my interest in hospital’s process of planning a rebuild. To finance the rebuild the hospital’s plan was to sell the old building and to build a new hospital on the site of the old asylum orchard adjacent to the present hospital (which has fallen into disrepair). Artlink was consulted during the planning process.
Recently the Scottish executive turned down the hospitals proposals in favour of a Public, Private partnership development. The planning process has gone back to square one and the job of designing the new hospital will now be put out to tender along with the building contract.

I have worked in the Royal Edinburgh for many years and became very interested in the process, I fellt lucky to be able to see the process develop and change, although it gave me a focus for some of my disapointments about the way that the hospital is structured. Medical and social/recreational areas of the hospital are separate and all medical areas are behind locked doors. I feel that provision for patients outside medical areas is not a priority for the hospital and so I decided to look at this area.

I started with the space, interested in an environment which was not part of the hospital but commented on its structure. My research involved looking at temporary buildings and portable architecture which is designed and built for specific proposes. Buildings which act as parasites on larger institutions or are temporary self contained units which can generate there own power (self sufficiant). I wanted to look at making a space which would provide a different space for conteplation about what a hospital is and what non clinical services are within psychiatric care. Also a place which could be a link between communities within and outside the hospital. I was influenced in this by a proposal by MUF architects for www.healthyhospitals.org. They proposed a way of thinking about hospitals which did not designate them as outside of the ‘normal" public sphere and designated for the ‘sick’ presenting a model of the hospital as a dynamic part of the culture of a city which might include sports training or botanical gardens.

I am excited by the idea that Functionsuite could act as a point of exchange between the insular institutional world of the hospital and the wider community. By introducing models and discussions, by inviting groups and individuals in and providing as glimse of what might lie outside to others.

During my research I held meetings with patients, advocates and staff to ask what patients ask for when they are looking for relaxation or recreational activity within the hospital. During a meeting at the Patients council I met Albert Nicholson. Albert is an ex patient who has also studied architecture, he has many ideas about both relaxing/recreational events which could be offered to patients (such as yoga and spinning) and architecture/design. We decided to work together on the project. We decided to look at programming a series of events for patients in a structure designed by Albert. We also decided that we were very interested in the structure being fabricated from materials which are discarded by the hospital. Initial research showed that many skips are being filled and that linen from the hospital laundry is washed 100 times and then sold to a rag trader.

We contacted Paul Barham. Paul is an architect who has worked with Artlink before. He works for the John Gilbert architects practice in Glasgow which specialises in renewable environmental housing and was the principle architect for the Talamh project in Lanarkshire to create a self sufficient, sustainable community which includes amongst other things a horse drawn cinema. Paul was interested in becoming involved in the project and suggested that we could work with the Talamh on the event as they have a wealth of experience of both putting together events and powering them from renewable sources (they hire out geodesic domes, pedal electrical turbines and wind turbines).

On Thursday 22nd April Paul, Albert and myself had an initial meeting. At this meeting we discussed practicalities and budgets for building a temporary structure in the grounds building a structure from materials which are by products of the hospital and usually considered waste (e.g. old laundry form the hospitals which is compressed into blocks during processing or tents from hospital waste disposal sacks or uniforms.) We have been looking at the temporary structures by Wolfgang Winter and Bertold Horbelt (can be viewed at www.a-matter.com).

Albert will design the structure/pavillion with Paul and Paul will work with him to ensure that it is safe, possibily involving a structrual engineer.

We also propose to compose questionnaires along with many other means to try to engadge patients in a debate about what kind of non-clinical services they would enjoy/attend/feel to be benificial. We then propose to invite community groups from the local area to be part of a small season of events which will be held in the pavillion, some being run by members of the hospital community (patients or staff and some by the wider community.

This proposal is a collaboration between three individuals, but relies on the collaboration of artists, architects, patients, ex-patients, wider community groups and the hospital management. All parts of the process of collecting information and permissions are to be documented in various ways and form part of the work.

Kate Gray with Dr Adam Zeman (neurologist from the Western General Hospital), Justin Kenrick (Social Anthropologist) and invited others.

The proposal is that Kate carries out a research project devised by the group which looks at how people involved with epilepsy (doctors, patients and carers as well as artists and Social anthropologist) describe epilepsy or seizures. To use epilepsy as a metaphor and a model by which to explore both epilepsy and control/loss of control within culture.

Within the research project we intend to look at the structure of seizures and mirror these in the research structure; Absence (Maternity leave), revisiting the same people again etc..
To incorporate first hand experience into a discussion on the control/power relationships around people who suffer from epilepsy. To use the structural model of types of seizure and mirror them to structure discussion around this.

Were our interests cross is in control, loss of control, liminal spaces (ie. when time while something is in the process of change, conscious to unconscious or boy to man etc.....) Outcomes could be useful for those suffering seizures or telling people that they suffer from seizures as it is a bank of ways to describe things which is not necessarily medical or mechanical. It is a way for people to tell stories to themselves and explain their experiences, at the same time describing the experience of being part of society.

