Bringing art into hospitals is called hospital art. For me, hoping to support people through painting, it is an encouraging field.
What is hospital art?
Hospital art uses art to make hospital spaces more comfortable plus calming. One view holds that it refers not only to the works on display, but to the process in which medical staff, patients, artists plus local people shape a new kind of hospital through dialogue.
In Japan it began to spread in the 1990s, mainly in children's medical facilities. In recent years it has also reached psychiatric hospitals plus regional core hospitals. Examples include a Kyoto University of the Arts project that created art for the waiting rooms plus X-ray rooms of the University Hospital, Kyoto Prefectural University of Medicine, and Mimihara General Hospital in Sakai, Osaka, which introduced art in earnest when it opened a new ward.
The World Health Organization report
In 2019, the WHO Regional Office for Europe published a report stating that the arts can affect mental plus physical health. It brings together about 900 studies, and is known as a document in which a public body squarely recognized the link between art and health.
In the UK, a study has also found that music therapy eased agitation in people with dementia, allowing their medication to be reduced.
Working just by hanging on the wall
What makes hospital art interesting is the idea that it works simply by being there, without anyone going to look at it. While waiting for an appointment, a painting that happens to catch the eye eases the tension in the room.
I think the same is true of a painting at home. You do not need to look at it carefully every day. On a hard day, when it happens to enter your view, breathing becomes a little easier. That is the kind of work a painting does.
Mermaid nao's order art, too, aims to be a piece that supports your days from where it hangs in your home.
[References]
Sustainability Hub (Japanese): A new kind of hospital: what is hospital art? / A roundup of hospital art examples
Beyond Health (Japanese): Connecting inside plus outside the hospital through art
WHO Regional Office for Europe: 2019 report on the arts plus health
Related articles
- A Piece to Keep Close Through Days of Repeated Decisions ― The Spirit of Cherishing Things, Passed Down in Yonezawa
- One Painting, in an Executive's Room. What Choosing It Conveys
- The Meaning of Displaying Abstract Art. Not a 'Painting You Can't Understand,' but a 'Painting with Room to Breathe'
- BUSINESS ART ― order art for your business
