The Harris Art and Wellbeing Project 2023-2024

Harris staff and volunteers worked with six diverse groups around Preston to choose paintings from the Harris that best reflected their views of wellbeing. The aim of the project was for community groups to contribute to the decision making of the galleries, and to provide the opportunity to engage with The Harris’ collections whilst the building was closed.

The groups:

Art-lovers from Freckleton Library

Staff and service users of Community Roots Deepdale (LSCFT) 

Year 5 and 6 pupils at Ingol Community Primary School

Members of the Blue Flamingo Café in Ashton

Participants from HMP Preston

Students at Preston College

The paintings they chose are now on display in the Harris’ Art Gallery on the second floor.

In the gallery you will find:

• 8 Community Choice paintings highlighted by white rectangles.
• Labels accompanying each Community Choice either co-written with the group or written using the group’s own words.
• Activities and materials designed to deepen your connection with a painting.
• A display of the groups’ creative responses during the project.

Through discussion, slow looking, writing and creative activities, each group explored the Harris’ fine art collection, thinking about what wellbeing means to them and how the art we look at can help us feel good.

What is wellbeing and why is it important?

What do you do for wellbeing?

What type of art do you want to see/how do you want to feel in a gallery space for wellbeing?

Over a series of sessions, groups deepened their connection and narrowed down their choice of paintings through considering the questions above and by using the following activities which you can find some versions of in the art gallery.

• Slow looking – taking the time to thoughtfully and carefully observe the paintings.
• Stream of consciousness writing – writing the first things that pop into your head without stopping for as long as you can.
• Making a drawing or collage with limited materials responding only to a painting’s colours, shapes and composition.
• Objects vs paintings – Placing sculptures and historical objects alongside the paintings. What connections can be made, can objects change the way you look at a painting?
• Art detectives – Answering questions to help think deeply e.g. what do you feel when you look at this piece? What do you think the artist wanted to show or say?
• Creating a wellbeing word cloud made up of all the words each group related to “Wellbeing”.

Throughout the Harris’ Art and Wellbeing project, sessions were designed to get people focusing on the visual elements of a painting and what it makes you think and feel. Knowing more information about an artwork can deepen your connection to a piece, but sometimes it can get in the way of enjoying a piece of art purely for the way it looks. Therefore, the groups did not know the paintings’ titles, artists or other contextual information until the final session.

Those who took part in the project felt that they’d learnt more about art and developed new ways to appreciate art. People enjoyed having group discussions, sharing ideas and viewing paintings they may have never seen before!

To accompany their chosen paintings, each community group created unique responses, from sculpture to interpretation writing.

On this page, you will find a gallery of the creative responses by the groups at HMP Preston and Ingol Community Primary School.