Artists Gawain Hewitt and India Harvey have worked with young people at the Bethlem and Maudsley Hospital School to develop ideas for artworks through workshops using sound, music, tactile materials and experimental print and mark making. The exhibition features three sound sculptures produced by Gawain Hewitt that invite you to interact with them, playing different sounds and tracks as you move pieces around. As part of City of London Sinfonia’s Sound Young Minds project, Gawain led musicians to work alongside young people and create spaces where they could improvise using physical instruments in the school and digital instruments online. Accompanying the sound sculptures are furniture and textile works co-produced by India Harvey and young people to which visitors are invited to touch and feel. Prompted by natural materials and spaces, India and the young people have been exploring all the senses and using diverse materials to think through doing.

The exhibition also reveals some of the processes used by artists working in psychiatric settings to encourage young people to refocus their attention away from illness and through improvisation, move towards the immediate and spontaneous. It has evolved from the City of London Sinfonia’s award-winning project, Sound Young Minds, that builds confidence and self-esteem in young people living with severe mental health and psychiatric conditions through music-making and sharing.