BACKGROUND
November 2003
Met with Dr Zeman and started to talk to him about his work as a Neurologist. Read his book "Consciousness, a users guide"

December
Made a sketch of an electrical storm in a kitchen cupboard in response to descriptions Dr zeman told me about seizures. The sketch was featured in FUNCTIONSUITE newsletter 2.

January 2004
Took to Sketch to a epilepsy support group at Enlighten in Edinburgh. Discussed their experiences of seizures and aura (an aura is a very light seizure which can be a forwarding. Also met with Dr Paul Brok to talk about his book "into the silent land" about his work as a neurologist.

February - May
Met with Dr Zeman once a month to discuss ideas in Pub, Hospital and Gallery.

May
Met with Dr Zeman and Justin Kenrick to talk about setting up a research structure which mirrors epilepsy or an epileptic seizure.
Meet with Miss Lawson and her partner to hear/ record narratives of seizures by first hand and someone who experiences it second hand.

June
Set up a structure of meetings once/twice a month with each group. One joint meeting out of every three.

June July and August.
Collecting descriptions in a number of ways. Through the NHS and support organisations...

1. Met with Angela Lamb, support worker at enlighten (particularly with young people). She is extremely interested in the research as she recently put together a book with young people about epilepsy and found that most people did not describe seizures in own words, but they did other things like medication.
I think Angela may be interested in being involved closely with the project/research.
I am meeting her young peoples group next Wednesday at there Summer School. We have also put together a form to be sent out through the general enlighten mail out asking people for their descriptions/ experiences.

2. After long discussions I have sent forms to Falkirk Royal hospital to be given out to their patients inviting them to contribute. They have to send forms back with there contact details and then Kate will get in touch. If Kate is away, someone else could send out forms asking for descriptions as those sent out through Enlighten.
This is the only way they felt I could contact people through them.

3. Doing a workshop at Bloomhouse (epilepsy West Lothian) on 2nd August. This group may also have learning difficulties. I will use talking and drawing and possibly writing in the workshops and try to gain their experiences.
Janet Henderson is very helpful here. She spoke about a woman who attended the centre who could not communicate well but drew the same pattern of interlocking circles over and over again. When Janet attended a course she was shown a slide of what an aura might look like and it was the same as the drawing the woman in her group had been doing.

4. List of Doctors who work within the department of Neurology at the Western general hospital. Ringing there secretaries to make short meetings with them all.

Doing research on the web. Articles which were of particular interest to me were; Was epileptic seizures in children in Japan after an episode of the popular cartoon "Pokemon". An article which argued that this may be due to cultural hysteria.

Also information about women who have hormone related epilepsy especially either in adolescence or menopause (two liminal stages?). Could this be related to ideas about the female hysteric with her faints and convulsions documented by Charcoult in the 18th century?

PROPOSED
September
assess progress to date and reassess structure with a research group.

September- Jan 2005
Absence, Maternity leave. A ‘carer’ would send out forms which were asked for but not initiate any research.

February - March
Resume research. Revisit some of the individuals contacted previously.

April
Collect all metaphors/descriptions together and circulate to the research group.

PROJECT END
Possible outcomes Identified so far;
Ask everyone involved to write a "research paper" from there perspective or discipline on the process and findings (can be oral/transcribed);

Put together all metaphors into a small anthology of descriptions/metaphors of seizures which could be distributed through various channels, epilepsy support groups, medical schools and art book shops.

A poster of metaphors to be distributed

throughout the NHS. Or a series of posters based on metaphors.

Imaging metaphors in sketches etc.

Give the metaphors to a writer, or work with a writer to make narratives around the metaphors.

Leigh-on-sea to Edinburgh -> ideas – 10 years since I worked in a mental hospital – the drugs have become more targeted. Posh place to stay – grey cold stone - no wonder they go mad here – isolated behind 2 inch thick doors and tiled floors.

use strict;
use Data::Dumper;
# individuals in the population - no sense making more than DNA can provide for
# the Scottish population then necessary - rate per 10,000 of the population aged 16-64 receiving home care for mental illness amounted to 6.7.

my $popsize = 1000;
# the mutation rate of population toward mental illness needing hospitalisation
my $mut_rate = 0.67;
# the minimum fitness for survival of the mentally ill
# falling below this and suicide occurs

my $min_fitness = 0.1;
my $generation_count = 100; # run for this many generations
my $generation = 0; # generation counter
my $pop_ref = []; # a reference to a population array

# see www.scotland.gov.uk/stats/bulletins/00044-16.asp for figures on Mentally ill in care

"I’m very proud of my guest house." Got a map ‘please’ – walk through one hospital to get to another. The steam rises form the laundry vent – Anna Best might make something of that.

Projects from the Train:
Insane Wireless -> BIG idea from the train - a network for the mentally ill to collaborate – maybe a networked image - art that can respond to reduced attention span created from using antipsychotic medications.

my $Number_of_Nutters_in_care = 2216;
#http://www.scotland.gov.uk/cru/kd01/purple/review15.htm
my $SUICIDE_Number_of_Nutters_in_care = 92;
init_population($pop_ref, $popsize);

First JOB on site -> get ID – database is not connected to any other machine -> so anyone who worked here in the past can have access to the building – oh well, no one checks anything anyway.

4,000 standalone databases – why?

