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rampton kathryn cooper for web_edited.jp

Residency at

Rampton High Secure

Hospital

April - June 2015

supported by Primary, Anxiety Arts

This project was set up to

investigate ...

...the legacy of the artist, Ian Breakwell's placement at Rampton High Secure Hospital in the 1970s when he was placed there by the Artist's Placement Group (APG). I intended to map the movement of significant ideas, conflicts and decisions involved in his intervention there, which led to a report (still classified under the Official Secrets Act). On not being able to release or exhibit the report Breakwell collaborated with Yorkshire Television to produce a TV programme 'Secret Hospital' – this documentary lead directly to several years of police presence at Rampton, prosecutions and reorganisation. I intended to look into what impact can be felt today, if any, of Breakwell's intervention. I am interested in the function of Rampton as a symbolic space, as a container for fractured psyches, how it functions for those both within and without it and how ideas about the space have shifted.

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