Lancaster Moor Hospital
"In 1998 I completed a 5 month collaborative residency at the hospital with Michael Mayhew (performance artist), and Scott Abraham (film maker). Based on the Conniston Ward we worked together to produce an interdisciplinary installation and performance piece. |"
Scenes from the Asylum Wall
"A performance installation produced as the result of a collaborative residency by Helen Sargeant (Visual Artist), Michael Mayhew (Performance Artist) and Scott Abraham (Film Maker) at the John Moore Hospital, Lancashire prior to its closure in 1997."
Brockhall Village
"Between 1995 and 1997, I lived and worked from a studio in the old nurses building at Brockhall Village on the site of a derelict Victorian Asylum together with 30 other artist, including the performance artist Michael Mayhew, who I collaborated with on a number of projects including Scenes from The Asylum Wall."...
Abandoned Doll
A small observational painting depicting a headless doll found at Brockhall Village. The doll has the number “239” written on its chest in biro, badly stained, and crudely made out of canvas. It was found in between a broken floorboard space of the derelict hospital together with plastic beads, combs and other small christmas cracker...
Patient
Patient was made during an artists residency between 1995 and 1997 at Brockhall Village, Lancashire. Brockhall Village was being developed from a derelict mental asylum into a luxury secure housing estate by the property tycoon Gerald Hitman. Brockhall Village was built in 1904 as an Inebriate Women’s Reforatory, and closed down in 1992 as part...
Mince Her
This painting represents a heavily pregnant woman, a handle that also looks like a transparent tube is attached to her belly. A fine painted line of clotted blood joins flesh and tube. The woman's torso has become amalgamated with a hand held kitchen meat mincing machine.
Does anyone still believe in ghosts?, Flux Magazine, by Jonnathan Shaw June 1995
"No one seems to care about ghosts anymore, they are nonsense, relegated to dubious folklore and kiddies books. Problem is that spooks, spectres, phantoms and phantasms not only exist but haunt in scary abundance a disused Victorian mental asylum in Brockhall Village, where a cabal of artists are summoning the sprites and living amongst them."...
Review of My House and Your House, The Big Issue, May 1995
"Its a chicken and egg situation"says Michael Mayhew of Furnace Performance Art Company. "Which comes first? The gallery where art is displayed or the space in which the art is made in the first place?"