What We Do:
Art Safari is an Arts for Health and Wellbeing programme that combines creative play with art walks, gallery visits, artists talks, sketchbook working and more…
Designed and led by Artist, Robyn Woolston, the programme invites participants to explore new spaces, join in with practical sessions, engage in creative play, reduce stress and anxiety whilst gaining in confidence.
The course actively embraces the Five Ways to Health and Wellbeing (New Economics Foundation) as well as providing a space to experiment and learn new skills.
Sample sessions include:
Walking Tour: Architecture, light, composition & curiosity // BE ACTIVE
Sketchbook Working: Drawing, painting, printing and pattern work // KEEP LEARNING
Gallery/Theatre Visit: Mark-making in-situ // TAKE NOTICE
Artists Talk: ‘Show and Tell’ from internationally exhibiting artists // CONNECT
Random Acts of Kindness* : Write a note, exchange a dream, create a poem, share a song, collaborate with a friend, dance // GIVE
*The phrase "random kindness and senseless acts of beauty" was written by Anne Herbert on a placemat in Sausalito, California in 1982.
“I just wanted to thank you very much for yesterdays session. I found the session quite profound in many ways, including personally...
...I was so interested that as the session went on people I sat with began to bring out their strengths and their struggles - some of these really deep and difficult. Creativity, and a group setting, has always been a way I have worked - it can bring a place of safety and belonging where these inner issues can emerge. How wonderful to be with the group and witness this happening.”
L. M. (Occupational Therapist, Hull City Council)
Who We Are:
Robyn Woolston is an Artist and Filmmaker who began working in community settings in 2000.
Artists Bookwork
She frequently engages with multiple project partners from local authorities to national charities, and from primary school children to manufacturing fabricators. From a socially engaged perspective she’s designed & delivered creative interventions within a wide variety of non-traditional locations including sheltered housing schemes, residential units for vulnerable and hard to reach young people as well as HMP Kennet & the Countess of Chester Hospital. She is passionately dedicated to integrating arts-practice into the daily lives of her collaborators via architectural interventions and site-responsive approaches whilst promoting creativity as a tool for inclusion, reflection and relaxation.
'Robyn often examines issues that others shy away from, from difficult emotions to consumer waste. In so doing, she seeks to make visible that which is forgotten, left behind and discarded.'
Ann Bukantas, Head of Fine Art. National Museums Liverpool
From a neurodiverse perspective she has a diagnosed mental health condition as well as SpLD (Specific Learning Difficulty) Dyslexia. She works with/through and beside periods of anxiety and depression. Her lived-experience has informed both her outlook and her daily practice from navigating the NHS mental health system to maintaining a freelance role. Her diagnosis has informed her sensitivity ‘to’ and advocacy ‘for’ access and participation across sectors, communities and socio-economic frameworks.
‘Within’ // Elizabeth Willow (Artists Bookwork)
Elizabeth Willow (Artists Bookwork)
Elizabeth Willow is a Visiting Artist on the programme:
‘Elizabeth Willow is a fine artist, whose work uses sculpture, installation, artist’s books and performance to find meaning and tell stories, exploring our relationships with materials, objects and places. Her practice is often site specific or responsive, and she has made and shown work in unusual places; in woods, rainy streets and falling-down houses; in the Williamson Tunnels, a labyrinth beneath the streets of Liverpool; at Edge Hill Station, the world’s first passenger railway station; and in Morecambe Winter Gardens, a semi-derelict Victorian music hall. She also exhibits work in galleries, libraries and museums. Elizabeth’s work has been shown nationally and internationally, and pieces are held in private and public collections, including the Centre for Fine Print Research, the Bodleian Library, Tate Britain, and several university collections. In 2009, she was shortlisted for the Liverpool Art Prize, and was awarded the People’s Choice Prize, chosen by the public.’
“Its ideal for me. It’s experimental so your ideas can just fly”
H.F (Hull)
“If an art installation gets a patient out of his room or paintings take a person’s mind off their pain and lower their stress levels, the art isn’t just decorative anymore. It’s part of the entire model of care.”
— Dr. Lisa Harris, Indiana University School of Medicine
