Caroline Walker, Hurvin Anderson & Rashid Johnson lead Hospital Rooms Annual Charity Auction

Hospital Rooms’ annual charity auction, Holding Space, will take place on 12 September 2023 at Bonhams, 101 New Bond Street. Highlights include artworks generously donated by Martin Creed, Chantal Joffe, Allison Katz, Rashid Johnson, Julian Opie, Charles Gaines, Hurvin Anderson, Do Ho Suh and Caroline Walker. In partnership with Bonhams and Hauser & Wirth, all fees, including buyer’s premium, have been waived.

• The live auction will take place on 12 September at Bonhams, 101 New Bond Street, London.
• The online-only auction will be open for bidding on bonhams.com from 1 – 13 September.
• Both auctions will be available to preview at 101 New Bond Street from 4 – 12 September.

This event is expected to raise £500,000 and all proceeds from the auction will support Hospital Rooms projects, in particular a Children and Adolescent Service in Sandwell at Black Country Healthcare NHS Foundation Trust.

‘We are honoured by the support of our artists and partners Hauser & Wirth and Bonhams who are helping us make available these amazing artworks. And of course we are indebted to the support of buyers who will help us radically transform mental health settings, especially for young people, over the coming years.’ – Niamh White (Hospital Rooms Co-Founder)

Other highlights include Sutapa Biswas’s Time Flies 02.08.2023, a small and exquisite painting that is part of a series of paintings of birds that the artist has been working on for almost 20 years, and Hurvin Anderson’s Shaftesbury, which has particular resonance for Hospital Rooms as it was a preparatory work for a huge mural that Hurvin created for the Shaftesbury Clinic, a forensic mental health hospital in London. In the lead up to the event, artworks featured in the auction can be seen on Ocean Outdoor screens around London including Canary Wharf, Westfield London and Stratford, Leicester Square and High St Kensington.

This year, we are working with Sandwell CAMHS at Black Country NHS Foundation Trust ,an outpatient community mental health service for young people experiencing mental illness. The building’s 15 therapy rooms, communal spaces and staff offices are significantly run down with no creative elements.

AUCTION IMPACT

From 2023, Hospital Rooms is responding to the catastrophic impact that the pandemic and cost of living crisis has had on young people’s mental health. Urgent referrals to Children and Adolescent Mental Health Services (CAMHS) associated with psychosis, self-harm and suicidal ideation have increased by 63% (Apr-Jun 2019 v 2021) (Guardian 2021).

CAMHS are at capacity and extremely unwell young people are on 2 year waiting lists. Young people with severe mental illness on acute and high dependency wards and often detained under the Mental Health Act live away from their families, for between 4 weeks and 9 months. Staff and patients have told us that the sterile environment and absence of meaningful activities fuels boredom and has a damaging effect on recovery. Clinical teams report a devastating lack of imagination, motivation, self-esteem and hope in young people.

This year, we are working with Sandwell CAMHS at Black Country NHS Foundation Trust ,an outpatient community mental health service for young people experiencing mental illness. The building’s 15 therapy rooms, communal spaces and staff offices are significantly run down with no creative elements.

“What stands out in my mind is feedback that I got from a young person,
‘we are sitting in prisons.’” – Sandwell CAMHS Staff member, Focus Group session

Hospital Rooms is working with the service over a period of 18 months to transform the Lodge Road mental health outpatient service building. A group of 13 artists including Roo Dhissou, Marley Starskey and Sarah Silverwood Taylor have been leading creative sessions with young people throughout the Easter, Half Term and Summer school holidays to collaboratively conceive of inventive and transformative artworks for the space. We now need to bring these artworks to reality.

©2023 Hospital Rooms