Project

This project explores the ethics and legality of using, showing, reproducing, sharing and keeping artworks made in the context of Art Therapy and Arts & Health more broadly. What ethical and legal considerations should we take into account when we “attend to” (that is, keep, look after, share, show, exhibit, reproduce) artworks that have been made by people in the sensitive contexts of Art Therapy or Arts & Health.

“Who Owns Outsider Art?” is a collaboration between lawyers, art therapists and Arts & Health practitioners. The project lays foundation for thinking about desirable practice guidelines on the use of (or caring for) artworks made by clients and participants in Art Therapy and Arts & Health.

This discussion took the form of a series of workshops inviting academics and professionals (lawyers, art therapists and arts & health practitioners) to share their experience and expertise of negotiating the complex ethical and legal implications of caring for artworks made with their support, guidance or supervision. To encourage and stimulate discussion, the workshop participants undertook a series of practical exercises, and their work is presented in our online exhibition.

These perspectives were complemented with the point of view of former Art Therapy clients and former participants in Arts & Health activities. In structured telephone interviews, these participants discussed their own experience of art making and subsequent caring of the work, and gave their opinion on a vignette highlighting usual processes in Art Therapy or Art & Health activities.

This website, and its online exhibition, captures the views and thoughts of these different voices.

Questions

The project asks a (deceptively) simple question: Who owns the visual artworks (images) made in the context of Art Therapy or Arts and Health?

Does the sense of ownership towards the piece vary according to the context in which it is made (Art Therapy versus Arts & Health), the support or guidance technique used by the professional leading the session?

Asking who owns the artwork is asking who decides what becomes of the piece once it has been made. Can it or should it remain with the client or participant in Art Therapy or Arts & Health activities? Does it or should it belong to the professional who led the session or the organization funding the work? Who, between the artist-client or artist-participant and the professional, is best placed to decide the future of the piece? Who is best placed to decide whether the artwork ought to remain confined to the privacy or confidentiality of the session or whether the artwork ought to be shared with the outside world and how?

These pointed questions address practical concerns about: the obligations of professionals to keep and maintain the work within their own records; the practical costs this type of confidentiality incurs; the right to share images with supervisors or students for clinical and educational purposes; the right to organise exhibitions, print catalogues, postcards or calendars featuring the artworks of Art Therapy clients or Arts & Health participants; the level of information disclosure accompanying these pieces (does the context in which they were created matter? Must the meaning of these paintings, and what they signify to the clients or participants be shared with the piece to make sense of the piece or to evaluate/value the piece?)

Where do the legal and ethical obligations of Art Therapy and Arts & Health professionals lie in caring for the artworks?

What are the obligations of those who acquire, inherit, curate, or come to be in possession of these artworks?