World Mental Health Day
Posted on Friday 24 October 2025
During the day, we held two engaging sessions with the Borthwick Institute for Archives (BIA) team in the former recreational room of The Retreat. The Retreat is a site adjacent to the University of York campus - a Grade II* listed, 18th century purpose-built facility that historically provided mental healthcare to Quaker patients.
As the custodian of The Retreat's surviving archives, the BIA, with support from the Mentally Fit York Fund, held sessions focused on reviving parts of the archive that speak to York’s mental health history, as part of the wider ‘Stories of Mental Health from York: Past, Present and Future’ project.
This is a pilot arts-based project aimed at bringing York’s unique mental health archives to the wider community. The goal is to show how cultural heritage records can support conversations around present-day policy and decision-making, ensuring the voices of today are heard.
The workshops were led by artists Stephen Lee Hodgkins and Griselda Goldsbrough, who have extensive experience working with patients at hospitals and out-patient settings across York. Participants from across the city created a collective exhibition of 11 artworks prior to the workshops. Attendees at the workshops were given the opportunity to learn about the patient archives in the care of the BIA, view the resulting artworks for the first time, and have a go at two arts-based activities for themselves.
Gary Brannan, Keeper of Archives and Research Collections at the University of York, saidL “It was incredibly emotional and inspiring to see people engaging with both art and archives in this way. Working with artists Stephen and Griselda brought new life and meaning to the Retreat's historic mental health records, helping to connect the site’s future with its past. Projects like this show how creativity and history can come together to support wellbeing and reflection. We simply wouldn’t have been able to undertake this project without the generous support of donors to the Mentally Fit York fund."
Some of the artworks displayed in the communal room of The Retreat.
The artworks will soon be on display at the Borthwick Institute for Archives as part of the University’s permanent Art Collection.
To close the day, we had a discussion with Helena Cox, our Art Curator, entitled ‘Mindfulness and Art - exploring the UoY collection through mindfulness’. It was interesting hearing about the breadth and depth of the art collection here at the University. If you missed the event or want to listen back, you can find a recording of the session on our YouTube channel. As Professor Scott Cairney, Director of the Institute of Mental Health Research at York outlined in his introduction to the event, art and creativity can be a really important tool to manage our mental health.
No One Knows My Name collage, Gemma Thompson. Based on the collection of Unidentified Women at the Retreat individually photographed 1890s.
If you’d like to delve deeper into the artworks here at the University, please visit our art collection webpages.