Here at LAH, we are always looking to promote any art galleries or exhibitions that contribute to the health, art and wellbeing sector. We visited and interviewed the brilliant Maddie Wrench from The Liminal Space about their art space called The Garden of Emotions, based in the Science Gallery London.
The Garden of Emotion is a multi-sensory environment that allows students and staff at King’s College London to step out of their day and take a moment of personal and emotional reflection.
Q. Where did the idea for the Garden of Emotions come from?
As a small studio, one of our fundamental missions is using design to create social impact. We do a lot of projects around the future of employment and how to create better conditions in people’s working lives, and after partnering with King’s on People and the Pandemic, we were struck by how many students suffer burnout before they have even entered the work sector. King’s asked us to create a well-being solution for their students that would provide them with tools so that they could check in with themselves and practice self-care before they reach crisis point.
Q. What material did you use to create and design the piece?
We wanted it to be as multi-sensory as possible, so the garden bustles with real plants and foliage (provided by Plant Designs ltd), soundscapes of nature (Radio Lento) and big open-ended questions with QR codes they can scan for more advice. There are spaces to connect with other students or hidden corners if they’d rather sit quietly, as well as message boards to share advice with each other. From a design perspective, we used lots of wood, a warm and natural colour palette and blurs and gradients to create an overarching feeling of tranquillity and relaxation.
Q. What inspired you to design in the way you did?
Well, King’s had already done a lot of research to find out what their students needed the most, and so we identified four key challenges from this: coping with uncertainty, building resilience, a lack of tools for self-care and a loss of social connections. These are familiar challenges that we all face, but they have really intensified since the pandemic.
We know that many people living and working in urban areas don’t have much of an opportunity to get out into the wild and so we wanted to design a compact solution that was easily accessible during a normal work or study day. We knew it had to be compact, and research has shown how beneficial nature can be for our mental health and so we wanted to find a way to bring the outside in and build something vibrant and fun that was a far cry from the traditional cold white feeling of a clinic or classroom.
Q. What are you hoping to see and gain in your future projects? What are your goals?
If you want things to be different then you need to make the spaces they happen in different. We would love to be able to roll out the Garden of Emotions to those larger businesses and corporations who are clearly so in need of it. We want to create more spaces where people can be inspired to connect with each other and share knowledge and ideas.
Q. How are you hoping to see the impact your projects will make in the future for the workforce and student lives?
We believe that good design can change the way people think, feel and act. Normalising a culture of care in the workplace will have a fundamental impact on the future of our society, and for this to be successful it needs to go beyond digital delivery or statements on social media. The students of today are the workforce of tomorrow and they need to have access to wellbeing tools now, so they are equipped to deal with whatever life throws at them in the future.
Q. Do you have any future projects you are currently working on?
Yes lots! We are always working on anywhere between 10-30 projects at any one time…as a small business we are constantly on the lookout for new and exciting collaborations. Our active projects at the moment include:
- Night Club– our flagship educational project, centred around improving the health and wellbeing of night shift workers. It’s been rolled out to thousands of employees at Co-Op, TFL, NHS, Veolia and many more. We’ve just launched a three year partnership with Impact on Urban Health so we can deliver the programme to SMEs in Southwark and Lambeth.
- Our Broken Planet– the Natural History Museum invited us to disrupt their climate action exhibition- an offer we couldn’t refuse! We’ve had over half a million visitors since it opened last year, including Greta Thunberg. You can visit it for free all year round.
- Nine Lives– A series of audio portraits for the Barbican that follow the lives of nine strangers who each have a bizarre and amazing story to tell.
- Mindsets for the Museums of the Future– we’ve been researching the shifting role of museums in the public’s consciousness since the pandemic. We have identified five key mindsets that our cultural institutions can adopt to remain alive and responsive and we are currently working on a second phase of the project- stay tuned…
As a creative team we fundamentally believe that we are part of a sector that helps people to understand their place in the world. Creativity and Wellbeing Week is a great opportunity for the creative community to introduce other sectors and the public to what we do beyond just purely visual endeavours. Since the pandemic, it’s been a real struggle for people who work in the arts to get back on their feet and we are excited about meeting all the new trailblazers and innovators who are going to change the world!
With thanks to The Liminal Space for this fantastic interview. Contact them below:
Website: www.the-liminal-space.com
Social media: @TheLiminalSpace (Instagram, Twitter, LinkedIn, Medium)
Email: info@the-liminal-space.com
