This artful and moving exploration of outsider art documents the unusual collection of artworks that were made at an English psychiatric hospital in an innovative art therapy studio led by Edward Adamson.
Took my breath away… Outsider art fans need to track down this short film at all costs.
Screened as part of NZIFF 2015
Abandoned Goods 2014
“Abandoned Goods is a film all about art-making as a human instinct as well as a form of therapy, of reparation and of socialization. Between 1946 and 1981… long-stay patients of Netherne Hospital – a psychiatric and mental health facility in Surrey, England – created artworks under the guidance of pioneering art therapist Edward Adamson. Some of the paintings and sculptures are remarkable.
Borg and Lawrenson assemble what they can of the 5,500 works that survived the hospital’s closure in 1993, and do so to eerie and enlightening effect. Layering Iain Sinclair’s narration and old audio recordings atop a mix of archival footage and new stills, Abandoned Goods [is] a deceptively concentrated film – and one that’s as much about renewing and re-contextualizing the creations therein as it is about art’s psychological, emotional and finally social consequence.” — Michael Pattison, Fandor
“The incredible discovery of these pieces could sustain even the most boring, fact-driven film, but Abandoned Goods dares to do something more exciting.” — Robert Greene, Sight & Sound