Covid is the great leveller, joining up people and communities across the globe, raising awareness of the fragility of our mental and physical health. But there has also been appreciation of the power of art and the role of artists in encouraging a positive future and expressing our complex and sometimes battling emotions. Over the past 15 years, Futurecity has pushed for the arts to be included at as early a stage as possible on major health projects in London, Cambridge, Parramatta and Sydney.
In each case, artists have been involved in collaborative, multi-disciplinary projects encouraging people to engage in social activities, providing interaction within our communities, helping with major challenges such as ageing and loneliness, boosting confidence and making us feel engaged and resilient. Artists have influenced the design of hospital buildings, public realm and interiors of our health centres and hospitals. They have designed seating, sculpture, signage & wayfinding, introduced colour and pattern, composed music, encouraged poetry and storytelling. They have used programming to explore complex ideas through music, gaming, film, and photography.
We have seen first-hand how the arts have a transformative power to explain, popularise and make complex medical and scientific ideas accessible and to create new insight and solutions for research, public engagement, patient, and staff wellbeing. ‘All of our healthcare commissions involved massive collaboration to achieve a vision for healthcare environments to contain rich narratives and authentic content that will engage users for years to come’. – Andy Robinson, Head of Strategy
Here we highlight three recent projects where artists were at the fore of bringing medical communities together during the pandemic to enable them to express, share and create new insight and solutions for research, public engagement, and wellbeing.
