A 2022 exhibition at St Andrew’s Healthcare in Benfleet brought together work by local artist Derek Finch with drawings, sculpture, poetry and music created by patients and staff.
The public exhibition was organised during the Queen’s Platinum Jubilee with support of just over £5,000 from the Let’s Create Jubilee Fund.
A childhood evacuation remembered through art
Finch’s contribution drew on his experience of being evacuated during the Second World War. At eight years old, he was separated from his family and sent to live with strangers, an experience he later described through art.
Occupational therapist Annymn Adams said the work offered insight into how Finch had made sense of that frightening period. Although rooted in trauma, the images also carried a recurring message of hope and the ability of the human spirit to develop through adversity.
Bringing a public audience into the hospital
The exhibition also gave patients and staff a shared platform. Long-term hospitalisation can restrict access to national celebrations and ordinary cultural life, so the organisers invited the community into the institution rather than expecting patients to travel outside it.
This approach made the event both an art exhibition and a form of connection. Visitors could encounter the work while learning more about the people living and working within the hospital.
Interactive sessions accompanied the display, including a Rhythm to Recovery drum circle led by music therapist Chris Baron. These activities extended participation beyond the finished works on the walls.
The exhibition’s value came from placing different kinds of experience beside one another. Finch’s wartime memories, patient artwork and staff contributions were not separated into clinical and non-clinical categories. Together, they showed art functioning as testimony, creative practice and a means of reducing the social isolation associated with long-term care.