My father is the wise man of the village

Exhibition: Fruitmarket Gallery, Market Street, Edinburgh, tel 0131 225 2383, www.fruitmarket.co.uk, until the end of April

DVD and book package: £15, ISBN 0 94791 218 5, available from the Fruitmarket Gallery bookshop

My father is the wise man of the village”—large, in buzzing red neon striplight, currently confronts visitors to Edinburghs Fruitmarket Gallery. Artist Kate Gray took the statement from the thought filled sketchbooks of psychiatric patient Nicky Barrett. The resulting work, in neon, unashamedly presents Nickys private world of thoughts to the public and lends its title to the products of FUSION.

The two year FUSION programme enabled established artists to work within hospitals in the Edinburgh and Lothians region. It comprised two projects: Commissions, in which eight artists produced works specific to several specialised hospital departments in the region; and Collaborations, in which artists such as Gray worked with long term psychiatric patients like Nicky.

The gallery exhibition of collaborative works is just one outcome of FUSION. The commissioned displays have been shown in various hospital departments, and an accompanying DVD and book have been produced describing the aims and achievements of FUSION and documenting the art.

Representatives of Artlink, the organisation that initiated the programme, say that the process behind FUSION may be as important as its products. They claim that the programme has had a social role thanks to its creation of successful working relationships and its promotion of collaboration between artistic and hospital communities.

None the less, Trevor Crombie, curator of the current gallery exhibition, is keen to assert that the visible products of the Collaborations project are valuable as art in their own right. “I want people to take it seriously and not just look at it from the viewpoint that this is done by a psychiatric patient,” he says. Consequently, no explanations of the works or descriptions of the patients diagnoses are contained within the gallery display. This approach is innovative and non-patronising, and it works. For example, in the video work K.448 a young man stands in a sunlit park filled with blossom. Stripped to the waist, he energetically waves his arms “conducting” the soundtrack of a Mozart piano sonata. The six minutes of footage vividly capture the spontaneity of the moment and share with the viewer the experience of personal freedom and pleasure. Knowing that the video was created by someone who has epilepsy does not increase our enjoyment of the work: this knowledge alters our interpretation unnecessarily. The work is capable of standing on its own merits, rather than as a concession to people with mental or neurological disorders or as an expression of the disorder itself.

The works commissioned for display in hospitals have also proved successful. In her work for the Royal Infirmary of Edinburghs cardiology department, Racheal Mimiec exploited familiar and clichéd images of Valentines hearts. She aimed “to take people out of their situation” by providing a “jarring” and “kitschy” contrast to the “sterile” hospital environment. Her work “brings a more humane aspect to the hospital,” according to cardiologist Kenny Branny.

Jim Eunson of the Lothian Hospital Arts Consortium thinks, “FUSION has enriched the NHS in Lothian.” The programme has been enjoyed by hospital patients and practitioners as well as the gallery-visiting public.