As part of our Mental Health & Wellbeing programme, our intern, Rory, has selected three works from the Arts Council Collection which explore health and wellbeing.
The Arts Council Collection is the most widely circulated national loan collection of modern and contemporary British art. Throughout 2019-2022, Sunderland Culture has been selected to present exhibitions, projects and creative learning opportunities drawn from Arts Council Collection.
- Becky Beasley, Hide, 2004, Gloss fibre-based gelatin silver print

Becky Beasley (b.1975) is a Hastings-based artist who works in sculpture, installation and photography. Her work explores the human condition often alluding to her own battles with depression. Rather than allowing depression to dictate the way she lives, she uses these experiences to inspire her work and promote the importance of wellbeing.
“...mental health difficulties have been my greatest adversary and my greatest strength.” – Becky Beasley
The artwork Hide addresses anxiety from a place of understanding and could be said to resemble someone hiding foetal position underneath a tablecloth. The artist channels anxiety and achitecture into a show of creativity over struggle.
Image: Becky Beasley, Hide, 2004. Arts Council Collection, Southbank Centre, London © the artist
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2. Caroline Achaintre ,Todo Custo, 2015 Hand-tufted wool

Todo Custo is a large textile artwork measuring over 3 metres high by London-based artist Caroline Achaintre (b.1969). Achaintre creates work in ‘the uncomfortable middle ground, the in-between’, blurring the boundaries of what we see and what we think we see.
This work in particular takes the bare minimum features to create a face, something we as humans are designed to recognise. The piece draws attention to the mistrust created by subjective perception and the way an individual’s viewpoint can seem to distort or recontextualise an image.
Image: Caroline Achaintre, Todo Custo, 2015. Arts Council Collection, Southbank Centre, London © the artist
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3.Charlotte Prodger, BRIDGIT, 2016, Single-channel HD video

Understanding yourself is a challenge, but in doing so can lead to greater wellbeing. BRIDGIT is a 32-minute video work composed of a series of short 4 minute clips filmed on an iPhone by Glasgow based artist Charlotte Prodger (b.1974).
Prodger’s film offers us a personal account of the artist’s life experiences as she seeks to find herself, addressing themes including human connectivity to technology, place and it’s relation to time, and queer and gender identities. Filmed over the course of a year and limited by the short filming capacity of her iphone, Prodger creates a highly engaging and personal dialogue through spoken narrative, shedding light on her own journey.
Image: Charlotte Prodger, BRIDGIT (film still), 2016. Arts Council Collection, Southbank Centre, London © the artist