Taking me Outside, Inside
Saturday 26 July – Friday 5 September 2025
Forth Valley Royal Hospital, Larbert
Taking me Outside, Inside is an exhibition which celebrates and shares learning from Art in Healthcare’s programme, Taking Art Home. A Scotland wide project, led by artist Jeni Allison, Taking Art Home allowed Art in Healthcare to make their art collection and creative workshops available online for adults living with long Covid, and those with long-term health conditions that find it very difficult to leave the home in Scotland.
The exhibition features three key themes, which reflect the experiences and voices of Taking Art Home participants. The titular theme, Taking me Outside, Inside; Creative Pathways; and In Good Company.
Taking me Outside, Inside, speaks to working with over 60 people across Scotland, from their own homes. Through live online activities and location filming inspired by the Art in Healthcare collection, Taking Art Home zoomed in on different parts of Scotland and landscapes from the perspectives of different artists. As one participant said, the sessions were ‘taking me outside, inside.’ Creativity transported participants collectively and individually to different ‘places’ in their minds and gently supported ways to experience respite from restrictive health conditions for a while every week. It ‘made me look at everyday objects and scenes with a new perspective.’
Creative Pathways reflects the numerous artistic processes which many participants tried for the first time with Taking Art Home. Many said ‘I never thought I could’ do that, and ‘I’m more of an artist than I thought I was.’ Every participant involved went on their own creative journey, experienced artistic growth and developed lifelong creative skills. One participant shared: art is ‘good for neuroplasticity of the brain – lays down more creative pathways’.
Taking Art Home also became a hugely valuable social space, where participants found themselves ‘in good company’. In an accessible space where you could be ‘together, in real time’ with people with similar lived experiences of illness. In reference to the Spoon Theory, (in which spoons are used as units of energy to explain the limited amount of physical or mental energy a person with a chronic illness or disability has each day), one participant said lovingly: ‘I save spoons’ for Taking Art Home.
Taking me Outside, Inside is open to view from Saturday 26 July to Friday 5 September 2025 at Forth Valley Royal Hospital, Stirling Road, Larbert, FK5 4WR. An expanded version of the exhibition is available to view online at https://www.artsteps.com/view indefinitely.
Taking me Outside, Inside is an exhibition presented by Art in Healthcare, curated by Soizig Carey. The exhibition is generously supported by Creative Scotland, Artlink Central and Forth Valley NHS.
31 July 2025 by
Amy Miles