A Comfortable Room
A Comfortable Room was a bedroom you could book to sleep in at Blackpool’s Art B&B, designed by Lisa Mattocks and Jenny Gaskell. It was open from 2019-2022. For more information, visit the Art B&B website.
Bedroom Concept:
A Comfortable Room is a room to rest in. Designed for people which chronic pain, the overworked and the exhausted, this is a room of care where guests can escape to, relax in, refuel and imagine. It features adjustable furniture, lots of cushions and blankets, a walk in shower and a wall of projection. It hosts hidden objects to connect you to the world and big thick curtains to shut it all out.
A Comfortable Room has been designed with care, conceived by an artist living with chronic pain and an artist with a history of anxiety. The room features projection inspired by people living in Blackpool, who also live with pain or anxiety – the spaces they carve out for themselves, the places they go to feel okay and breathe it all in.
The Comfortable Room was conceived by Lisa Mattocks and Jenny Gaskell, created with filmmakers Webb-Ellis, Creative Technologist Chris Ball and Designer Katharine Heath.
The Art B&B is a hotel and venue designed by artists. All profits from staying at Art B&B are reinvested into local art and community projects. Find out at the Art B&B website.
Why we wanted to make the room:
A Comfortable Room was emerged from a friendship and collaboration of 10+ years. It has come from a place of care and a real longing for things to be better – from all the crap accommodation Lisa has stayed in whilst touring with chronic pain and the care she hasn’t received because her disability is often invisible. We wanted to know what the best room might be for a person in pain who was well enough to travel. We wanted to set a new standard.
It’s inspired by a cottage we stayed in once, which had a back porch which faced onto a stream. It’s come from Jenny’s anxiety and the time she had a breakdown – the fact that Lisa sensed it, called her up, picked her up and let her lie on the sofa while Lisa’s girlfriend cooked her eggs, chips and peas. This work has emerged from hours of hanging out, watching daytime TV, just being with each other – talking about health, how we want to make the world better and what Lisa needs to feel okay.
Lisa’s girlfriend Steph (aforementioned chip chef) said ‘sometimes it feels like the world is an inhospitable planet for humans, and we need to put our oxygen masks on just to leave the house’. We wanted to create a room which feels like an oxygen mask and a shelter and a soft place to fall. It’s a place to recharge and be with the things which are brilliant, before we get back out again to face the world.
