Daniell Regan: What do you, we, I see? (2022)

What do you, we, I see?

What do you, we, I see? is a creative-research collaboration between artist Daniel Regan and Dr Sarah Yardley that explores the role of relationship and relationship-centred approaches to healthcare. The project explored experiences of giving and receiving palliative care or mental healthcare, two areas that depend on relationships between service users, family and friends who support them, and a wide range of health and social care professionals. 

The images were co-produced with a mixed group of research participants as part of the research process with the intention of also using these to engage a broader audience in conversation about the issues raised by the research. 

The project consists of a series of six photographs created by Daniel Regan in response to lived and learned experience of palliative care, mental healthcare, or both, as service users, carers, or service providers.

"Care has been an important theme throughout my life and work. As a young person I often cared for my mentally unwell mother, and vice versa as I grew older with my own difficulties. For two decades we delicately oscillated between the carer and the cared for and its associated challenges. I am fascinated by the caring roles that we explore in our relationships, the complexity of difference in what it means to be cared for individuals, and how systems can foster or prohibit caring environments. What happens when people are treated as systems? Who fits into these systems and who is left outside? How can medical professionals work with patients in an individualised way whilst within the confines of rigid healthcare systems? Responding to the key themes in Sarah’s research this abstract series of images explores the necessity for fluidity within systems of care, reflecting on themes of synchronicity, fragility and impermanence."

- Daniel Regan

Daniel Regan is a photographic artist, producer, and consultant who specialises in exploring complex, difficult and emotional experiences and is the executive director of the Arts & Health Hub, a not-for-profit, supporting artists and cultural producers that are exploring health, wellbeing, and what it means to be human. 

Dr Sarah Yardley is a palliative medicine consultant at UCLH and a qualitative researcher based in the Marie Curie Palliative Care Research Department, UCL. Her story-based research focuses on how people engage with the daily, often hidden, world of healthcare. She aims to include those who feel they "don't fit" in healthcare systems, advocating for multi-voiced understandings that prompt positive change and working with communities to explore what matters most when someone has a serious illness. Her study was funded by The Healthcare Improvement Studies (THIS) Institute fellowship award. 

Copyright and artist credit: Daniel Regan. © Copyright 2023. All Rights Reserved. Used with Permission.

Cells

An unknown force, a barrier or boundary that needs to be crossed.

"...how encounters with patients, including patient death effect me as a healthcare professional, the void they leave, makes me think about what I could have done, what other people could have done... important topic from patient, family, and healthcare worker point of view... difficult... we need to discuss people leaving us, open a discussion."

Collective

Everything being in its right place: being seen, the very nature of being together, the weight of our lives being witnessed by others.

"Conflicting feelings of being so small, and meaningless, versus part of something so vast, and deriving meaning from that."

"Stars in the sky and sense of uncertainty, so many things we don't know, people are going through, not knowing what to expect in healthcare, messy and busy."

Transitions

How things can shift before your very eyes.

"dark blue colour makes me feel sad, thinking more about the problems of systems and the challenges rather than something hopeful or positive... but the halo brightness is bubble [is] a sense of hope around the patient, dark can be where the patient came from into the light."

Eclipse

A perfect alignment of needs and care.

"feeling small in the healthcare system, no sense of control, professional part can feel small and inconsequential, but every part is needed, all need to work together, if we all do we can make a real difference, we can achieve more"

"unpicked so many processes of the care system and I hope it will be a turning point for change"

Open Waters

Carving out a path and navigating choppy waters.

"fascinated by the caring roles that we explore in our relationships, the complexity of difference in what it means to be cared for individuals, and how systems can foster or prohibit caring environments. What happens when people are treated as systems? Who fits into these systems and who is left outside? How can medical professionals work with patients in an individualised way whilst within the confines of rigid healthcare systems"

Islands

Illusions (and who creates them), paths, us vs them, people being locked out.

"People who are related in different ways, or should be, who is closest, who has most power, who is out of reach? Importance is not always reflected by physical closeness, noticing the detail, what is it about relationships and knowing people, impact on each other whether connected or not, broken lines, void in the future with multiple possibilities that no one can be concrete about, rugged boundaries, who is always on the outside, who cannot join, sense of desperation and sadness, forms of exclusion?"

About UCLH Arts & Heritage

UCLH Arts & Heritage is the creative health programme that serves UCLH NHS Foundation Trust and its surrounding community. We are funded entirely by charitable donations and are committed to providing a welcoming, uplifting environment for all patients, visitors and staff through the use of a varied and stimulating arts programme.

UCLH Arts & Heritage receives its funding from UCLH Charity and the Friends of UCLH. 

Website: uclh.nhs.uk/arts

Email: uclh.uclharts@nhs.net