Bringing our St George's Art and Heritage Collection into our local community!
19 May 2025
For the last couple of months, Arts St Georges have joined Bounce Theatre's Turn up, Join in group to participate in their collage sessions to create a installation inspired by artworks from the St George's Art and Heritage Collection at the Home Café in Earlsfield.
The project started with a focus on artworks from the collection by Chris Cockburn, a former Zoology student and Biochemist, whose prints celebrate the natural world. However, as the weeks progressed, Arts St Georges introduced more artworks from the collection which arose from conversations with the participants.
The project aimed to positively impact the community’s understanding of the hospital as an inviting and caring space. It showed the potential of the collection to support wellbeing both within the hospital and in the wider community.
As well as exploring different subjects, the group also experimented with different collage techniques, including ways to make their artwork three-dimensional. The resulting installation is a vibrant composition of different plants and animals with a variety of colours and textures that reaches out from the wall, drawing the viewer in.
This project is part of the 'Our Hospital: conserving, curating and responding to St George's Art and Heritage Collection'. As well as producing artwork inspired by items from the collection, Arts St Georges also discussed the heritage of the hospital with the members of the group, introducing artworks from the collection which depict the historical buildings of St George's Hospital.
Louise Pendry, Artistic Director of Bounce Theatre, said of the project, "Collaborating with the St George’s Arts team has been brilliant! We began with an initial workshop that prompted questions and curiosity from our group, which led us to explore a series of images from the collection. The result is a beautiful and unique installation at the Home Café. Through this process, we've discovered our own potential to help bring the hospital art collection into the wider community."
We were delighted to have this fantastic opportunity to showcase some of the amazing artworks from the St George’s Art and Heritage Collection and raise awareness of the collection as a whole.
This installation will be curated for an exhibition at St George's Hospital in Autumn 2025.
To see all the artworks which inspired this installation, please visit - Collaborative Installation! Arts St Georges and Bounce Theatre - St Georges Hospital Charity
Arts St George’s (part of St George’s Hospital Charity) is the arts programme for St George’s University Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust. To find out more, follow us on socials @artsstgeorges, or follow Arts St George's - St George's Hospital Charity
The 'Our Hospital: conserving, curating and responding to St George’s Art and Heritage Collection’ is a three-year project, funded by The National Lottery Heritage Fund and made possible by money raised by National Lottery players. The project is focusing on conserving, cataloguing, reinterpreting and digitising St George’s Hospital’s unique Art and Heritage Collection so it can be enjoyed by many more people.
Bounce Theatre is a Wandsworth-based creative arts organisation which makes space for children, young people and adults to be heard and to hear themselves. Their Turn up, Join in art group runs every Tuesday morning at Home Café in Earlsfield. To find out more, follow them on socials @bouncetheatre, or visit Bounce Theatre | creative arts | Wandsworth, London, UK