Nip outside for a quick ciggy – I’m reliably informed

1. Beware of doctors! No begging for beer money!

2. Tie a silk scarf around your mouth and nose (e.g. soaked with lemon), as soon as there is the threat of danger.

3. Gloves, change them, when you enter the hospital, and clean them inside/outside, clean your hands, too.

4. Put a piece of copper metal (everybody has copper coins) in a bottle of water, fill it up with water and leave it for one day; then, take water from there to clean (to wipe off) everything you or others have touched before you cleaned your hands after having entered your home from outside.

Hospitals->{CODE_OF_WAR}->"anything taken from the hands of the many and put in the hands of the few"

Telephone networks 800 end-point-users - pages of numbers – lonely networks isolated form fillers. Bosses trying to gain info about workers key strokes (keyboard taging) - track patients from entry into the system until exit amassing data for ‘evidence based practice’ (what was it before).
Nappy sellers want pregnancy list - employers want health info about employees.

Phone networks -> do not work anyway.

So Hospitals run on security conscious networks - Ted Boyle, he’s your man – can’t say a thing ‘til he okays it. "We protect the network by looking for unauthorised IP address – that triggers an alarm sent to me and Ted Boyle" - Gavin Greig.

PROJECT 1:
LED display in waiting rooms allows family and friends to send get-well messages. HANG ON MINUTE:
Private public partnership -> disallows this project – no rights to the network - 35 quid to bang a nail in to hang a picture – they put down carpets that freak out people with learning difficulties.

The old NHS Trusts have now been replaced by divisions of NHS Lothian.

Lothian University Hospitals NHS Trust is now known as NHS Lothian - University Hospitals Division.
West Lothian Healthcare NHS Trust is now known as NHS Lothian - West Lothian Healthcare Division.
Lothian Primary Care NHS Trust is now known as NHS Lothian - Primary & Community Division.

What data flows down the corridors of this network – in buildings of locked doors - What can be modelled, re-routed into other purposes.

Networks that feed the beast. The only thing not recorded on these networks is care – the real business of the hospitals.

The difference between the cheapest small shopping basket of Lothian groceries (£7.89) and the dearest (£14.02) was £6.13.

Office setup:

They need Linux-box
ADSL wires only – I got a modem
router
hub
ethernet cables

£1,000 quid and it’s done. Sort out the copying from the Mac OSX boxes in the office.

sub init_population {
my $population = shift @_;
my $pop_size = shift @_;

# for each individual
foreach my $id (1 .. $pop_size) {
# insert an anonymous hash reference in the population array with the individual's data
# the DNA is equal to the individual's number minus 1 (0-255)
push @$population, { dna => $id-1, survived => 1, parent => 0, fitness => 0 };
}
}

PROJECT 2: Title Database-project:
Talked to Gavin Greig->Ted Boyle. There is a large issue around information in the hospital. The hospital feeds the data-monster that generates the cash flow from government. One example of interest was ‘Evidence based practice’ I thought foolishly this was what medical science was all about - but apparently it’s new. Doctors would usually give drugs to patients based on small group research but not know whether they will actually work. NOW excitedly they will record if the patients feel better. 4,000 databases are unregistered at the hospital and consultants get extra cash in their pocket for selling this info to large drugs companies.

Annually, some 7,500 deaths in the UK amongst people younger than 65 could be prevented if inequalities in wealth narrowed to their 1983 levels. The majority of lives saved from redistribution would be in the poorer areas of Britain, where 37% of 'excess' deaths would be prevented. This was calculated by the researchers as 82 lives saved a year in Lothian.

I thought maybe we could pull a data stream and model it to reveal the belly of the Data->beast.

PROJECT 2(a): light weight LCD-SMS Waiting room.

LCD-SMS in waiting rooms. This would comprise of a LCD displaying messages for the patients in waiting rooms so that family and friends could send SMS messages to them while they wait.

HOW MAIN STREAM IS THIS -> I’m talking to data networks managers and they are pulling me into their problems.
Outside another cigy and 46 years in Broadstairs. Why do we lock them away from us. Do they really threaten us. My Uncle Walter adopted at 60 after 45 years inside – he was good at picking locks – my cousin Lea in-out in-out, Hospital after Hospital.
Levels of dental decay are strongly related to deprivation: the poorest 10% of children have over 50% of the decay in surveys of the dental health of Scottish 5, 12 and 14 year olds.

PROJECT 3: Fist bionic arm – cool – Caz gets too excited, first day she’s been allowed out - gets to meet people and seems to like false limbs.
Prosthetics: work with the archive (fantastic for someone NOT me)

Top-down spreadsheets -> work schedules -> DataMonsters obsess me -

Human care, what most people do has no place within this record set. Get some chips – smoke outside of the window of the guest house and hope don’t get caught by the landlady.

People on lower incomes are more than twice as likely to contract lung cancer and less likely to survive the disease than those earning more.

