Art Mindfulness in London and Paris

A modern approach to alleviate many mental-health conditions is art therapy. This is a clinical practice used to alleviate stress, depression, anxiety, and other medical conditions. Art therapists inspire their patients to make art, which has been demonstrated to lower levels of the stress hormone cortisol and to induce subjective feelings of relaxation and enjoyment with learning about one's self. Many art museums and hospitals understand that viewing and making art is therapeutic, which is why they are investing money into these programs. While these studies focus on art making, our project expands into alternative ways in which viewing, reflecting upon, and creating art in a museum can affect mental well-being. We traveled to London and Paris to visit some of the best museums in the world, where we viewed and created art. We also interviewed Marion Buchloh, the head of cultural mediation at the Palais de Tokyo in Paris, who spoke to us about its specialized art workshops. Between journaling and observations, our findings are compiled below.

Prior to departing, we had a zoom call with Katherine Reed, the Creative Arts Therapy Program Manager at the Children's Hospital of Colorado. She explained that the goal of their program is to use art to build a relationship with a patient. Moreover, she explained how art can be used to create metaphors with how they are feeling. Sometimes symptoms can be difficult or uncomfortable to vocalize, but drawing or creating a piece of art can often help express these feelings. This said, art therapy is done with clinically licensed art therapists. Our project explores art therapy, but mostly focuses on art mindfulness, a non-clinical approach focused on journaling emotions surrounding art.

One of our first stops in London was the National Gallery. The National Gallery is home to one of the finest collections of paintings in the world, including works from Van Gogh, Monet, da Vinci, and more. On our visit we were able to partake in one of their creative sessions. There are a variety of creative sessions held; this particular one focused on recreating landscapes using some of the stylistic techniques of Post-Impressionism. Our instructor, Joanna Conybeare, is a gallery educator and artist. She helped us to explore some of the mark-making and compositional techniques in Post-Impressionist paintings by artists such as Cézanne, Van Gogh, Gauguin, and Picasso.

This creativity workshop allowed us to express our feelings through the canvas and allowed us to take a mental break from the busyness of the museum. Most significantly, we gained a deeper appreciation for the minute details that famous painters have mastered through many years creating art.

Our next stop was a visit to the British Museum. This museum had a much different aura than the National Gallery As this museum was so large, it was easy to slip into a quieter room, allowing us to reflect and draw. We drew marble sculptures, many of large stature. Focusing on details on their posture and facial expressions allowed us to capture the emotions that the sculptors were trying to convey.

From there, we hopped on a bus to visit the Dulwich Picture Gallery. This gallery was tucked away by gorgeous parks amid a cute residential area. Its distance from downtown reduced the amount of tourists, giving it a quieter feel. This gallery includes a variety of portraits in the modern and contemporary style. Upon entering, we were greeted with a cart filled with art supplies, thus inviting us to explore the gallery while encompassing our creative sides. This gallery also hosts creative events which invite artists to collaborate with community members through an immersive workshop.

Additionally, Dulwich Picture Gallery has a partnership with the Tessa Jowel Health Centre. Working together to create a more holistic approach to health care, they are embedding art in healthcare, including new artwork commissions at the Centre to enhance the healing environment and creative activities held on site.

 https://www.dulwichpicturegallery.org.uk/learning/health-wellbeing/dulwich-picture-gallery-plus/ 

Our first stop in Paris was at the Museé de l'Orangerie. This museum is famous for housing Monet's water lilies, which formed panoramic walls around two large rooms. As the wall says, Monet created these rooms, "as a space for meditation". The museum attendants urged for silence in the rooms, allowing for a soothing art-viewing experience unlike anything else we've experienced. It evoked feelings of peace while we appreciated the juxtaposition of blues and greens on the walls. The benches in the middle of the room were a great spot to journal about our thoughts.

Located in a former train station, the Museé d'Orsay was the next stop on our art adventure. With a huge collection of impressionist and post-impressionist paintings spanning several floors high, we were marveled by the vastness that its collections had to offer. Our favorite was the Vincent Van Gogh collection. This exhibit portrayed his self-portraits, which included descriptions of his mental state at the time of creating them. Once he was confined to a psychiatric unit, his self-portrait incorporated wavy brush strokes suggesting his wavering mental stability. While this museum did not seem to have art workshops, we spent our time journaling as we went through the exhibits. We wrote about the intricate brush strokes of many of the landscapes and of the prowess necessary to create the large marble statues.

At the Palais de Tokyo museum, we were able to meet with the head of cultural mediation, Marion Buchloh. She told us about the opening of HAMO later this year. HAMO is a care center for art and wellbeing programs as well as hosting meetings between psychiatrists, art therapists, educators and other professions. As of right now, the museum offers a variety of art workshops and is in partnership with hospitals around the area. They host certain workshops for specific groups, such as ones for people with Autism, as well for young adults who are socially-stressed or suffer from anxiety and depression.

Our final destination was to one of the world's most famous museums, the Lourve. It did not disappoint. Hundreds of pieces lined the walls of the wide and seemingly endless hallways. We were amazed by the magnitude of some of the paintings, such as the Raft of Medusa. While many paintings at the Louvre invoke feelings of tranquility, seeing the Mona Lisa was chaos. We went right as the museum opened to beat the overwhelming crowds, and minutes later the line to see da Vinci's masterpiece was an hour long. We were in awe of the sheer size of the museum as well as the art work it contained.

While we had plans to meet with art therapists at the Louvre, local rioters blocked the museum's entry, making us postpone our visit. The art therapists could not meet our request to reschedule. Nonetheless, in 2003, the Louvre decided to create a new, off-site museum – an ‘away-from-base’ Louvre, where an innovative approach could be developed from scratch called the Lourve-Lens. The Louvre-Lens recently has been in collaboration with two art therapists from L’Art&Fact association to launch Louvre-therapy. This is a series of group workshops grounded on the idea that the museum experience itself can have health benefits. “If only we could convince doctors to prescribe visits to the Louvre-Lens like any other treatment,” says Gunilla Lapointe, the cultural mediator in charge of the program, who notes that such schemes already exist in Canada and Belgium.

Personal Impact

As both of us are pursuing a career in medicine after graduating CC, we find mental health as an urgent yet intriguing topic. This opportunity allowed us to further explore our academic interests, while learning about art, a discipline outside of our field. Additionally, as our first time outside of the US, we gained lost of valuable knowledge about two different cultures. While we weren't at art museums, we explored a diverse array of restaurants, statues, parks, and historical areas. We are grateful for this opportunity to become more well-rounded and educated students.