The Function and Purpose for a Creative Archive.
Work produced in isolation and seclusion remains inaccessible and unacknowledged and so often not valued by the institution in which it was created. Storage of artworks is often a problem for organisations and for individuals who do not have the space to keep and retain art objects. Patients are often moved from hospital to hospital and their artworks seldom follow. The Creative Archive would provide a sanctuary for such works.

What will the Creative Archive Do?
The Archive will preserve, manage and document such material in a confidential and safe location. The conditions of storage will be negotiated with permission from the artist/makers and if relevant their care teams. The artworks within the Creative Archive may be exhibited or used for research by appropriate, sensitive and valid researchers as the artist/makers and the Archive sees fit. All artworks will be valued as equally significant and important to the Creative Archive.

The Significance of a Creative Archive.
The significance of the Creative Archive is to acknowledge art as testimony of creativity and suffering and it will provide a powerful narrative to the experience of those in emotional and spiritual crisis. This work will also provide a premise for a deeper understanding of mental distress for artists, patients mental health professionals and the public where permission is given.

The Creative Archive will be grounded in respect and a belief in the value of the confirmation of human experience thorough the arts. The Archive will reflect and support the inestimable value that the arts have in emotional and mental wellbeing and through research study, exhibitions and publications and will provide a premise for academic study.