Magee centre - CANCER - need a network for emotional support of cancer. Oh fuck this does my head in – DAD had his bladder ripped out last year and has a bag now!

sub evaluate_fitness {
my $population = shift @_;
my $fitness_function = shift @_;

foreach my $individual (@$population){
# set the fitness to the result of invoking the fitness function
# on the individual's DNA
$individual->{fitness} = $fitness_function->($individual->{dna});
}
}

I feel the pain in my bollocks from having veins tied up earlier this year – some posh geezer says "I’ll whip your testicles out through your gut – lay them on your tummy and tie them off – if it goes well you will have a bicycle like inner tube of congealed blood running into your groin for 3-6 months – if it goes bad you’ll loose a testicle "
Thanks.

sub survive {
my $population = shift @_;
my $min_fitness = shift @_;
foreach my $individual (@$population) {
# set the fitness to the result of invoking the fitness function
# on the individual's DNA
$individual->{survived} = $individual->{fitness} >= $min_fitness;
# set the fitness to 0 for unfit individuals (so they won't procreate)
$individual->{fitness} = 0 if $individual->{fitness} < $min_fitness;
}
}

PROJECT 4:
Telephony-Project: To have a robot telephone system that interrogates the different departments and individuals. Recording data - phone rings up and asks questions and records results maybe creating conferencing between the various people it speaks to.

Is this possible with mgetty – vgetty?

The resultant communications might stream over the net.

Use Intel/Diologic-board 568 dollars and GNU bayonne

The head of Cromwell is stuck in a phone exchange of a mental hospital. The Royal Edinburgh Hospital – Cromwell’s head technically is a linux box plugged into the wall socket of the phone system. The head dials at random one of the 800 phones trying to get through to one of the people working in the hospital - over a number of days the story builds into an urban myth built out of strange phone calls -

History of the Head
30th January 1661 - Cromwell - The Irish rape - his dead body is raised up. Hung at Tyburn. (now marble arch, London) His head was cut from his leathery body and impaled on a spike at Westminster Hall.

Trying to write this has been a pain – too much other work – too overwhelmed by my visit. I tried to think practically about what could be built what could be done in the time frame.

sub select_parents {
my $population = shift @_;
my $pop_size = scalar @$population; # population size

# create the weights array: select only survivors from the population,
# then use map to have only the fitness come through
my @weights = map { $_->{fitness} } grep { $_->{survived} } @$population;

# if we have less than 2 survivors, we're in trouble
die "Population size $pop_size is too small" if $pop_size < 2;

# we need to fill $pop_size parenting slots, to preserve the population size
foreach my $slot (1..$pop_size) {
my $index = sample(\@weights); # we pass a reference to the weights array here

# do sanity checking on $index
die "Undefined index returned by sample()"
unless defined $index;
die "Invalid index $index returned by sample()"
unless $index >= 0 && $index < $pop_size;

# increase the parenting slots for this population member
$population->[$index]->{parent}++;
}
}

Edinburgh to Leigh-on-Sea - so much meat transported <-> data-packets on rail networks carrying ideas too and fro. Wireless networks for the insane – "they already have them" (Caz). Logic gates open and close between transports - Oscillating this drug that patient weight mass (NHS number) doses -> feeding Data_Monsters hidden in the basements of public<->private partnerships.

Final Project idea:

1. Create a large image of 1,000 peoples on-line self portraits in Edinburgh.
Using search string ‘me Edinburgh’
http://images.google.com/images?q=me+edinburgh&hl=en& lr=&ie=UTF-8&safe=off&start=60&sa=N

2. Collect email info and contact details of the authors of the self portraits – save for later.

3. Working with the statistics department get statistics on peoples healthcare in the Lothian Health Authority area (see notes below).

4. Email the authors of the Images – Ask them to remove their image if they object to it being part of the project.

5. Using a genetic algorithm to act on a generation of people in Edinburgh (images from the web search on ‘me edinburgh’) to affect the images with the common poverty induced illnesses in the Lothian area.

6. At each cycle of the illness inform the authors of the online-portraits by email of the illnesses they are suffering and their chance of survival.

7. Print out the large images at three day intervals making a set to be exhibited within the Hospital complex.

8. Add the email responses to the growing data-monster.

Notes From Lothian CAUSES AND EFFECTS OF POVERTY: Health

www.lapa.org.uk/Poverty/Causes%20and%20Effects/Health/health.htm

* There is a widening gap in life expectancy and health between people who are affluent and those who are poorer. The poorer you are the more risks you face at every stage of life. The poorest people in society suffer more risks throughout life including: increased risk of miscarriages and stillbirths; more babies with low birth weight; more infant mortality; more accidents, both at home and traffic; more long-term illness including mental illness; more disability; shorter lives. (1)

* Babies from manual work backgrounds are almost 1.5 times more likely to be underweight than those from non-manual work backgrounds (18).

