Madlove, an interactive art exhibit reimagining a psychiatric hospital, is set to receive a 2014 public engagement grant from the British Psychological Society.

The Society makes grants to help its members promote the relevance of evidence-based psychology to wider audiences, either through direct work or by organising special activities.

Madlove is a new participatory installation and event series created by artist the vacuum cleaner (Jamie Leadbitter) in collaboration with FACT (a Liverpool based media arts centre) and BPS Associate Fellow Professor Peter Kinderman, Head of the Institute of Psychology, Health and Society at the University of Liverpool.

As part of the research and development process the vacuum cleaner is holding workshops throughout the UK with patients and professionals from the health and psychology sectors, as well as members of the general public. The accumulated ideas and knowledge will be used to develop a blueprint for a creation of a temporary psychiatric hospital at FACT in spring 2015 that will be open to the public as part of its Group Therapy exhibition.

Professor Kinderman said: “We are extremely pleased to have received this BPS grant to help facilitate this opportunity for an arts/science collaboration. We hope that involving the public in the creation of a dynamic designer asylum they can actually visit and engage with will encourage people to consider current perceptions of mental health through a playful and imaginative design process.”

Professor Catriona Morrison, Chair of the BPS Education and Public Engagement Board, said: “As the representative body for psychology in the UK making the public aware of the breadth of psychology as a science is an important part of the Society’s work. The Public Engagement Grants are one of the methods we use to achieve this.”

Public Engagement Grants are available to help BPS members promote the relevance of evidence-based psychology to wider audiences, either through direct work or by organising special communications activities.

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