Beyond Walls residencies: Hans K Clausen
A number of residencies and fellowships are part of the Beyond Walls programme of Art and Therapeutic Design at the new Royal Hospital for Children and Young People, Edinburgh. These have created a number of opportunities to build relationships between the hospital and the communities which it serves, as well as reflecting our ‘place-based’ approach of creating connections and audiences between the two.
Two residencies were focused on specific communities within the city, and three fellowships on research and working practices in the Department of Clinical Neurosciences (DCN). The second of the two long-term residencies was awarded to Hans K Clausen, visual artist.
Hans was able to take time and space to look at the processes within the existing hospital community and what happened as it went through a time of transition. Hans is interested in how the objects and everyday materials have a visual expressive language. He explored how to have a dialogue with people by using and manipulating objects through producing a collaborative piece, ‘Hospital Impressions’, which captured a sense of the community both on a personal level and the idea of people becoming part of a community.
Staff, patients, relatives and visitors were given a piece of raw porcelain clay, asked to stop for a moment, take a few deep breaths, gather their thoughts and squeeze. The clay was fired and this has resulted in collection of over 600 unique sculptural objects, each the result of one person grasping the pliable material for a moment. Hans worked with Kjersti Sletteland, an expert ceramicist, and poet Jenni Fagan. Hans was inspired by a DCN nurse telling him about the importance of holding someone’s hand when they were dying. Touch is so vital.
The work was exhibited during the Edinburgh Arts Festival in the Anatomical Museum. Each work was hung amongst the anatomical exhibits expressing an anatomical quality of vertebrae but also showing a sense of fragility, suspended from very fine silk thread.