* The life expectancy between men in social class I (professional occupations) and social class V (unskilled manual occupations) is now 9.5 years; for women it is 6.4 years. (2)

* The worst placed Lothian constituency is Edinburgh North and Leith in 33rd place where it is estimated that 52% of the deaths under 65 were 'avoidable', that is they would not have occurred had that constituency had the mortality rate of the best off health million. The next placed Lothian constituency is Edinburgh Central in 43rd place with 50% of 'avoidable' deaths, however this figure will have been skewed by the presence in the constituency of a number of homeless hostels and hospitals. The rest of the Lothian constituencies are placed as follows (2):

* No 76 - Edinburgh East and Musselburgh - 46% 'avoidable deaths'
* No 110 - Midlothian - 44%
* No 148 - Linlithgow - 42%
* No 166 - Livingston - 41%
* No 219 - Edinburgh South - 37%
* No 302 - East Lothian - 32%
* No 338 - Edinburgh West - 30%
* No 350 - Edinburgh Pentlands - 29%

* Each year more than 11,400 premature deaths across the UK, including those of 1400 children, can be related to poverty says a study commissioned by the Joseph Rowntree Foundation. (3)

* Statistics show that people living in the poorer areas of Glasgow are twice as likely to die under 65 years as compared to the national average. More than 200 premature deaths in the City are preventable, which exceeds the number of deaths preventable in Scotland as a whole. (3)

* People who are unemployed are more likely to die prematurely than their employed counterparts, in the years which follow redundancy (all else being equal). Those who are unemployed for a long time are much more likely to die prematurely. The effect of the rapid de-industrialisation of Britain in the early 1980s is not best measured by jobs lost, but by the lives which were cut short as a result. (4)

* Some 2,500 deaths per year in the UK amongst those aged 16-64 would be prevented were full employment to be achieved. Two-thirds of these would be in areas which currently have higher than average levels of mortality, preventing 17% of the 'excess' deaths in these areas. It was estimated that 43 deaths in Lothian alone would be prevented. (4)
* Some 1,400 lives would be saved in the UK per year amongst those under 15 if child poverty were eradicated (using the Government's relative definition of child poverty). This represents 92% of all 'excess' child deaths in areas of higher than average mortality. It was estimated that this would be 13 in Lothian. (4) * In Scotland 499 deaths out of 100, 000 were caused by circulatory diseases - associated with poverty - as compared to 368 in the South Thames region (6).

* Teenage pregnancy is often associated with deprivation. Scotland has the highest rate of teenage pregnancies in western Europe. In 1998 9,218 young Scottish women aged between 13-19 became pregnant resulting in 5, 185 births and 4, 033 abortions. (8)
* There is an increasing risk of suicide in deprived areas, particularly in younger age groups. (8)

* In the 25 to 34 age group the suicide rate among men has trebled since the early 70s and now accounts for a quarter of all deaths in that age group. (10)

* In the 15 to 24 and 35 to 44 age groups the rate has almost doubled. (10)

* Suicides amongst the unemployed run at between 2 and 3 times the average whilst amongst alcoholics and heroin users it is 20 times the risk. (10)

* The Deputy Chief Medical Officer acknowledges the strong link between poverty and the increased suicide rate especially amongst men from lower income groups and said that what needs to be done to combat suicides was to "give them [men] a decent education, decent job prospects, quality in employment building up their self esteem and ensuring they have a decent level of disposable income". (11)

* The suicide rate in Scotland is twice as high as that in England and Wales. (9)

* There tends to be higher rates of mental health problems in the most deprived areas.

* A National Programme to improve mental health has been launched (2003) with 4 key aims: (a) raising the profile of mental health, nationally and locally (b) tackling the stigma associated with mental health problems (c) preventing suicide (d) promoting and supporting people in recovery (19).

* American Heart Association research shows that people who commonly experience symptoms of depression are more likely to develop heart disease. A six year study of people aged 65 or over who were initially free of heart disease found that those who reported feelings of depression were 40% more likely to develop heart disease than those reporting it least often. (10)

* The incidence rates for lung and cervical cancer rise with increasing deprivation category.

* Figures released by the Department of Environment show that at present 88 people die and 168 people are hospitalised every year for lung-related diseases associated with emissions from the country's 12 waste burning incinerators. (12)

* The report also reveals that people's lives will be shortened by cancer-causing dioxins from incineration. (12)

* Plans to double or triple the number of incinerators could cause death rates to rise to 100 plus annually. (12)

* Incinerators are most commonly situated within or nearby less affluent areas. See Environmental Justice.

* Of the 112, 000 ex-miners entitled to compensation from British Coal for diseases caused by coal dust, such as emphysema and chronic bronchitis, only 1 has received payment. (13)

* 200 of these miners are dying every month. (13)

* There are 1.7 doctors per 1,000 of the population in the UK as against an average rate of 3.1 per thousand in the rest of Europe. (14)

Elderly People and Health
* Two thirds of kidney patients over the age of 70 have been refused dialysis. (14)

* Women aged over 65 are not routinely screened for breast cancer even though two thirds of the victims belong to this age group. (14)

* 2,000 elderly people throughout Scotland have been placed on waiting lists as they are currently unable to get into publicly funded local authority nursing home care, which they have been assessed as requiring by the same local authorities' social work departments. Whilst on the waiting list they either have to remain in hospital or go into private homes for which funding is not provided. (16)

please revisit at a later date for full proposal.

