The Brunel building was filled with song, dance, colourful cartoon characters and knitting as Southmead Hospital hosted its second community arts festival.

The two-day event highlighted the role that arts and creativity play in supporting healthcare. It gave local people who have not yet visited the Brunel building the chance to look around and see how it was designed to be a more pleasant environment for patients. The festival also showcased some of the projects that patients, relatives and volunteers have been involved with as part of the North Bristol NHS Trust Fresh Arts programme.

Patients who could make their way down to the atrium made the most of activities, ranging from woodcarving to origami, while other sessions such as writing and music were also taken to the wards.

The bus stop outside the Brunel building was given a makeover with a colourful, knitted cover and pom-poms during the festival along with the world’s first knitted wisdom-dispensing ticket machine, featuring words of wisdom gathered from patients who have been involved in the Trust’s knitting programme. Phrases also appeared on knitted banners, which were draped around pillars, posts and fences around the hospital site.

Inside the hospital, choirs – including those from local schools and the Royal Mail Choir which featured on BBC’s The Choir – performed throughout the two days, while musicians played for patients on the wards.

Japanese visitors from the University of Tsukuba held workshops inside the atrium, helping people make origami, demonstrating calligraphy, and creating cartoon characters out of colourful washi tape. The characters created by Researcher and artist Daichi Konaka, who also goes by the name of “Dr Goblin” when creating his creatures, featured in a mural on a wall inside the Brunel building, as well as being turned into “Imaginary Friends” on the backs and bags of patients and visitors.

The students and their teachers are working on a research project about arts in healthcare and used the Fresh Arts Festival as an opportunity to show people in Bristol how they take workshops into hospitals but also to learn from the Trust’s programme.

They also came up with designs for hospital wards suitable for dementia patients, which went on display inside the Brunel building. Their works went on display alongside those from students at UWE Bristol in the blue atrium space opposite the Sanctuary as part of the festival.

There was also the chance for people to help out with a wood sculpture under the guidance of woodcarver Alistair Park. The panel patients and visitors were able to help carve features more words of wisdom from patients in the hospital, and once it is complete will hang inside the atrium of the Brunel building.

The Trust’s writer-in-residence, Sue Mayfield, worked with patients and visitors to the hospital to create poems about the things they most value in life. Sue has been working with patients in different wards around the hospital since January, compiling 14-word “lifeline” poems for them to take home. During the festival, these poems were turned into small hand-printed works by students from the Artists’ Books course run by UWE at Spike Print Studio.

There was also a chance for visitors to learn about Southmead’s role as a war hospital during the First World War. Photographs, an autograph book featuring messages from injured soldiers and postcards sent 100 years ago were among the items on display as part of an exhibition in the hospital atrium.

North Bristol NHS Trust Director of Nursing, Sue Jones, said: “The festival was a really vibrant event that engaged both staff and patients who enjoyed everything from origami-making to contributing to the wood work art piece.

“It was lovely to see young people – the Japanese students and local school choirs – contributing to health and wellbeing in the hospital along with members of community choirs.

“The knitted bus stop, which was a culmination of the wonderful work that has been going on with patients and staff in the hospital, was fantastic and made people smile.

“With the sound of singing in the atrium, the washi tape characters and origami there was a great feel-good atmosphere with plenty of patients and staff joining in with the events. Thanks to our Arts Programme Manager, Ruth, for her efforts in making this year’s festival such a success.”

For more information about the arts projects that featured in the Fresh Arts Festival visit http://www.nbt.nhs.uk/news-media/latest-news

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