Anne Kingsley Dawborn was born in Melbourne on the 9th of March 1931.She graduated as an Occupational Therapist in 1953, beginning her career at the Repatriation Hospital in Melbourne, before traveling to Canada via the UK and New York to work at the Kingston Psychiatric Hospital in Ontario.Returning to Australia several years later, Anne worked at the Alfred Hospital in Melbourne and soon became Head of the Occupational Therapy Department. In 1972 Anne decided to train as a primary school teacher, bringing her creativity into every lesson.  She retired from teaching in 1988.  She was a member of the Hawthorn Art Society and the Victorian Art society and exhibited her oil paintings in various galleries around Melbourne.In the 1980’s Anne developed her life long love of drawing, sketching and painting in water and oils.  Painting and sketching gave Anne much pleasure and she loved to share this sense of creativity with her friends and relatives.  Anne believed in the therapeutic nature of engaging in the arts, in any form, and facilitated others to be creative in her role as Occupational Therapist, Teacher, relative and friend.  This extended to the arts in health care and education settings.Many conversations over the years about the importance of this led to the bequest being used to establish a small pilot at the Royal Hobart Hospital and this in turn created Inscape Tas.  Thanks to Anne’s legacy, the pilot was immensely successful and has led to more programs being delivered. Anne continued to paint and draw until just before the end of her life and she passed away on the 13th November, 2013.

The Anne Dawborn Bequest

Anne Dawborn graduated as an Occupational Therapist in 1953, beginning her career at the Repatriation Hospital in Melbourne, before travelling to Canada via the UK and New York to work at the Kingston Psychiatric Hospital in Ontario.  Returning to Australia several years later, Anne worked at the Alfred Hospital in Melbourne and became Head of the Occupational Therapy Department. 

Anne also trained and worked as a primary school teacher, bringing her creativity into every lesson. Anne developed a lifelong love of drawing, sketching and painting in water and oils. She was a member various Art Societies and exhibited in galleries around Melbourne.

Anne believed in the therapeutic nature of engaging in the arts, in any form, and facilitated others to be creative in her role as Occupational Therapist, Teacher, relative and friend. Anne passed away in 2013. Thanks to her legacy, a pilot arts-in-health project was initiated at the Royal Hobart Hospital that led to establishing Inscape Tas.

OUR HISTORY

Inscape Tas was initiated by the bequest of Anne Dawborn. Her niece Jacqui began a consultation with Royal Hobart Hospital staff and established a six-month pilot project, based on a community development approach.

In 2015, the pilot was successfully implemented on the Acute Older Person’s Unit that cared for older people with acute illness, including many with dementia and delirium. It aimed to improve the experience of older people, their family, carers and staff through engagement in art activities, including music, visual arts, participatory art making and storytelling. 

This pilot was evaluated in partnership with Dr. Karen Ford, ADON Research and Practice Development, RHH and was published in the International Journal of Older Persons Nursing. This paper received the journal’s Award for Outstanding Scholarly Contribution to Gerontological Nursing Practice in 2018.

Inscape has developed its programs to meet the needs of patients and staff throughout the hospital. We now have up to 17 artists contracted for sessional work working bedside, in performances, residencies and projects. Inscape is committed to supporting artists to work in health care with regular professional development and mentoring. We also contribute to research, evaluation, and offer education to health care staff about the value of arts in health settings.

Currently Inscape has:

  • Completed a total of 210 Life-Scape illustrations all gifted to patients and their families.

  • Facilitated 67 education sessions for health staff/community groups.

  • Weekly public duo/solo performances in sites around Tasmanian Health Services-South.

  • Engaged an average of 30 participants in bedside musical visits each week.

  • Initiated ‘Care Through Creativity’ residency project with 3 visual artists working within the hospital, in 2021/22.

  • An arts-health facilitator providing support and mentoring.

  • Sound governance from a committed voluntary board, and part-time administrator.

Alyssa Bermudez and Jenny Masters working on Life-Scape illustrations during a Professional Development day, 2017

Alyssa Bermudez and Jenny Masters working on Life-Scape illustrations during a Professional Development day, 2017.

Evaluation

In 2015, the Inscape program was evaluated with ethics approval and the results showed many benefits and positive outcomes for staff, patients and visitors.

The short report is available here.