Arts and mental health charity Hospital Rooms have partnered with NELFT to deliver a creative programme focused on improving mental health environments. The project engages communities with lived experience of mental health services, to co-create artworks for inpatient settings. In total, over 30 workshops will be delivered across mental health services in Goodmayes Hospital, contributing to 13 specially commissioned artworks for Sunflowers Court.

As part of this initiative, The People’s Mural, centred on a series of workshops involving two groups of Black men, young adults and men over 50 with lived experience of mental health care. Together, they explored three key stages of the mental health journey: admission, recovery, and return to community. Through these sessions, participants produced artwork that will inform three murals, each representing one of these stages. The final murals will be brought together by artist Alvin Kofi and installed at Sunflower Court, Goodmayes Hospital in November.

In addition to the murals, participants contributed ideas for a new sculpture that will be designed by artist Mac Collins and installed at Sunflower Court in January. 

Workshops took place at both the V&A East and Goodmayes Hospital, with patients actively involved in shaping the creative direction. 

Dwight, who attended one of the workshops, said:

“The workshop came at exactly the right time for me. Speaking with Alvin and the others in the team inspired me. The objects in the [V&A] warehouse prompted me to think about what ideas I am mothering, how I came be in my current situation, and learning to see inspiration all around me. The process, admission, treatment and recovery/back in the community for me is about how I manage my thoughts. Through connection with the artefacts and the conversation, I came away asking myself what ideas am I projecting in artforms and in my life? Thank you for making the workshop happen!”

The vision for Sunflower Court is to create a space where patients and staff can relax and reflect. By placing service users at the heart of the design process, the project aims to improve wellbeing and offer a reprieve from clinical environments, making space for creativity and healing.