Care, Create, Conserve

A Journey Through Art, Heritage, and Inclusion

At RAW we're passionate about the power of art to connect communities, exploring heritage, and promoting inclusion. Our recent collaboration with The Royal Wolverhampton NHS Trust’s Arts and Heritage Group on the Care, Create, Conserve project perfectly embodies this ethos.

Care, Create, Conserve was an 18-month long programme of arts and heritage activity, beginning in the 75th year of the NHS. Central to this project was the launch of a brand new Healthcare Heritage Centre, which exhibited a fascinating collection of medical artefacts, photographs, and memorabilia and acted as a community co-creation hub, hosting a vibrant programme of talks, events, and workshops.

​Funded by a grant of £139,792 from the National Lottery Heritage Fund awarded in October 2023, this project, which we began working on in February 2024, involved a range of creative commissions across Wolverhampton.

​The project aimed to consider issues of identity, disability, and language within a healthcare context. We were thrilled to team up  and be commissioned by the Trust to deliver workshops through the project which saw school pupils and recovering patients taking part in enriching experiences within the workshops.

Who We Worked With

• Penn Fields School (on two separate projects)
• The NRU at West Park Rehabilitation Hospital
• Warstones Primary School Deaf Resource Base

​What We Created

The workshops resulted in some truly thought-provoking and inspiring artworks:

Penn Fields School
Pupils collaborated to create a stunning 2D collage of The Royal Hospital building in All Saints, using torn-up newspapers and photographs about the hospital's history.

The collaged sky includes clouds made from printed comments of what the NHS means to the young participants. 

​They also constructed a detailed 3D model of the hospital from recycled cardboard, complete with a lift-off roof revealing miniature hospital scenes.

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At the NRU, West Park Hospital
The Neuro Rehabilitation Unit at West Park Hospital looks after people with acute neurological conditions for example brain injury, Parkinson's and survivors of strokes. We worked with a small group of adults on a short series of creative sessions.

Participants produced several artworks inspired by the Weeping Chapel, an octagonal Victorian building on the hospital site. These included beautiful dot paintings, delicate watercolour paintings, and intricate 3D cardboard models of the chapel.

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Warstones Primary School's Deaf Resource Base 
The children collectively recreated Gary’s  powerful painting "Two Worlds," which depicts Deaf and Hearing worlds working together in harmony. Each child was given a square section of the artwork, pre-printed with audiogram charts relating to patients' hearing checks.

RAW's Gary O'Dowd, who is profoundly Deaf, said:
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“It was great to have the opportunity of working with the young people at the Deaf Resource Base at Warstones School. We were able to borrow some archive hearing equipment from the Wolverhampton Sensory Team which the pupils had a great time learning about and interacting with.

I spoke with the children about how technology has advanced since I was a pupil myself at a school for deaf children in the North East in the 1980s.

In recent times there have been huge advances in digital hardware for deaf people and smart phone technology now features deaf inclusive apps such as instant messaging, SMS texting, video calls and more specifically platforms such as Sign Video, Zoom, Facetime and BSL 999.

Unfortunately, there are still many inequalities for Deaf and disabled people although BSL has eventually been officially recognised, it’s still not accessible everywhere or on the school curriculum. Projects like this are useful to raise awareness of such issues - framed in a creative, fun and interactive way.”

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Elinor Cole, former Arts and Heritage Co-ordinator at The Royal Wolverhampton NHS Trust, said:

“We have seen some thought-provoking work produced by participants in these workshops – work that really allowed them to immerse themselves in the project. And the resultant artworks will help us to raise further awareness of our Heritage Centre and spark greater interest across our communities, as well as prompt reflection.”

Alex Vann from RAW added:
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“We found this such a rich and rewarding experience, and it was fascinating to see the artworks develop along the way. But it’s important to appreciate the wider benefits of these projects as we saw people of all ages developing new skills and gaining a real sense of satisfaction. They also benefitted from positive, social interaction with others and enjoyed working as a team. Projects like this help to break down barriers and challenge perceptions and remind us all that by looking back at the past we learn how to do things better in the future.”

This project has demonstrated the power of art to explore our shared heritage, build bridges between communities, and promote understanding and inclusion. We at RAW are incredibly proud to have been a part of it and you can watch our end of project video below.

Customer survey results

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The Care, Create, Conserve exhibition can now be found at Wolverhampton City Archives, Molineux Hotel Building, Whitmore Hill, Wolverhampton, WV1 1SF. 

Useful links
https://www.rwtnhscharity.co.uk/arts-heritage/care-create-conserve/

​https://www.rwtnhscharity.co.uk/news/rich-and-rewarding-workshops-bring-many-benefits/

#NHS #CareCreateConserve #GivingPeopleACreativeVoice #Healthcare #Wolverhampton #RoyalHospitalTrust #WestParkHospital #PennFieldsSchool #WarstonesSchool #DeafAwareness #BSL