Screened as part of NZIFF 2015

Abandoned Goods 2014

Directed by Pia Borg, Edward Lawrenson

This artful and moving exploration of outsider art documents the unusual collection of artworks that were made at an English psychiatric hospital in an innovative art therapy studio led by Edward Adamson.

UK In English and French with English subtitles
38 minutes Blu-ray

Producers

Kate Ogborn
,
Lisa Marie Russo

Photography

Nick Gordon Smith

Editor

Philippe Ciompi

Music

Henning Christiansen
,
Philippe Ciompi

Voices

Iain Sinclair
,
Maureen Hutchinson
,
Rolanda Polonska
,
David O’Flynn
,
Eric Cunningham Dax
,
Francis Reitman
,
Nick James
,
Edward Adamson
,
Mary Hughes
,
William Kurelek
,
David Brant
,
Sarah Lombardi
,
Michael Barmham
,
Martine Lusardy

Abandoned Goods is a film all about art-making as a human instinct as well as a form of therapy, of reparation and of socialization. Between 1946 and 1981… long-stay patients of Netherne Hospital – a psychiatric and mental health facility in Surrey, England – created artworks under the guidance of pioneering art therapist Edward Adamson. Some of the paintings and sculptures are remarkable.

Borg and Lawrenson assemble what they can of the 5,500 works that survived the hospital’s closure in 1993, and do so to eerie and enlightening effect. Layering Iain Sinclair’s narration and old audio recordings atop a mix of archival footage and new stills, Abandoned Goods [is] a deceptively concentrated film – and one that’s as much about renewing and re-contextualizing the creations therein as it is about art’s psychological, emotional and finally social consequence.” — Michael Pattison, Fandor

“The incredible discovery of these pieces could sustain even the most boring, fact-driven film, but Abandoned Goods dares to do something more exciting.” — Robert Greene, Sight & Sound