A permanent commission for a courtyard garden in a new build Health centre on Mere Lane, Liverpool. A re-imagining of a wishing well, to create a living artwork that responds to and reflects the local community and patients.
Wishing well is an art installation, located in the centre of an internal garden at the new Mere Lane neighbourhood health centre in Anfield, Liverpool. The community engagement was led by tenantspin with BNENC. The garden is designed to be a peaceful and contemplative space to allow visitors and workers an alternative experience to the normal running of the centre. The artwork builds on this purpose. It also reflects on the health centre representing the physical well being of the community.
There are few occasions in modern life where superstition is still publicly recognized. And I think its important to remember and celebrate these links to our distant past. The ritual of dropping a coin into a well and reciting a wish in your head. Is a special, secret and personal moment.
A visitor would approach the garden and see a pool with handprints. To the side of the pool is a small structure with a cut-out handprint, with the words “whisper a wish” engraved. When somebody places there hand. their handprint appears in the pool along with a prompt to whisper a wish. It then floats slowly down to join the other handprints. Using highly directional speakers, people can listen to the anonymous recorded wishes at various points within the garden.
galleryCommissioned by FACT (Foundation for Art and Creative Technology),
Liverpool and Sefton Health Partnership and Liverpool PCT
as part of the Decade of Health and Wellbeing.