Mural by Sutapa Biswas at Springfield University Hospital, London

Nominee Information

In 2023, Hospital Rooms completed our most ambitious project to date in partnership with South West London and St George’s Mental Health NHS Trust. As part of the development of two new mental health facilities at Springfield University Hospital, we commissioned 20 major artworks to transform how the hospital wards are experienced by patients, service users and staff. Hospital Rooms are nominating “And all around me, my gathered star” by British Asian multidisciplinary artist Sutapa Biswas for the prize of Art Installation of the Year. Biswas has exhibited at the ICA, Hayward Gallery, BALTIC Contemporary amongst others and her work is held in numerous collections including the TATE Collections and Arts Council England. The artwork is a 65m2 mural in an atrium of the new hospital, hand-painted and applied by the artist. It meets all the criteria for excellence in artistic vision, innovative therapeutic environments, good integration into the project, and collaborative works. Additionally, the installation demonstrates a strong commitment to good environmental practice, using sustainable materials such as Graphenstone paint (an eco-friendly paint made from lime and graphene that absorbs carbon from the atmosphere and free from volatile organic compounds and formaldehyde). The artwork is well integrated with the project and its environment. It was produced in consultation with service users and inspired by their workshops in inpatient wards. Taking inspiration from Giotto’s painting of a night sky on the ceiling of The Scrovegni Chapel in Padua, Italy, workshop participants were encouraged to reimagine their own personal constellations using watercolours and thinking about the cosmological world as a metaphor for the space of dreaming. The letters T,F,N,S,M,A featured in the artwork are the initials of the participants who were in Biswas’ workshop, acknowledging their influence on the development of the work. The distinctive silver and gold leaf, used in combination with paint, references the classical techniques featured in The Scrovegni Chapel as well as the gold and silver elements used during the workshops. The artwork’s visibly hand-made elements humanises the vast white and otherwise clinical atrium space and offers an area for reflection and contemplation. Sutapa Biswas’ “And all around me, my gathered star” for Springfield University Hospital is an outstanding example of how art can transform mental health spaces with unique and site-specific artworks from world-class artists.