Ways of involving A knitting bee

Who is involved
Jeanette, Artist, Royal Edinburgh Hospital
Anne Elliot, Artist
Margaret, retired pathologist, member of Western General Arts Committee, keen gardener, Art Collector

Background of the project
Jeanette has been involved with Artlink’s Hospital Arts programme for many years. She made a major contribution to the Fusion project working with Kate Gray. Weekly meetings have taken

place between Jeanette and myself in the inspiring environment of the Functionsuite studio for 9 months. She chose to knit a blanket of squares, but occasionally draws and writes Dr,
Dr jokes. We have been discussing how we can develop a project around the activity of knitting and the knitted object itself that is relevant to Jeanette and interesting to me?

We have attempted to at make connections with other knitters through adverts, letters and phone calls. Margaret responded to the adverts. She visited Jeanette on her ward is now involved in the project by knitting squares at home. The

ground is now set for a 3 way dialogue between the 3 main players in the form of a knitting bee.

How will the project progress?
Through discussion, research and practical activity the knitting bee will determine exactly what artwork will develop. At this stage Jeanette's aim is to exhibit / feature her knitting in some way in the Link Gallery at the REH. I am interested in exploring the collaborative process and getting to unexpected places with the work. Margaret has yet to fill us in on her motivation (so far she has made 20 knitted patches and her friend 40).

So far we have been talking about using the blankets as props in imagined scenarios for film or stills. Creating or sourcing other props (I am very keen to take a look at Margarets hand knitted work suits), actors (including horses and dogs) and locations will all be part of the production process.

Exploring different locations and how that adds and changes meaning; Jeanette has drawn some ideas about the possible situations she imagines the blankets could be photographed in:

1 A washing line with a dogs barking at it (look into pet a care they bring 2 sheepdogs called Casey and Holly onto the ward)
2 3 young women sitting in wheelchairs next to a pond with ducks.

Other locations might include; Margaret’s garden, Edinburgh, Jeanette’s ward / hospital, Sheltie wool shop, Dalry, Anne’s car, Margaret’s bus and Jeanette's wheelchair.

Our discussions might on the other hand lead us to organise an event (would Margaret offer tours to staff and patients of her garden, blankets supplied?).

And what is the point of this project?
As part of the wider project, ways of involving it explores different ways of collaborating with patients, staff and the wider community. How do you incorporate the interests of an individual that form part of their identity in an artwork creating in someway a collective or individual portrait? This might juxtapose very different seemingly incompatible ways of representing the people involved. In this case the aim is to form a collective representation. The value of this project will be in the quality of the artwork made, experiences of working with a diverse range of people (learning about/from each other) and sharing that experience with an audience in the hospital. Who will be happy with the resulting work? What will everyone else think? Time to reflect. Will it be respectful? Will it use people as subjects?

Flexibility in this proposal means that the outcomes could change dramatically. The progress of this project would be closely discussed with the rest of the Functionsuite team and any such changes agreed with them.

Ways of involving
"In society money is a god"

Stewart
Anne Elliot

Stewart and I have been working in the Functionsuite studio once a week for nearly one year. The main aim up to now has been to find medium and methods to engage Stewart in art. The work has are progressed through conversations, drawings, cooking, listening to music (jazz), written questions and answers, mini video sketches and now writing letters

Stewart and I are now at a point where we are ready the progress with an idea for a film that we have worked out together. I am not sure how good a film it will be but, I am confident that we have a good understanding of each other, the working relationship and an idea that are both happy to explore. For these reasons I am keen to follow this artwork through.

It is equally important now that we follow through your ideas to help make sense of the dialogue, that it is not all talk, that we can develop to the next phase, that we can then look back and reflect on whither it was a good idea to work together in the first place, if interesting work resulted etc. The ideas, process, pace, ambition, agenda and outcomes are interlinked and dependent on each other.

What is the working relationship like – do we want to show that through the artwork or do we want to make an interesting piece of art together that does not disclose the relationship? Like any art collaborations one wonders who is the stronger partner and does that matter if it is accepted that it is not a 50/50 collaboration at the onset of the project?

Stewart and I are having a dialogue about where we are coming from and how we came to be working together. We have considered family trees, mannerisms and interests adopted from parents. Looking at what makes ‘us’ in the non-medical sense? We are
interested in working with actors playing about with the idea of ‘us’ on video. Filming ourselves and then the actors and then reflecting, re-filming, repetition of common mannerisms etc.

Stewart describes himself as;

Medium build, black hair, I wear glasses, brown eyes, height 5’8", I dress like an architect, my personality is outgoing, I am funny, I am good at befriending, helping people to relax. I like jazz, I smoke when I am bored

Anne describes herself as;

Small and round build, Straggly brown shoulder length hair with a few greys, green/grey eyes, height 5’3", I dress causally in jeans, t-shirts, trainers, dark blues/blacks, I am shy until I have some Dutch courage, patient
Other peoples observations-arty, moody

Work in progress: photographs, drawings, video, written dialogue is all available on request.

Ways of involving Bees for beginners

David, Consultant, Western General
Anne Elliot

What am I researching? – Personal interests in relation to the high-pressured jobs in healthcare.

What have I done so far?
• Asked David 20 questions about his bee keeping activities via email and he responded with 20 answers.
• Made a visit to see his beehives on May 13th and learn about what is involved in their care. I took still photos as a form of note taking.
• I now have 2 ancient books on the subject. The little I know about bees has come from speaking to David.

