Art Chemist heals and entertains
The world’s first ‘‘Art Chemist’’ has opened in central Christchurch, dispensing therapeutic and helpful art tips to suit every mood.
Performance artist Audrey Baldwin established the Art Chemist in a vacant shop in Cathedral Junction. People can pop in for a consultation with Baldwin or one of nine other performers, and be given a prescription of suitable art to visit and experience in the city.
Each prescription comes on official Art Chemist paper and is dispensed in a pill bottle with a customised label.
Baldwin said consultations involved listening to the person and finding out what they enjoyed and what ailed them. She then recommended art that might help them and also gave them an opportunity to explore undiscovered art in the city. ‘‘We give you a map to the work. We want to give you an adventure rather than just an end point.
‘‘It is an ongoing process rather than a fix.’’ The prescription in a pill jar acted as a memento of the experience.
‘‘You get a custom-made art object to bring home. It is something personal they can keep.’’
Performer Georgie Sivier said the consultations could be quite moving.
‘‘People put their head around the door and say: What is this? A few minutes later they have a whole list of cool things to check out that they did not even know existed,’’ she said.
‘‘One lady was explaining about the pressures of her job and it was really cool because she was so generous with her feelings.
‘‘She told us everything that was worrying her.’’ Sivier recommended the video art installation Anthems of Belonging by Olivia Webb at the Christchurch Art Gallery, which features people performing anthems they have composed for their family.
‘‘On hearing the description of the artwork she started to cry. It was really lovely. I felt like she really needed that moment.’’
The Art Chemist is fitted out to feel like a playful mixture of the New Age and the corporate. There are salt lamps, colourful seats, exposed wood grain and aromatherapy oil burners.
The project was funded by the Christchurch City Council’s Enliven Places Project Fund and Life in Vacant Spaces. It is open from Thursday to Sunday until May 16.
Baldwin said she founded Art Chemist, which she believed might be a world first, as a way of helping people. ‘‘I do see art as a salve.
‘‘Going through the collective trauma of a global pandemic and living here through the earthquakes, and responding to all of that through art, made me realise how art can be used to heal.
‘‘This is a way of doing that in a playful and aesthetic way.’’