Tape art drawing is a quiet, therapeutic and centering activity. The potency of personalised site specific art – in what is often a sterile and impersonal physical environment – is also very powerful.

Our Vital Arts Residency in the Royal London, London Chest and St. Bartholemews Hospitals in England was a good example of our approach to working in healing environments. For this residency we created our own murals in key sites across each hospitals, incorporating portraits of patients, their families and staff. We also offered a ‘murals-on-request programme’ – where we draw vignettes directed by patients from their bedside. This enables physically ill patients to personalise their own spaces without drawing on their own energy. And for able-bodied patients and family, we help them with their own drawings too.

As artists, we have found we have the huge advantage of being perceived as individuals able offer an open-ended opportunity, rather than being there to DO anything TO a patient. This can go a long way toward creating a quick rapport and engagement.

We have also found tape murals invaluable as an aid for working through tough situations of loss and trauma and as memorials.