patience an insiders guide to surviving ill health
Introduction

Arts organisation arthur+martha have just finished working on the project Patience, with hospital patients, staff and visitors, in Stockport NW England, creating an insider’s guide to illness using poetic language and artworks. Patients used it to share their experiences of living with ill health. For staff it was opportunity to convey their insights on care. There is an identified need for easier communication between medical staff and patients – we aim to help this process.
The collection focuses on the health experiences of older people. It is available as a full-colour hardback book (ISBN 978-0-9539367-8-6) published in partnership with Apple Pie Editions and will be launched soon. You can download a sample chapter (Chapter 5, Acceptance) by clicking here. (file size 6.5 MB) to view images from the book, please visit or portfolio site here for poems, interviews and artwork our blog
Art, unlike science, is capable of depicting the impossible or invisible: hope, pain, joy, fear… states and emotions sometimes inescapable with ill health. We will explore with illustrations and poetry some of our most powerful and yet most elusive moments - times of survival. There is scope for the methodology and products to spread throughout the UK.
We would like to invite submissions to blog address http://patience-project.blogspot.com/ as part of gathering insider accounts of illness. If you, or anyone you know, would like to send material to the blog, we would be delighted to receive it.