What is my proposal?
As yet this proposal is unresolved:
• Create a portrait of a beekeeper
• Working with the bee calendar – look at what is seasonal about hospitals?
• Look at the model of the beehive / society and base the collaboration with staff/ patients on that model i.e.

Queen x1 lays eggs life span 2 years
Males -Drones x 100’s – life span few months
Females - Workers x 1000’s – life span few months – clean up hive, care for new brood, foraging for and storing nectar and pollen – guard duty

The proposal is to have further discussion with David about what this project could be…….

Further discussions with David:
• Could we look at all those processes you use in the making of honey and preparing it for a show, are you doing Ingleston this year?– heating, filtering, melting, casting, polished, clearing, cooking, arranging, labelling this suggests to me installation and methods used to create sculpture
• What do you think are the lesson to be learnt from bees?
• Are there any of the qualities you need for your job that are mirrored in or help you with bee keeping and vice versa?
• What kind of characteristics do you need to be to a beekeeper
• Can you make a diagram for have a copy of a diagram that illustrates the bee society?
• Wounds can be healed using honey because they have natural antibiotics, do you use it for this purpose?
• There is an international organisation out of Italy called Slow Food it comes to mind when thinking about the production of honey - market your honey internationally?

Ways of involving ...and the trainees

10,11 May 2004 Annes personal notes from Self Harm and Suicide training and other discussions with Sue Robertson

A small group of trainees in the coffee room discuss:

What is good in practice?
Safe cutting room facilities

And what is bad about current practice?
Referring to patients as PD’s and not by their name (personality disorder)
Timewasters
Staff are focussed on the day to day
They "sponge"

Next
Safe cutting rooms - Crisis room hospital, London
In USA on wards - Tapes, cassette boxes, creams, coke cans are all things that can be used for cutting and are put in baskets
Self harm is a faulty problem solving - How we deal with emotional distress

Medication
ask ourselves why are we giving out medication?
Is for their good
Is it for your good?
Is it for the good of other patients?

Creative alternatives
What we are wanting out of it – to be saviours?
Attitude – why don’t you go and have a hot bath?
Needing to see red – using red markers to draw on the skin
Lemon and root ginger
Bags of ice
Safe place – environment or in their heads
Bed not if abused
Chair
Guided therapy
A safe box (photo, smell, cross stitch, doodling, books)
Organise in advance before crisis
Plasters and first aid
Scar management – creams and plasters make the person feel better about themselves
Sounds like survival kits – a lot of artist have done work around this
Advanced directives for individuals –what does this mean?
Wounded wings (self help group in Edinburgh)

Staff support
Night staff in admissions get together for breaks
Staff meetings should happen regularly

What have we got from the training
Re-evaluating your opinions
Awareness Judging the illness
Deeper understanding of self-harming
Remember not only to work with people when they are in crisis

Monday June 7th 12.30pm – 2pm Lunchtimes with Sue, and guests Caz and Kate
Iceland 4 cheese pizzas with extra toppings mushrooms and peppers with a mixed salad, followed by fruit – sorry no pictures of food

On a piece of white A4 paper with black text
Discuss ideas with Sue: What if any of these options are Sue and Anne interested in working on Functionsuite project?

1 Screen savers
2 A dialogue over lunch learning about each other’s work, lives, interests etc?
3 Involving Sue in the bereavement discussions - talk about / look at restful places – qualia room, Jardine clinic, gardens – devise a project with Sue
4 Work with Sue (and the trainees) on a visual or audio happening to form part of the training day in self-harm and suicide?
5 Doing something in the ADC courtyard – devise a project involving patients and staff with Sue?
I made the above list of options based on what we have talked about over the last 8 months and that could be developed into a project.

Option 4 – ...and the trainees
After doing your 2 day training on self harm and suicide I am interested in exploring the issues with you through film - but you are unsure about how we can do this, as am I, at this stage. You think that only a few people would benefit from seeing the film/audio work through the training, are there other outlets we could consider for such a film/audio work? I guess that would depend on what we come up with.

I don’t imagine the film would be illustrative, or documentary in style it might be montage, a narrative, or abstract. However what it would be wide open at the moment. Loads of ideas will evolve after speaking to staff, patients and yourself. I would like to speak to trainees that were round the table for those 2 days. I have highlighted some of the training notes in red to indicate the information that stood out to me.

Artistically I am interested in coming up with new ideas and solutions to problems and how we do that collectively, in the context of the Functionsuite project.

Action
• I will draw out / storyboard as an initial something to work from when we next get together

10,11 May 2004 Notes from Self Harm and Suicide training and other discussions with Sue Robertson

Creative alternatives notes from handout
Comforting techniques
Hold a safe object
Sit in a safe place
Listen to soothing music
Sing favourite songs
Use perfume / handcream
Spray room fragrance
Use pot pourri
Buy fresh flowers
Eat favourite food
Have a soothing drink
Soak your feet
Stroke your pet
Hug someone

Option 5 AIR
From the list of ideas we had for this was the one that you are most interested in.

Environment, space, pampering and places of rest have been talked about at various points over lunch. We have looked at the internal courtyard in the Andrew Duncan Clinic at the REH. At present it is a concrete waste ground with dried bushes in pots. It is surrounded by Admissions wards, which are in a state of flux. You think they will be open for another 3 years at least so working in the courtyard would be worth while.

