by the Hospital Senses Collective
The hospital corridor acts in myriad ways. Its artwork offers staff and patients an emotional, aesthetic experience, and a practical set of signposts in the form of ‘wayfinding’ a route around what is often a busy, confusing building.
Artwork quickly becomes part of the fabric of the building, as well as a way of enabling physical movement around a space. Our interaction with artworks in corridors is an example of what Ross Harley calls ‘mobilized vision’; it can be understood as a multi-sensory experience, in which the body plays a role in a kind of ‘panoramic perception’.[1] Through this process, artwork may disappear as much as it is noticed, becoming transparent to regular visitors and staff.
Many hospitals have specific policies about what is allowed in their corridors: nothing too visceral; nothing that could lead to the imprinting of difficult experiences; nothing that could absorb bacteria. These conditions are specific to a healthcare setting. They dictate both the form and the function of the artwork selected, with hard surfaces, 2D work, and, traditionally, gentle imagery preferred. Artworks depicting ‘natural’ environments, typically just in visual terms, have long been a focus of efforts to ‘humanise’ hospital spaces. They provide a perceived counter-balance to high- technology environments.
Many working in the field of arts and health have recently sought to be more experimental with hospital arts, and to challenge some traditional aesthetic choices. Corridors offer a specific type of opportunity to do this. As places of movement and transience, they provide a playground for artists to experiment with interactive and multi-sensory works. Southmead Hospital in Bristol has installed a tactile wooden artwork that allows people to engage with the arts in a new way by brushing lightly with their fingers as they pass by. Co-designed with patients, staff and visitors, including the community group Bristol Braillists, it actively opens up corridor wall art to those who are often excluded from accessing the visual landscape of the corridor.
Sometimes the artwork extends to the ceiling and offers a different perspective. At Middlesbrough’s James Cook University Hospital, light boxes have been installed on the walls and ceiling of the corridor leading to the mortuary to guide and support those who are grieving, and the staff supporting them: literally lighting them on their way.[2] Corridor artwork is not simply a passive decorative form. It also raises questions about how people engage differently with similar artworks while in motion. How does the experience of passing by an artwork differ when being wheeled on a hospital bed versus walking? What about installations that are designed to be engaged with while lying down or passing through? How does it feel to pass corridor artwork at speed, or use it for wayfinding? How does this compare with immersing yourself in the experience slowly, while waiting?
References
- J. Duggan, ‘Impossible Gaze: The Contemporary Experience of Historic Museums’ https://acisnet. files.wordpress.com/2014/12/ duggan-impossible-gaze.pdf [accessed 4 February 2021]
- ‘Light Boxes Help Grieving Families’, https://www.southtees.nhs. uk/news/fundraising/light-boxes- help-grieving-families/ [accessed 4 February 2021]