About our arts program
The New South Wales Health and the Arts Framework has been developed to strengthen the role of local health services and arts agencies to better identify and develop projects to improve health outcomes.
The use of arts in health has a number of positive benefits including:
- reductions in medication dependence
- improved patient tolerance of symptoms and treatment
- reduced hospital length of stay and treatment stress.
The use of art also fosters social inclusion, community participation, and intergenerational and cultural exchange. The Arts in Health Program helps facilitate better health and wellbeing for Aboriginal people, culturally and linguistically diverse communities, young people, older people and people with disability.
Art also has positive effects for staff, with improvements in health professionals’ communication skills, reductions in work-related stress, and greater efficiency and workforce retention.
Acute Services Building
The Randwick Campus Redevelopment’s Acute Services Building Arts and Culture Strategy was developed in consultation with staff, students, patients, carers, families, visitors and community members and guided by the 2016 NSW Health and The Arts Framework.
The strategy celebrates ‘Storytelling: Yarns and Tales – a narrative of people and place’ as the theme for arts inspiration. The theme captures ideas of inclusion, community, Aboriginal history, cultural diversity, health and wellness, sustainability and the natural environment.
The architectural concepts and interior design components of the project support this theme by:
- exploring and telling stories of the Aboriginal people of the east coast of Sydney
- celebrating diversity in all its forms by including the whole neighbourhood
- acknowledging the beauty of the area's natural assets and coastline
- honouring the history and significance of the hospital and achievements of its community.
The eucalyptus leaf, a symbol of welcome, healing and cleansing, leads you to the Acute Services Building in a major public artwork.
Large-scale outlines of gum leaves have been etched into the pavement of the building's main entrance.
The artwork was created by artist, historian and Elder, Dr Peter Yanada McKenzie (Eora/Anaiwan) and artist Jonathan Jones (Wiradjuri/ Kamilaroi).
The artwork Gum leaves represents the bush floor, with an array of gum leaves scattered across the forecourt as if they have fallen from above or are left over from an ancestral ceremony.
The artwork uses sandblasted pavers to provide a prominent and embracing welcome to all Aboriginal and non-Aboriginal people and is a true reflection and celebration of continued culture on country.
See more from the artists who created the artwork.
Symbol of welcome celebrated through public artwork at Prince of Wales Hospital
Learn more about the story behind ‘Gum leaves’ – a major public art project featuring prominently in the forecourt of the new Prince of Wales Hospital Acute Services Building at Randwick.
As patients, staff and community move through the Acute Services Building, large-scale artworks can be found in every department and inpatient unit to celebrate the environment and stories of the local area.
UNSW’s Associate Professor Emma Robertson is one of four leading artists commissioned to produce a unique artwork for the hospital’s internal spaces.
Her work is featured within the Level 8 Clinical Neurosciences and Acute Stroke space and reflects the local region’s native flora.
Drawn with acrylic paint, pencils and pens, she created original images of endangered plant species to encourage engagement with ecology and the environment, through a reflection on beauty, loss and memory.
Emma spent two years to research, plan and produce her art. She worked closely with nursing and other hospital staff throughout the design process, defining what would visually calm and help the patients, visitors and staff cope in a sometimes-stressful environment.
"I hope that the patients and their families see the beauty and stillness we can experience in nature reflected in the work on the walls."
- Words from artist Emma Robertson
Buriburi (the humpback whale) is a significant spiritual figure for Aboriginal people from coastal Sydney to the Shoalhaven (Dharawal people).
It was Buriburi’s barangga (large vessel) that the people stole to travel across the sea to Dharawal Country in the Dreaming.
Rock engravings were traditionally carved by senior Aboriginal men on outcrops of sandstone by joining an outline of pecked holes to form a carved line. As they weathered away over time, senior knowledge holders re-grooved the carved lines.
The carving of a Buriburi which features in the hospital’s forecourt was created in 2019 by members of the La Perouse Youth Haven, under the supervision of Elders from the La Perouse Aboriginal community.
The stones will be re-carved over time, creating an opportunity for Elders to continue to pass down knowledge and skills to young Aboriginal men.
The stones used for the carving were part of the building foundations of a nineteenth-century homestead that once stood on the site, known as The Willows. The large sandstone blocks were uncovered by archaeologists during excavations for the Acute Services Building.
Sydney Children’s Hospital Stage 1 and Minderoo Children’s Comprehensive Cancer Centre
The redevelopment’s Arts, Play and Discovery Working Group, has conducted extensive community and stakeholder engagement to ensure a collaborative design of the new hospital’s arts elements. Consultation with children and young people has been included in the program.
The working group is helping to ensure the new building offers a range of unique creative components that engage and inspire all who enter the hospital.
The Arts in Health Program will also support spaces for First Nations culture by providing opportunities for Aboriginal artists and organisations, with projects founded in community engagement and consultation.
The role of artists and creative teams is important to shape this new model of care through arts, play and discovery experiences, from point of physical arrival to the campus, and through patient journeys.
These commissions will help promote cultural safety, empower patient participation and improve first time success of uncomfortable procedures. This will help promote wellbeing for children and their families, carers and hospital staff.
Led by project consultant City People, Arts, Play and Discovery Workshops were held to engage the community and young people in the design of the new hospital’s art elements.
The concept incorporates physical, sensory and emotional elements that impact how children and young people interact, learn and entertain themselves.
A range of sessions were conducted with children, redevelopment team representatives, staff and Aboriginal community members, with hands-on art workshops held with current and former patients. The sessions were documented by the young people, who acted as news reporters.
Several themes emerged from the workshops, highlighting that children are particularly interested in learning about biology, taking inspiration from nature and exploring digital platforms and social connections.
Watch a short video of the children reporting on the workshops.
Behind the scenes of the Arts, Play and Discovery Workshops at Randwick
Led by project consultant City People, Arts, Play and Discovery Workshops were held to engage the community and young people into the design of the hospital’s new art elements.
A series of new creative commissions will integrate arts, play and discovery experiences into the new hospital building, helping to create a welcoming and healing environment for patients and their families.
Creative commissions that will feature in key patient areas of the new building include:
- Interactive virtual windows – a creative and playful interactive virtual experience for acute procedure rooms where patients often undergo more intense and painful procedures, resulting in high anxiety and stress.
- Procedure room soundscapes – a series of soundscapes for use in procedure rooms to help reduce anxiety and stress of both patients and clinicians through sounds that counter the clinical setting and celebrate the natural environment.
- Healing ceilings – visually inspiring and engaging ceiling artwork designs for patient travel paths, operating theatres and treatment/procedure rooms to support patients undergoing extended treatment or prolonged recovery times, often with restricted mobility.