Maudsley Arts and Psychoanalysis | Access and engagement for our communities. How can we foster a more connected relationship with nature? - Errol Fernandes

Maudsley Lectures in Psychoanalysis | Arts and Psychoanalysis

Access and engagement for our communities. How can we foster a more connected relationship with nature?

As we live and garden our way through a climate crisis and what often
feels like a mental health crisis. How can we, through our work,
support our communities in achieving a greater connectedness with
nature and the environment and what could this achieve?

Errol Fernandes

13th May 2024

7:30pm - 9:00pm (BST)

Hybrid

In-person at 10 Windsor Walk and online via Zoom.

Recording available for 1 week.

The speakers will be in dialogue with Psychoanalyst Dr Anne Patterson.

Errol Fernandes is the Head of Horticulture at the Horniman Museum and Gardens in South London where he manages the 16 acres of stunning gardens. The Horniman Museum is the only museum in the country with a social anthropology, natural history and gardens collection. This unique position allows them to traverse and explore the areas where we overlap and intertwine with nature and the gardens are essential in helping to communicate this narrative.

Having had a love of nature and a passion for gardening from a very young age, Errol seemingly diverted away from the horticultural path to study fine art and went on to develop a career as a painter and curator, exhibiting internationally before studying for a Masters in Art Psychotherapy. Errol then went on to practice as an art psychotherapist within adult psychiatry and also worked with children and adolescents and slowly began to include elements of gardening therapy in his work. Errol later went on to gain horticultural and botanical training.

Errol's approach to landscape management, horticulture and design is creative, thoughtful and sensitive. Errol is particularly interested in ecological and sustainable horticulture and develops planting schemes that sit comfortably alongside nature, have a low impact on the environment both in terms of implementation and maintenance but he also strives to push the boundaries of contemporary horticulture and design practice.

Working with communities sharing knowledge, nurturing collaborative working practices and inspiring the next generation of horticulturalists are principles that are central to his work.

Summary

''Through this talk I aim to share some of the work that I do at the Horniman Museum. I will touch briefly on my past as an artist and art/horticultural therapist and explore how this past informs our approach to horticulture within the public realm. I will share how much of our work is guided by sustainability, the climate and biodiversity crisis and that engaging the pubic is a huge part of this work. I will also look at our approach to volunteering in the Gardens here at the Horniman.''

From Freud’s thinking on the sublimation of libido and his later theorisation of the Life and Death Drives, to Klein’s work on reparation and the recovery of the good object and Winnicott’s ideas of creative living, psychoanalysis has always been interested in creativity. 

In the fourth Maudsley summer series on arts and psychoanalysis, we continue to explore this theme of creativity between internal and external worlds in dialogue with artists from a range of different perspectives: from the natural to the built world and ceramics to literature and theatre.

REFUND POLICY: Tickets are fully refundable until 14 days before the lecture, after which time no refunds will be issued.

Concession tickets are available, for students, BPAS candidates and NHS trainees and nurses. Please email outreach@iopa.org.uk if you are unsure if you qualify for a concession ticket.

Views and opinions expressed by speakers are their own and do not represent the views or opinions of the Institute, event organisers or other speakers. We expect delegates to respect the confidentiality of clinical material discussed in our events. The content must not be recorded, conveyed or disseminated in any format and participants must not share access to the event with non-registered participants.