Exhibition curated by Elisa Artesero – Stroke Stories at Victoria Baths. Photo credit: Caroline Edge
Elisa Artesero’s Fine Art practice centres on text and light-based works, however, applying her creativity to delivering workshops for stroke survivors and other community groups is another side to her professional work she greatly enjoys. Elisa has many years of experience working within the arts and health sector, including projects with The Stroke Association, Manchester University, Salford Royal Hospitals, Manchester Metropolitan University, Stroke Pathway Assessment Centre (SPARC) in Sheffield, and Arts for Health in Sheffield.
Projects include delivering creative visual arts and writing workshops for stroke survivors, and curating their artworks into new professional pieces of artwork for flexible display in spaces such as Victoria Baths, Manchester Library, the national stroke forum in London and Liverpool.
She also organised and ran a symposium at the Whitworth Art Gallery in Manchester about arts and health and the need for further investment and sustainability in this type of work to help the wellbeing and skills of a range of participants. As part of this, Elisa designed a book explaining the larger project the symposium was based upon, including essays from prominent figures in the arts, health, and research community.
Elisa’s work allows for the exploration of story telling (participants’ stories), language and communication techniques, and the exploration of memory and emotions through a variety of materials and artistic processes. Her experience has shown that there is often a technique that will help a participant to develop a new talent or skill that they didn’t know they had, or had not previously had the opportunity to develop.
Elisa recently worked on a year-long residency at SPARC in Sheffield, where she delivered tailored creative art workshops for patients to provide enjoyment, skill development, exploration of memory and much more. The residency culminated into a permanent window vinyl artwork of flowers with participants’ words projected onto the flowers’ faces.
Below are photographs from a variety of the projects Elisa has worked on over the last 8 years:
