Many years ago when I had to spend some time in Canberra Hospital I was amused and intrigued by a small statue in a little courtyard in what was then the maternity wing. Called Diving into Motherhood it was a collaborative work by members of the Majura Women’s Group-Backyard Project 1996 and depicted a small fat woman diving off a high column into the unknown. The sculpture has now found a new home and a new hospital wing has arisen phoenix-like from the old but the memory of that little sculpture has stayed with me.
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I tell this story to make the point that sometimes art can help or provide a solace and distraction in times of great stress or help to make an alien environment more welcoming and inviting. Jenny McFarlane, the curator of arts and health at the Canberra Hospital, knows all about this as part of her job means she is responsible for finding art that can relate to the needs of people who use the hospital – and that is effectively most of the Canberra population at one time or another.
An example of this collaboration between an artist, a generous donor and Jenny representing the hospital came about when Annie Trevillian, a well-known Canberra artist, was commissioned to make a major art work for the foyer of the new Centenary Hospital for Women and Children at Woden. The special requirement of this commission was that the art work was to fill the big glass wall that provided light into an interior courtyard of a children’s playground. While keeping the glass as a source of light, there was also the need to give the children (as hospital patients) privacy because the foyer is open to the public.
Annie is a local printmaker associated for many years with the Megalo Print Studio. She also taught at the ANU School of Arts Textile Workshop from 1992-2011. More recently she was the designer of the Canberra Centenary Community tapestry that was made as part of the 2013 Centenary of Canberra celebrations. This tapestry hangs in the ACT Legislative Assembly. There are links between the imagery in the tapestry and the design for the hospital foyer but the medium used is very different. For the hospital Annie has designed the work to be digitally printed on to a vinyl sheet which was then bonded to the glass windows. This means the art work is part of the fabric of the architecture, can be cleaned easily and has the advantage of letting light through into the inner courtyard playground.
Annie has succeeded brilliantly in creating a work that not only meets all the requirements but is an attractive and joyful introduction to the hospital itself, reminding the public that the hospital is part of their community. Her work, called Canberra: our garden city, is a schematic design featuring major Canberra icons. Among them are haystacks taken from an old photograph of Blundell’s Cottage, old and new Parliament House, East Row in Civic, the hospital itself, the aboriginal tent embassy, Telstra Tower and bogong moths representing the original owners of the land. These images make up a frieze that goes across the width of the work and echoes the horizontal bars of the window space above. Below the frieze is a peaceful forest of stylised trees and flowers. Above are the smoky grey and blue of the hills of the Brindabellas. What is particularly beautiful is that the leaves of the courtyard trees behind the glass can be seen and they contribute their presence to the art work. Annie, like so many of Canberra’s residents, has had a long association with the hospital. It was where her children were born and now she is waiting for her first grandchild to be born in the new maternity building.
The work of art by Annie was made possible by the support of the Liangis family through the Canberra Hospital Foundation. They also gifted the lovely little meditation garden in the same building. It is because of such generous gifts that so many art works are being acquired by the hospital.
Other artists also have contributed to the new building. Judy Horacek’s illustrations of sheep (taken from the book Where is the green sheep? by Mem Fox and Judy Horacek) provides some whimsical humour on the doors into the Neo-Natal Intensive Care Unit and Patricia Piccinini has donated a particularly apt colour photograph of the Skywhale (Skywhale over Lake Burley Griffin) to the breastfeeding room! The South Coast and Country Quilters have donated a collaborative quilt in honour of the Snowy-Hydro South Care rescue helicopter that services their area. This quilt provides a cheerful note in the corridor that children and parents come through from the heli-pad into the ward.
It is an exciting challenge to furnish a hospital with suitable art. There are special requirements such as health and safety issues and targeted suitability but, in Jenny’s capable hands and with the support of generous donors through the Canberra Hospital Foundation hopefully there will be many exciting projects to come.
