The Nightingale Project brightens up hospitals and health centres through the arts. It was founded in 1998 at South Kensington and Chelsea Mental Health Centre, and since then has worked in numerous wards and clinics across West London, in collaboration with the staff of Central and North West London NHS Foundation Trust. Research suggests that art and music can contribute to the healing process. Hospitals can be bleak, institutional places, and displays of visual art can make them more welcoming and more uplifting, thus supporting medical and therapeutic work. The Nightingale Project works with carefully-chosen professional artists, acquiring works of art or commissioning the artist to make work specifically for a space such as a ward or reception area. There are also temporary exhibitions of art in public areas of some of the hospitals, by invited artists. An exhibition of work done for the Project by illustrator Quentin Blake is touring the UK in 2012–2013.