Fresh AIR (look at air quality and access to fresh AIR in hospital. Had some discussion with the estates dept. at St.Johns about this). The need for fresh air has been mentioned so many times by staff. You were interested in targeting patients and staff on "observation" (staff escort) in particular. You thought that the courtyard in the ADC could be a safe place for them to go for fresh AIR.

You would like to make it pleasing and relaxing place for patients. Could we think about making it a safe place for people. Can we be open to something happening that is not a regular garden and possibly temporary? An example could be to use materials like sand, creating a large (but not deep) sand pit. There are many physical restraints to consider. Many more ideas would come out of discussion and practical activities with patients and staff on the wards.

Advertising visiting times could be a solution to the problem of the courtyard being accessed only through the out patients reception.

Artistically I am interested in coming up with new ideas and solutions to problems and how we do that collectively.

Action:
• Contact Facilities Manager about access issues - who would use it the courtyard? are there any plans in the pipeline for it?
• Because this courtyard is accessed through the outpatient’s dept. with a 4N key we need to speak to staff in the outpatient’s dept about access
• Speak to staff and patients on wards about close observation experiences and guidelines
• Manager at the Horticulture dept
• Coordinator at the patient’s council – they have a patient representative linked to each admissions ward now.

I am very pleased that whatever happens with the projects you and I are up for continuing to have lunch together say a least once per month? I look forward to catching up with you on the 14 July @ 12.30pm to discuss the above in person over lunch.

Wendy Arthur, Social Work Dept. Western General
Lorraine Marshall, Mortuary Technician
Anne Elliot

A request came from the Chaplaincy through the arts committee – for an artist to look at the environment of the viewing facility in the New Royal Infirmary with a view to making an artwork for it.

Sequence of events

Summer 2002
Meeting the Chaplaincy, old Royal Infirmary
Visit to A&E dept at the old Infirmary tour of the dept. including viewing facilities and interview with Director.
Phone call deputy manager of pathology to arrange visits to the viewing facilities
Visit to the old infirmary viewing facility with Lorraine Marshall, Mortuary technician.
Visit Mortuary St.Johns hospital, interview with Alex Colthard medical technical officer (pathology)
Visit to Traquair room at the Sick Kids hospital, interview with Family support staff nurse
Visit to the Chapel of rest at the Western General, with Medical Technical Officer
Recorded Interview with deputy manager of pathology (1hr) transcribed
Old infirmary in the process of moving out to Little France

Spring 2003
Meeting with David Wright Intensive Care unit, Western and Margaret McIntyre, retired pathologist
Recorded interview (1hr) with Bereavement Councillor, Alder Hey Hospital, Liverpool. Tour of viewing areas and post mortem room

Summer 2003
stumble apon a working group on bereavement at the NRI for 6 months now finishing-looking at creating a post of bereavement councillor
Interview with head pathologist and part of the working group at the New Royal Infirmary
Recorded Interview (1hr) with Bereavement councillor for parents who have lost children at the New Royal Infirmary

Autumn 2003
Recorded interview (30mins) with Social Worker, Western General (has set up bereavement support groups in the Western)
Interview with Wendy Arthur, Social work and Palliative care at the Western General (part of the working group at NRI) written report

Spring 2004
Revisit Chapel of Rest with Wendy Arthur; take video also meet mortuary technician Lorraine Marshall written report
Received a book on different religion beliefs from Lorraine
Identified Wendy and Lorraine as key contacts for the project

June 2004
proposal / Wendy looking and listening to interviews and video.

This has been a difficult 2 years of stop/start learning about bereavement in hospital. During my visits and interviews I tried not to focus on the physical space. It is a starting point for discussion about what kind of artwork could be made. However I was interested in the signage leading to the spaces which gave mixed messages about the purpose of the rooms and seem to me to highlight the sensitivity around them: mortuary, chapel of rest, bereavement suite or no signs. The needs of the relatives to be comfortable and private, verses the needs of the hospital to be practical, neutral and clean. In the audio interviews I learnt about people’s jobs and where the gaps are in the care of patients, relatives and staff.

How I plan to progress from this point in the research?
1 Arrange a meeting with a list of people compiled with Wendy Arthur – this could be drawn from those people I have already spoken to and perhaps some people I have not met yet.

2 Agree an agenda with Wendy, I will suggest:
Signage – illustrate existing signage - discuss it attitudes/history/religion– propose to change it?

Idea – audio work with experiences of staff – how can this be done – hand out tape recorders to people to speak in their own time or be interviewed be a person of their choice – or for them to go away and interview someone

Exploring women’s experiences/history of working in this area.
One women’s story -
A huge disadvantage as a female technician is that it used to be a male dominated area until perhaps, the last couple of decades, and it has taken time to emphasise and demonstrate that women are just as capable, if not more capable of working in mortuary / autopsy suite. It wasn’t considered a suitable environment for women.

Have the meeting in suitable location

Follow ups depend on what happens at the meeting. I will work on recommendations emerging from the meeting.

please revisit at a later date for full proposal.