Spending time in hospital alters your reality because your routines, contacts with people, and feelings about yourself all change significantly when you are having tests, receiving treatment or recovering from surgery.

How teenagers in hospitals react is now being explored in two art projects touring venues across Ireland. They explore how teenagers in hospitals alter their realities by creating artworks.

Entitled, Cloudlands, teenagers at Temple Street Children's University Hospital and Cork University Hospital are working with artist Rachel Tynan and theatre maker Eszter Nemethi to explore the themes of escape and fantasy.

"Most of the teenagers in hospital are so creative. They are craving to do something and my role is to collaborate with them without being directional or prescriptive," explains Tynan, who worked with Helium Arts on the Cloudlands project for three years.

Tynan spent one day a week working with teenagers in the wards and those having kidney dialysis at the renal clinic at Temple Street hospital. “Each day, I brought in a blue suitcase which explodes with materials. I also had my iPad, my camera and sound-recording equipment.”

“I was terrified when I first went into the hospital; that sense of arriving in to teenagers in a vulnerable position and asking them to do crazy things. But it’s about building up trust through a working relationship.”

Outside medical conditions

Tynan says being outside the medical profession is the key to giving teenagers in hospital time to focus on things outside their medical conditions.

“It’s different each day; we could be writing a book, making a film, building an ice castle or hiding dolls around the hospital.”

Titans are a series of storytelling wooden figures created by the teenagers at Temple Street hospital.

The teenagers created characters such as a star lady who can take a star from the sky and put it on a wound to make it better or an ocean fairy who comes out of the sea to explore land.

This fairy character was further developed into an interactive performance by a dancer who moved through the hospital, encountering patients, visitors and staff on her journey.

The teenagers involved in the project at Temple Street hospital have commented on their experiences. One teenager said, “It helps me chill and work out the thoughts in my head and afterwards my head isn’t fuzzy anymore.”

“It takes my mind off stuff I don’t like,” said another.

“You don’t have to be just one person, you can be anything,” said another teen.

Interactive game

Tynan says the teenagers who take part in the artworks are very proud of their work and thrilled that it is going on tour.

The Radio/Silence interactive game was created by teens working with Eszter Nemethi at Cork University Hospital.

“Games emerged quite quickly as something to do and then we had to figure out how to collaborate with people in other rooms without the internet so we broadcast the game on Cork University Hospital radio station at the start.”

The material for the game came from stories the teenagers created with Nemethi. “Themes of adventure run through it with strong characters and a sense of another world.

The idea of creating silence was key because a hospital is a very noisy place. Using mobile phones, participants in the game can help the characters save the world from an evil doctor intent on spreading silence.

As an artist in residence at Cork University Hospital, Nemethi says she is the only person who doesn’t have a medical function.

“I have the time to stay longer or the flexibility to come back and do something with them that has nothing to do with their health.

“It allows these teenagers to step away from everything in a creative way.”

On tour: Teenagers’ art explained

The artworks created by teenagers in Temple Street Children’s University Hospital and Cork University Hospital are touring art venues in Ireland.

Titans is a series of storytelling wooden figures, like large Russian dolls. When placed on a podium connected to a sound system, the stories inside the dolls are activated. The public will be able to listen to the stories created by the teenagers and look at the symbolic art works inside these wooden dolls, beautifully carved by the Dublin Woodturners’ Association.

The second project, called Radio/Silence, is an interactive radio game, developed to offer teenagers in hospital an alternative reality to the medical environment.

The public will be able to call 076 6801819 – and take part in the game, reminding us all how we can always create alternative realities wherever we are.

Cloudlands is at the Galway Arts Centre, Galway city until March 19th; at the Garter Lane Arts Centre, Waterford city from March 31st to April 9th; the Atrium in Cork City Hall from April 22nd-28th and in the Art Box Gallery, James Joyce St, Dublin 1 from May 19th-June 2nd.

Radio/Silence will also tour hospitals throughout Ireland, offering teenagers a chance to play the interactive game on their mobile phones. helium.ie