Seminar: What does art do at hospitals?

Art is being created for Danish hospitals like never before. The state and regional authorities in Denmark are currently building and renovating hospitals to a total value of approximately DKK 42 billion/EUR 5.6 billion. This means that six new so-called ‘super hospitals’ and a wealth of freshly renovated wards and departments in existing hospitals are in need of being turned into welcoming, safe and home-like spaces, and art is expected to contribute greatly to this process. But what difference can art truly make in hospitals? Should it distract and divert? Can it actually promote healing? Is it allowed to challenge and provoke? How closely may it engage with patients; how subtle should it be? And what margin of freedom is available to art as it strives to accommodate all these expectations and operate within a hospital setting?

With the seminar “What does art do at hospitals?” KØS Museum of Art in Public Spaces focuses on the many important questions raised in the discussion concerning art and hospitals. The seminar will also present and discuss a number of trailblazing and original Danish and international examples of how art has been integrated at hospitals.

The seminar is arranged in conjunction with the research-based exhibition project What does art do at hospitals? at KØS; an exhibition that demonstrates the scope and diversity of contemporary art in hospitals and focuses on the encounter between art and patients, staff and relatives in hospital settings. The exhibition shows twenty-four Danish and international art projects in hospitals, reflecting the tremendous range and originality evident in the many new site-specific and architecturally integrated art projects being realised at present.

The exhibition and seminar will also present the results of the sociological study conducted by KØS, in which 600 Danish hospital users and staff have been asked about their perception of five selected art projects at hospitals throughout Denmark.

Target group

The seminar is targeted at all audiences interested in site-specific art and art integrated in architecture, as well as professionals within the arts/humanities, medical science and the healthcare sector. It is also relevant to all practitioners who work with art integrated in architecture, including employees within state and municipal organisations who wish to explore the potentials of public art.

Programme

Registration and coffee

Welcome: Ulrikke Neergaard, director of KØS Museum of Art in Public Spaces

MODULE 1: KØS RESEARCH CONCERNING ART IN HOSPITALS
KØS presents results and insights from the museum’s current research and exhibition project What does art do at hospitals?

Lene Bøgh Rønberg, PhD, head of collections and research at KØS Museum of Art in Public Spaces; curator and head of research for the exhibition What does art do at hospitals?

Anette Stenslund, PhD, sociologist, associate professor at the Department of Sociology at the University of Copenhagen; head of the sociological research project conducted at KØS Museum of Art in Public Spaces

Film screening: Film produced for the exhibition at KØS in connection with the sociological research project. Patients, staff and relatives speak about their art experiences at five Danish hospitals. Producer: Træ Film.

Questions

Lunch

MODULE 2: INTERNATIONAL PERSPECTIVES
International specialists within the field share their thoughts and deliberations on working with art in hospitals

Svein Bjørkås, director of KORO / Public Art Norway

Iva Fattorini , MD, MSc, founder of Cleveland Arts and Medicine Institute, now director of the organisation Artocene, which works globally on integrating the healing potential of art into the hospital world

Catsou Roberts, art critic and curator, director of the art organisation Vital Arts under Barts Health NHS Trust, which commissions site-specific works for hospitals in London

Questions and discussion

Coffee

MODULE 3: DISCUSSION
Curatorial, artistic, medical and organisational aspects of art’s role in hospitals

Henrik Eriksen, medical doctor and project director at The New Rigshospital

Toke Lykkeberg, curator, art critic and art consultant for New OUH (the New University Hospital in Odense) and SDU New SUND (The New Faculty of Health Sciences, University of Southern Denmark)

Ane Mette Ruge, Danish artist, member of the Danish Arts Foundation’s Committee for Visual Arts Project Funding (2016–2019)

Lotte Boesen Toftgaard, co-founder of the consultancy and curatorial company Umage, which specialises in art in public spaces and Elsebeth Jørgensen, Danish artist

Yvonne Dröge Wendel and Lino Hellings, Dutch artist duo

Questions and discussion

Reception, wine and snacks

Registration fee: DKK 350 (USD 63.60)

Note that confirmation is only registered after payment.

Arranged by: KØS Museum of Art in Public Spaces, Nørregade 29, 4600 Køge, DK

Subject to change.

www.koes.dk/en

Photo: Ane Mette Ruge (DK), Caryatids, Sygehus Sønderjylland in Aabenraa, main entrance, 2015

Photographer: Dorte Krogh