Bringing together research within the Psychological Support Services at Sir Anthony Mamo Oncology Centre, sensory workshops with cancer survivors and artist workshops for the creation and donation of artworks to clinical hospital spaces, the Deep Shelter programme is now moving on to a new phase. Adam Brimmer catches up with Pamela Baldacchino, the brains behind the ongoing project.

Can you give us some background about your career in the health sector?

I am a nurse and a designer, apart from being an artist. In fact, I probably have developed my role curating the therapeutic environment because of this intersection. I worked as a nurse in various wards, but my natural inclination to explore the value of empathy through art came out at a time in my life where I was experiencing the physically debilitating effects of chronic illness myself and couldn’t in fact work.

I allowed my own processes to inform my creative choices. This led to my artistic exploration of empathy and touch as a social being interested in forms of connection and understanding between people. 

How did you make the leap from a health professional to a health professional who also incorporates the arts? As in – what made you passionate about it?

The leap was fuelled by my natural inclination towards using artistic creativity as a cathartic process. I am passionate about the art of curation in hospital spaces, and building an art programme that can enhance and sustain the therapeutic environment.

To curate is a word derived from the Latin root ‘curare’ that is ‘to care for’. Nursing itself is a profession that is about the care of the ill person.

When experiencing the overlap of these roles in an inquisitive way, curating and nursing reinforce each other, leading to the development of a relational and artistic practice in a clinical setting.

In practical terms, I would like this knowledge and sensitivity to be directed towards setting up a welcoming and holding space for patients, relatives and staff.

What is the Deep Shelter project?

Deep Shelter started as a series of audio-visual works that aim to offer empathy to patients as they journey through their illness experience.

Nature becomes a metaphor of the self and little stories emerge that are based on ideas of journeying, cycles, rhythm, balance, being and presence.

The project developed in a way that led me to a three-year artist residency in Sir Anthony Mamo Oncology Centre (SAMOC), Mater Dei Hospital, Malta. Together with Ann Laenen, who was the AiR programme coordinator with V18, Benna Chase, the principal psych-oncologist and Marika Fleri, National Cancer Platform coordinator, we allowed the dialogue between us to guide our collaborative work, where we look at the intersection between the arts, aroma and psychotherapy. Thanks to the research we also lead together, my role as hospital curator developed. Here, I negotiate a vocabulary of creative language from workshops with patients, staff and artists, site-relevant art, performances and design interventions to research.

All this serves to define and enhance the therapeutic environment.

Who were the prime movers behind the project and what was the role of each person?

Together with Benna, we are researching ways in which we can increase the ‘holding’ value of a therapeutic setting using presence, art, nature, space and design, consequently revealing insights related to the cancer journey.

The aesthetic environment is intimately linked to the relational dynamics happening within a space and its capacity to contain all the psychological and emotional processes that the patient needs to go through.  The ultimate aim is to help the patient come to terms with the illness experience. Processing through art-modalities can help give the patient agency a sense of autonomy when control is taken away.

Together with Benna and Marika, wehave also done a trial of six sensory workshops in the clinical support services and palliative care.

The focus areas ranged from aromatherapy, viewing audiovisual work and storytelling to movement/dance and music; these sessions provided the people attending with an environment to explore the engagement with their senses, letting them tell their story through the various art-based modalities.

How do you believe this project helps patients and their families?

The artist residency developed into an art programme that offers patients and families support on three levels.

The first is through participatory art, which focuses on supporting the patient through active engagement with the creative process. This is done through workshops or therapy sessions.

Throughout the workshops, emotional expressiveness is facilitated by the arts and supported by Benna. What really stood out was the change in the participants’ self-descriptions from the first workshop to the last.

In the first workshop, when the participants introduced themselves, they defined themselves through their illness. However, in the last two workshops called Poetry Homes, the participants shared their love of life, their dreams and who they really are. These sessions turned out to be a celebration of self.

The second level was receptive arts – related to a more passive engagement with art such as viewing visual art/sculpture/installation in hospital, listening to music performances and storytelling/poetry recital/arts.

Finally, the third level related to environmental art, related to the artistic/design interventions that help establish a therapeutic environment.

Do you feel that the idea of using art as therapy is gathering strength here in Malta or is it a relatively new concept? What were the reactions when you first proposed the Deep Shelter project?

Throughout the project, we are using art as a way of facilitating self-understanding and awareness leading to emotional expression and connection with oneself, with others and with our commonality. This brings with it a sense of empowerment and increases patient autonomy.

Although this is therapeutic, in the strict sense of the word this is not art therapy. However, because the holding space we seek to create is also relational and based on our presence as professionals in the field, Benna, Marika and I, have in fact created a therapeutic space based on the synergy between us.

The project aroused curiosity and nursing staff and management started to approach me to bring artwork into their wards. This led to a collaboration with a series of artists and photographers who contributed to workshops to create art or donate their work.

Is the project ongoing? If yes, what are the next steps?

Yes; these past two-and-a-half years it has been supported and organised by Valletta 2018, in collaboration with Sir Anthony Mamo Oncology Centre and the University of Malta.

However now, I am looking at new ways of extending its application as V18 funding has come to an end.

The next steps are participation in the Ostrale Biennale in Germany later this year and working on the chance to keep facilitating the art programme here or at Mater Dei Hospital. This will centre around patient and staff support.

What do you hope will be the programme’s legacy?

I would like its legacy to be a flourishing art programme that brings a smile to people’s faces and reduces the fear of hospital while supporting and sustaining the medical model on site.

www.deepshelter.com