Vincents Art Workshop: potential and ability

1 June 2010
Vincents Art Workshop is celebrating its twenty-fifth anniversary this year and is pulling out all the stops. Celebrations began in February with a Fringe Festival open day at the Wellington workshop and will continue until November with its Annual Group Exhibition at the St James Theatre Gallery.

The Annual Group Exhibition will feature a giant silver birthday cake to celebrate the Silver Jubilee year. Co-ordinator Glen McDonald is hoping that a prominent Wellington personality will open the exhibition. She’s also hoping that former Vincents’ artists will want to submit work for the exhibition to honour all its artists – past and present.

Vincents is the oldest creative space in New Zealand, established in 1985 in response to the de-institutionalisation of mental health service users. Its integrated focus included the wider community – a radical and visionary move at the time.

Aiming to destigmatise

“At the time, mental health service users were transferring from a large institutional setting to smaller ‘closed’ services in the community.  The Vincents model offered a way to destigmatise,” Glen says. “Because we’re open to the general public, people with mental ill health are not isolated from other people.”

Policy makers are now recognising the value of this “open door” policy – an approach that Vincents has always fostered. “Inclusion is being talked about and other organisations are beginning to look at this model too. DHBs are even approaching some creative spaces to discuss an inclusion model.”

In March 2000, Vincents Art Workshop won the inaugural Partnerships in Community Mental Health Award – Community Integration Award at the Building Bridges conference. Since January 2009, Vincents has won six more awards.

Vincents has an active involvement with community projects and events. It enjoys a close connection with the Wellington Zoo and the two organisations collaborate several times a year. In March, for example, Vincents’ artists made 55 decorated and painted plywood tigers, which were then a feature at  the Newtown Festival.  As well as celebrating Vincents’ twenty-fifth anniversary, the project also celebrated the zoo’s two Sumatran tigers and the Chinese Year of the Tiger.

“Vincents is very present in the community,” Glen says. “We’re constantly creating pathways.”

One project in the pipeline is working with Wellington City Council’s City Housing Department to encourage and, possibly, deliver art workshops in council flats.
“It could be a growing collaboration between Vincents, our artists, council tenants and the council. It’s very exciting,” Glen says. “All these connections are a way for people to transition into an integrated community setting.”

The Vincents / Ward 27 Link Project offers a similar bridge. Every Wednesday, Vincents’ art tutors deliver art-focus activities at Wellington Hospital’s psychiatric ward. For many of the patients there, Glen says, “It’s the highlight of their week. They look forward to Wednesday mornings.”

Capital and Coast District Health Board pays the tutors for these workshops but Vincents doesn’t receive health funding. The Ministry of Social Development and the Wellington City Council provide some funding, and other money comes from philanthropic trusts and donations. The cuts in funding to Adult Community Education in 2009 was a blow not only to Vincents but to a number of other creative spaces that received funding for adult education through secondary schools.

Potential and ability

Vincents operates on the philosophy of potential and ability rather than disease and disability.

Staff members believe that this approach has led to a high number of artists achieving national and international recognition – artists such as Martin Thompson, Reece Tong, Colin Korovin, Wendy Randall, Lynda Nelson, Emma Gregory and Victor Bright.

For others, the success is that their involvement at Vincents has led to further training or employment.

“Many of our artists have said that without Vincents they would be back in prison, living in the streets, back in psychiatric hospitals, or would have lost the will to live.”

For more information:
Glen McDonald
Vincents Art Workshop
T: 04 499 1030 E: