Through the eyes of the law: What is it about art that can harm people?

Abstract

The notion of arts-based risk is rarely acknowledged outside of art therapy. This paper describes an injury sustained as a result of art activity. The case was subject to legal proceedings which established arts practitioner and organisational negligence. The case was consequently settled out of court for a large sum. The paper reports the legal argument and explores what the process tells us about how art can both help and harm participants. This specifically concerns the power of art to make the subjective seem real and the need for practitioners to able to competently assess participants’ psychological vulnerability to this. The case represents an important milestone in the current arts and health debate, particularly with regard to the protection of the public. Lessons to be learnt for organisations seeking to deliver arts and health projects to vulnerable people are discussed.

Keywords:

• Arts and health risk
• injury
• law
• evidence

Acknowledgements

I would like to thank Parlett Kent for their help in those aspects of this paper which relate to the law and Malcolm Learmonth, BAAT arts and health lead, for continued advice and guidance on the arts and health context.

Notes

1. Note I shall only be concerned with the visual arts in this paper.

2. In using the term ‘art therapy’, rather than describing himself as an ‘art therapist’, he did not infringe the Health Professions Council protected title.

3. This picture was mislaid by the charity and so was not available during the case. The claimant states that the picture had traces of his blood on it.