New art display at Halifax hospital offers staff, patients break from intense environment

A series of artworks created by students from the Nova Scotia College of Art and Design is now on display at the Victoria General Hospital in Halifax.

The art, which features a 10-metre long painting of several colourful landscapes and a three-dimensional dollhouse, is on display in the busy main hallway, near the entrance of the hospital.

It was created by graduating students Ran Jacob, Charlotte MacLean and Anna Halcrow, being led by Sara Hartland-Rowe, a part-time painting professor at NSCAD.

"There's something that people get from being in the presence of creative work or beautiful things, and we really like to let our imaginations play and in a hospital can't let your imagination play that much," Hartland-Rowe told CBC Radio's Mainstreet Nova Scotia.

"But having a place in your life where something unexpected and surprising and beautiful can happen is really, really important."

The art display was put together in collaboration with Partners for Care, a non-profit organization that works with Nova Scotia Health.

Jane Davies, the CEO of Partners for Care, said Nova Scotia Health has been looking for a way to spruce up the old hospital since before the COVID-19 pandemic.

"This is an old, tired building that will be decommissioned in the coming years, but in the meantime, 500,000 patient visits happen and people do miracles here every day," Davies told Mainstreet.

"And so what Sarah was inspired by was the work that's happening and will continue to happen here at the VG [and] wanting to recognize that heroic work that takes place every day."

She said the main hallway which previously resembled a blank canvas is likely the most highly trafficked area in the hospital because the pharmacy and cafeteria are close by, and it's a primary connector to many of the buildings.

That's why it was the perfect place for some artwork, she said.

The first piece is a large, three-dimensional dollhouse placed inside the wall at the end of the hallway, which features scenes that could be found inside thehospital. It's aptly namedDoll-house.

Scenes include people cleaning, people delivering things, a patient undergoing dialysis, a nursing station with a trolley, lab technicians testing specimens, doctors consulting and of course, people visiting patients.

"We wanted to pay tribute to everyone that works, that is in some way part of the VG we wanted to show the gamut of health care at the VG," Hartland-Rowe said.

She said the second piece is aseriescalled Journey. The paintings, which wind down the long hallway, show familiar landscapes like a garden, a sunny meadow, a verdant coastline and even a Halifax street on a rainy evening.

Hartland-Rowe saidthe outdoor scenes are meant to connect people to the outside world, while inside the hospital.

"When I've been in hospital before and I felt closed off from the outside world, so something that would connect what's happening outside with inside, felt really important," she said.

She said the goal of the art is to make staff, patients and visitors stop and take a second.

"When you're working in a hospital, you're really busy, you're [doing] intense work that has to be done really, really well, and when you're a patient in a hospital, you're experiencing a completely other kind of world from the one you normally occupy," she said.

"We wanted the [art] to be a moment where you could just have a break from that kind of intensity and just have sort of sense of play and imagination and humour."

Davies said although the hospital will be decommissioned in the future, these works of art were designed to travel to a new location.

Hartland-Rowe said she hopes more hospitals will be built to include art in the first place.