30 June 2025
Some of the most meaningful moments in the world of art happen not in grand galleries or high-profile exhibitions, but in quiet, purposeful gestures of generosity — moments where art finds its way directly into the lives of the people it can help most. On 17 June 2025, just such a moment took place, as board members Ann-Lund Wahlberg and Tom Yendell presented framed works by British artist and board member Tom Yendell to the HPZ organization in Liechtenstein — a gift intended not for a wall in a museum, but for the walls of a home.
A Gift With Purpose
The paintings presented that day were far more than decorative pieces. They are intended for the artistic design of a new residential building currently being developed by HPZ, a facility located in the immediate vicinity of the Association's own headquarters. In choosing to contribute his work to this particular project, Tom Yendell — himself a board member of the Association and an artist who has built his career painting with the aid of a mouth-held brush — extended a gesture of solidarity that connects two organisations sharing a deep commitment to empowering people with disabilities.
There is a particular resonance in the fact that these works, created by an artist who paints with his mouth, will now help shape the everyday living environment of individuals supported by HPZ. It is a tangible expression of shared purpose: art created through determination and adapted technique, now enriching the daily lives of others navigating their own paths toward independence and self-realisation.
Who is HPZ?
The Heilpädagogisches Zentrum (HPZ) plays a vital role within Liechtenstein's social support landscape, dedicated to supporting people with disabilities across all facets of their lives — their living arrangements, their working lives, and their daily routines. Rather than adopting a narrow or purely custodial approach to care, HPZ has built its mission around the broader concepts of participation and self-realisation, ensuring that the people it supports are given genuine opportunities to shape their own lives, pursue meaningful activity, and engage fully with their community.
Central to this mission is HPZ's own residential project, which provides individuals with disabilities a place to live that is designed with their needs, dignity, and independence firmly in mind. Alongside its residential offerings, HPZ maintains a diverse range of activities for the people it supports, including — fittingly — creative arts and crafts programmes that give participants their own outlet for artistic expression and personal growth.
It is this shared belief in the transformative power of creative expression that makes the connection between HPZ and the Association feel so natural. Both organisations, in their own ways, exist to demonstrate that disability need not limit a person's capacity for creativity, participation, or a fulfilling life — a philosophy that Tom Yendell's donated artwork now embodies quite literally within the walls of HPZ's new residential building.
A Meeting Rooted in Proximity and Partnership
The location of this exchange carries its own significance. With the new HPZ residential facility situated in the immediate vicinity of the Association's headquarters, the presentation of Tom Yendell's paintings on 17 June was not simply a symbolic gesture between distant organisations, but the continuation of what appears to be a genuinely local, neighbourly relationship — one built on shared values and a shared physical community.
For board members Ann-Lund Wahlberg and Tom Yendell, the opportunity to personally deliver these works and see them find their intended home within HPZ's residential project offered a meaningful and hands-on way to strengthen this connection, translating institutional goodwill into a concrete, lasting contribution to the daily environment of HPZ's residents.
Art That Lives With People, Not Just Beside Them
There is something quietly powerful about art created to hang not in a gallery, glimpsed briefly by passing visitors, but within a home — a space where residents will encounter these works day after day, as part of the fabric of their everyday lives. In this context, Tom Yendell's paintings take on a role beyond simple decoration; they become a constant, gentle presence within the residential building, offering warmth, colour, and inspiration to the people who live there.
For an artist whose own career has been built on demonstrating that determination and adapted technique can produce work of genuine artistic merit, contributing paintings to a residential space for people with disabilities carries a particularly fitting symbolism. It is, in its own quiet way, a continuation of the very message that Tom Yendell's career — and the broader mission of the Association — has always sought to convey: that ability, creativity, and dignity are not diminished by disability, but can flourish powerfully within it.
A Model of Meaningful Collaboration
This gesture between the Association and HPZ stands as a valuable example of how organisations dedicated to supporting people with disabilities can collaborate in ways that extend well beyond formal partnership agreements or joint statements. By contributing original artwork to a concrete, lived space, Tom Yendell and the Association have helped ensure that HPZ's new residential building will be, from the very start, a place enriched by genuine artistic vision — created, fittingly, by someone who understands intimately what it means to create art in the face of physical challenge.
As HPZ's new residential project moves toward completion, the presence of Tom Yendell's paintings within its walls will serve as a lasting reminder of this collaboration — a small but meaningful contribution to a space designed, above all, to help its residents live with dignity, participation, and the opportunity for genuine self-realisation.
Source: VDMFK News