Holding Time breaks new ground

We are delighted to announce on 05 December 2024 Holding Time, the Improving Me - NHS Cheshire and Merseyside women’s health and maternity programme’s first touring hospital exhibition was recognised by the Royal Society for Public Health with the 'Health & Wellbeing Award' in the Arts & Health category 2024. Delivered in partnership with Liverpool University Hospital NHS Foundation Trust’s Healing Arts Team, Holding Time presents as both a celebration of breastfeeding and an exploration of the challenges mothers experience in establishing and maintaining breastfeeding. These challenges may be physical, mental, environmental or cultural but they all share one common feature; they are characterised by an all too often unspoken stigma and taboo which inhibits the essential conversations and discussion which could provide the very resolution new mums seek.

 

The RSPH Health and Wellbeing Award is the UK’s premier awards scheme for promoting health and wellbeing, celebrating activities, policies and strategies that empower communities and individuals, that improve population health and address the wider social determinants of health. The award reflects the importance of on-going collaborations between over 19 NHS organisations concerned to harness and share the value of creative health interventions for health and wellbeing, by amplifying prevention activity and health promotion as well as providing new treatment and management opportunity.

 

This inter-disciplinary art project, developed by visual artist Lisa Creagh on behalf of Improving Me, makes breastfeeding across Cheshire and Merseyside its focus.  Harnessing photography, video, animation, storytelling and writing it amplifies key conversations through social media and live events. Local mothers participated in this collaborative portrait of breastfeeding, motherhood and maternal experiences during lockdowns and beyond through a range of creative processes. The Holding Time body of work continues to grow and develop with ongoing support from Public Health partners and Family Hubs in Halton and across the North of England.

 

This Holding Time exhibition was delivered in partnership with the Healing Arts Team at Liverpool University Hospital NHS Foundation Trust. It marked both the NHS 75 whilst providing a launch event for the annual Cheshire and Merseyside Baby Week programme. The NHS 75 provided a high-profile platform for an exciting creative programme marking 75 years of the NHS. This first Holding Time exhibition (phase 1) has now moved to Aintree Hospital and has been expanded to include new portraits. Holding Time phase 2 now sits alongside two new Improving Me exhibitions entitled , I See You, which explore the importance of identity and representation in women’s health.

 

Catherine McClennan Director of Improving Me said,” Congratulations to everyone involved in bringing ‘Our National Health Stories’ to life. This project was made possible by funding from Improving Me, Arts Council England, NHS Charities Together, NHS England and 19 hospital trust charities. It‘s a brilliant example of what can be achieved through effective partnership and collaboration and it underlines just how important it is to put our patients in a driving seat”

Read more Holding Time