Offering talking points beyond the medical setting
The Waterford Healing Arts exhibition programme at University Hospital Waterford (UHW) is a means of engaging the hospital community of staff, patients and visitors in contemporary art and arts practices, while also being an opportunity for artists to showcase their work within an atypical exhibition space. The exhibition programme aims to bring some wonder and magic to the hospital, to soften the clinical environment and humanise the space. Exhibitions are chosen for their aesthetic quality and for their positive impact within a hospital setting.
The audiences for such exhibitions far exceed what any gallery or arts centre could hope to attract and the exhibitions offer talking points beyond the medical context.
Exhibitions typically run for eight weeks, with scope to engage the hospital community in collaborative/ participatory arts experiences in tandem with the exhibition.
Open Call 2023-2025
Waterford Healing Arts is currently inviting artists of all art forms and disciplines to submit proposals for our exhibition programme 2023–2025 at UHW. Find out more here.
Current exhibition:
Find the Butterfly, Find the Bee, by artist John Conway, is a colourful collection of snippets of conversations with healthcare staff from Children’s Health Ireland (Temple Street, Crumlin and Tallaght Children’s Hospitals), which offers a rare insight to life in the paediatric lane. While presented in a playful way, each statement intrigues, prompting the viewer to want to delve a little deeper to discover the story underneath. Indeed, Find the Butterfly, Find the Bee was originally part of a project by John Conway with healthcare staff entitled Our Stories.
2023:
I brought the dream of flying…, a new exhibition by artists Corina Duyn and Caroline Schofield takes place at GOMA Gallery of Modern Art, Waterford from 14 January to 11 February 2023. I brought the dream of flying…is presented by Waterford Healing Arts Trust and GOMA, with funding from Creative Waterford and is inspired by a broken-winged bird puppet which accompanied Corina when she moved to full-time nursing home care in 2021. The exhibition features work made in response to this move and illustrates the new collaborative creative process Corina has developed with Caroline as a result of her increasing disability.
Staff Art Wall
The Staff Art Wall is a series of bi-monthly exhibitions by staff members based at UHW. This programme celebrates the creativity of hospital staff by providing an opportunity to display their work. Our current Staff Art Wall exhibition is Coast, a series of photographs by Tom Quilty. Tom is the Art Installer with Waterford Healing Arts, based at University Hospital Waterford. Tom’s exhibition continues until 27 March 2023 and will be followed by an exhibition of paintings by Valdrin Fazliu.
Find out more:
UHW staff members interested in exhibiting their work on the Staff Art Wall should contact Waterford Healing Arts at WHA@hse.ie / 051 842664.