L-r: Three Girls; Apartment Window; Solstice by W.King, screenprint on paper, from the Milton Keynes University Hospital Art Collection

Our 20th Anniversary  🥳

We officially came into existence as the Arts for Health MK organisation on 25 May 2004, making this the start of our 20th anniversary year.  We developed from the work of an amazing voluntary Arts Committee at Milton Keynes Hospital, who had the vision and determination to start an art collection when the hospital first opened in 1984, to make it a more welcoming and pleasing environment for patients, visitors and staff. The Collection, now numbering over 400 artworks, is the largest permanent art collection in Milton Keynes. We still curate The Collection, and present related temporary exhibitions and manage some of the inner courtyard spaces as Creative Courtyards, but we also regularly deliver creative health and wellbeing programmes in the community. We work with dedicated artists and creative practitioners to improve the health and wellbeing of people across Milton Keynes. Through partnerships with others, our current programmes include dance, drama and fine art. Positive feedback from participants and our waiting lists for places reflect the huge demand and need for such work.

What is Twenty for Twenty?

Twenty for Twenty is our web-based project designed to increase awareness of our charity and shine a spotlight on The Collection during our anniversary year. We’ve asked twenty people from different walks of life to select a work from The Collection and to tell us about it’s personal significance, interest or appeal to them. In this way we hope to capture and share a snapshot of the value and impact of The Collection to a range of different people – from hospital staff, patients and visitors to wider community members. We will alert you to each new post via our social media and we look forward to seeing the contributions as they come in! You will find that the first couple of posts are already live on our website. Please use the left navigation bar to access the pages.  Do take a look!


Share your Thoughts

Perhaps these invited posts will inspire you to tell us about your own memories or experiences of seeing art in MK Hospital?  If so, then we’d love to hear from you.  Please email us at info@artsforhealthmk.org with ‘20for20’ as the subject line. Your feedback would be most welcome. 
Thank you.