From images of empty community rooms and a colourful canvas crammed with caricatures to a baby linked by an umbilical-like cord to a seated stranger, artworks on the subject of mental health are to go on display in an exhibition that examines social bonds against the backdrop of today\u2019s polarised times.<\/p>\n
Artists have long drawn on their own experiences of mental ill health. Staged at the Bethlem Museum of the Mind<\/a>, in the world\u2019s oldest psychiatric hospital, in south-east London, Kindred will explore the power of communities to make people feel comforted as well as isolated.<\/p>\n Morning Group by the artist Charlotte Johnson Wahl,<\/a> the late mother of Boris Johnson, painted when she was a patient at the Maudsley hospital, shows her horror of group therapy sessions. Three pieces by the contemporary artist Mud<\/a> depict their journey from distrust to healing through therapy.<\/p>\n Charlotte Johnson Wahl, Morning Group, 1974. Photograph: Charlotte Johnson-Wahl\/Bethlem Museum of the Mind<\/p>\n Gareth McConnell\u2019s<\/a> photographs of empty rooms are all waiting to be filled and transformed by therapy sessions.<\/p>\n Bethlem\u2019s exhibitions officer, Rebecca Raybone, said the free show had evolved from the challenge the museum sector set to help social cohesion and social justice at a time when society and politics felt polarised.<\/p>\n \u201cWe thought it would be a really interesting topic to consider in terms of how that is related to mental health and mental health treatment,\u201d she said. \u201cSociety can make you feel very alone sometimes, or can have the opposite effect of making you feel really part of something.\u201d<\/p>\n Called Kindred to reflect the positivity of forming a bond with others, the exhibition also portrays negative aspects of groups. \u201cMental health is a journey, rather than a binary process. It\u2019s important people find what works for them,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n Johnson Wahl\u2019s work \u201cis very clearly a negative experience of group therapy\u201d, Raybone said. \u201cShe was quite horrified by it and found it very intrusive. She has painted herself as the lady with the red hair. And has this look of horror and almost kind of ghostliness.\u201d<\/p>\n Gareth McConnell, The Forth Universalist Society, New York, 2005, from a series of photographs of community meeting rooms. Photograph: Gareth McConnell\/Sorika<\/p>\n McConnell\u2019s photographs show rooms before community filled them. He said: \u201cI sat in my first ever Narcotics Anonymous meeting in Wickham Park House [the now defunct detox unit at Bethlem Maudsley] in 1999 while undergoing a 28-day treatment plan for chronic intravenous poly-drug use. It was a room not dissimilar to the ones I later photographed \u2013 broken plastic chairs, lino floor, strip lighting \u2013 but, as I later came to realise, it was temporarily pervaded by the power of love, induced by the ritual\/ceremony\/meeting that took place.\u201d<\/p>\n Mud, who has lived experience of borderline personality disorder and psychosis, said: \u201cI firmly believe in the healing benefits of support from a community that understands and has been through similar things. I don\u2019t think I\u2019d be on my recovery journey today if it weren\u2019t for other people helping me along the way.\u201d<\/p>\n Other works on display include a large oil painting, The Group, by the late artist and art therapist Charles Lutyens; David Chick\u2019s intricate People Trying to Reach Me (1986); Holding on to Daddy (2016) by the photographer Benji Reid, an image that won the Wellcome Trust photography prize 2020 in the mental health single image category; and the vibrant ceramics of the Chilean artist and former prisoner of conscience Bibi Herrera, who spent time in treatment at Bethlem.<\/p>\n skip past newsletter promotion<\/a><\/p>\n Our morning email breaks down the key stories of the day, telling you what\u2019s happening and why it matters<\/p>\n Privacy Notice: Newsletters may contain information about charities, online ads, and content funded by outside parties. If you do not have an account, we will create a guest account for you on theguardian.com<\/a> to send you this newsletter. You can complete full registration at any time. For more information about how we use your data see our Privacy Policy<\/a>. We use Google reCaptcha to protect our website and the Google Privacy Policy<\/a> and Terms of Service<\/a> apply.<\/p>\n after newsletter promotion<\/p>\n Mud, The Ending of Group Therapy. Photograph: Bethlem Museum of the Mind<\/p>\n