Daniel Regan on Being on the Collection Advisory Board

As an artist and consultant I am often working with museums and galleries that have an existing collection that came to be long before mine and the staffs arrival. Much of this work in recent years has focused on navigating problematic ways in which collections have been ‘acquired’ and considering how organisations can invite marginalised communities into their spaces, navigating difficult discussions and provocations which can understandably arise in the face of histories. Sometimes it feels like we are dragging the troubled past into the future and figuring out how to reconcile what has come before us.

When I joined Bethlem Gallery’s Collection Advisory Board I was excited to explore with my fellow board members aspects of best practice and embedding them as foundational approaches for this new collection. It has been an opportunity to start from the beginning – or as close to it – and ensure that, as much as is possible, care is infused into how the collection is acquired and shown. I have valued being a part of a skilled multidisciplinary team that brought many diverse perspectives to what it means to start a collection within the context of where Bethlem Gallery operates. Working with others from mixed professional backgrounds enabled us to see the gaps in our experiences and pool shared knowledge to find the best solutions.

I have been a mental health inpatient and outpatient across the decades. During and after Advisory Board sessions I often reflected on my lived experience and the role in which making art has had on both my recovery and general wellbeing. As an artist I often make the uncomfortable decision not to sell my works because the artwork that I create is incredibly personal, focusing on my lived experience. I can feel suspicious of the idea of an individual or an institution ‘owning’ my works (owning my experience?) and being able to do what they like with it. In those situations I often fear losing my autonomy or voice.

One of the initial thoughts that I shared with the Advisory Board focused on providing artists (or their family/estate) a sense of agency in indicating what kind of environments they would be happy for their work to be shown in, given that this is meant to be a working collection out on loan, proudly displayed. Some artworks are deeply personal and may have been created as a means of processing, entertainment or simply as respite from illness – and the artist may not want that work to be shown at all. Artists may have also had difficult experiences in their care across particular sites and may not want works shown in specific places within the mental health trust.

In the decade that I have been involved with Bethlem Gallery I have always seen it as a site of care, often running alongside a healthcare system that has the potential for great care and yet also great harm. It felt important to me – and my fellow board members – that care be a fundamental value across this collection, and in communicating with artists about their work, whilst considering how people may interact with the artworks.

It felt an important responsibility to ask them if there were certain environments that they would not agree to their work being shown in, offsetting the power imbalance of institution vs individual, organisation vs patient/client/service user.

One of the most moving sessions for me involved a talk from Phoebe Dunn, Director of Arts at Koestler Arts. It highlighted within the context of Bethlem Gallery’s collection, the particular complexities of acquiring and showing artworks made by patients from the hospital’s forensic unit, delicately balancing the Gallery’s objectives of supporting people to be artists with the sensitivity of showing works within community settings. It involved nuanced and gentle discussions and highlighting the importance of the Gallery’s transparency on how certain decisions have been made, and why. This is something that I find that many other institutions struggle with and was a breath of fresh air to consider at the beginning, not under the weight of time and historical baggage.

A collection is only as interesting and engaging as when it’s put to work and on display. I am really excited about the idea of the collection being on show across the mental health trust and in the local community. I hope that exhibitions and participatory events such as talks and workshops will introduce people to a diverse range of artists past and present, and their incredible artworks and stories.

Daniel Regan
June 2025

Daniel Regan is a visual artist specialising in the exploration of complex and difficult emotional experiences, focusing on the transformational impact of arts on mental health, building on his own lived experiences. Over the last 20 years his own works have brokered dialogues around taboo topics such as mental health, grief, self injury, suicide and racism.

As a part of his creative practice he shoots commissions, produces and delivers socially engaged projects and provides consultancy on Creative Health work. Daniel regularly exhibits, speaks at and teaches across fine art, educational and clinical institutions in the UK and worldwide.