Covid is the great leveller, joining up people and communities across the globe, raising awareness of the fragility of our mental and physical health. But there has also been appreciation of the power of art and the role of artists in encouraging a positive future and expressing our complex and sometimes battling emotions. Over the past 15 years, Futurecity has pushed for the arts to be included at as early a stage as possible on major health projects in London, Cambridge, Parramatta and Sydney.
In each case, artists have been involved in collaborative, multi-disciplinary projects encouraging people to engage in social activities, providing interaction within our communities, helping with major challenges such as ageing and loneliness, boosting confidence and making us feel engaged and resilient. Artists have influenced the design of hospital buildings, public realm and interiors of our health centres and hospitals. They have designed seating, sculpture, signage & wayfinding, introduced colour and pattern, composed music, encouraged poetry and storytelling. They have used programming to explore complex ideas through music, gaming, film, and photography.
We have seen first-hand how the arts have a transformative power to explain, popularise and make complex medical and scientific ideas accessible and to create new insight and solutions for research, public engagement, patient, and staff wellbeing. ‘All of our healthcare commissions involved massive collaboration to achieve a vision for healthcare environments to contain rich narratives and authentic content that will engage users for years to come’. – Andy Robinson, Head of Strategy
Here we highlight three recent projects where artists were at the fore of bringing medical communities together during the pandemic to enable them to express, share and create new insight and solutions for research, public engagement, and wellbeing.
Image by David Blandy
Lost Eons – 2021
Public Art Commission: Game playing across the campus 3000 years in the future
Artist: David Blandy
Client: Cambridge Biomedical Campus
Lost Eons is an interactive game developed by artist David Blandy and the Cambridge Biomedical Campus community. David Blandy’s residency took place online, working with CBC employees and students who participated in drawing, writing and active play workshops to create a future world. They generated self-portraits projected into a far-distant time, where humans have adapted and merged with the area’s flora and fauna. These new characters then developed new myths, with maps, legendary figures and illustrations. The project forms a future archaeology of Cambridge Biomedical Campus.
See More Here
Image from Cambridge Biomedical Campus
Making Visible – 2021
Public Art Commission: Connecting researchers through virtual poetry
Artist: Hannah Jane Walker
Client: Cambridge Biomedical Campus
Making Visible enabled participants to connect with colleagues from different research organisation on Campus and creatively reflect on the joys, pressures, and surprises of working within this challenging sector. Hannah Jane Walker’s virtual residency at CBC invited biomedical research employees to take part in writing workshops to explore their own work and personal motivations. Their creative writing was then translated into text-based artworks for public exhibition across the campus, to enable wider campus users to gain a small insight into the life of a researcher.
For Lost Eons and Making Visible, Futurecity led the project curation process to enable the CBC Public Art Steering Group of campus stakeholders to take the commissions through to completion. For a fuller overview of our arts and health work around the world, read Futurecity’s Head of Strategy Andy Robinson’s blog post on our approach to collaborative partnerships between artists, medical staff, patients and their communities.
Westmead Masterplan September – 2017 to ongoing
Cultural Masterplanning: informing a visionary masterplan for the Westmead Innovation District
Client: Westmead Alliance
The Westmead Innovation District is working to drive investment and jobs growth in Western Sydney through the transformation of Westmead into a globally competitive Innovation District by 2036. Futurecity was part of a consortium of local and international talent (with Cox Architecture at the helm) working with the Westmead Alliance (which includes City of Parramatta Council) to develop ideas for the next phase of development of a visionary master plan for the Westmead Innovation Precinct.
The team combined local knowledge, with innovative international experience, bringing lessons learned from other health and education precincts around the world. We conducted detailed research into existing government health wellbeing and cultural policies, audited the history and heritage of the area and contributed ideas on the challenges and opportunities involved. This insight fed into a two-day design charette, bringing a cultural lens to the development of design principles for the Westmead masterplan. One key challenge was the opportunity for Westmead to transcend the “buildings in a landscape” concept by creating a people-centric environment with a pervasive sense of purpose, identity, and community.
The Consortium included: Cox Architecture, WSP, CallisonRTKL, Urban Apostles, Futurecity, Six Ideas, Tyrell Studio, Oliver Klein Planning, Atelier10, HAA, Deloitte, KJA
For more information, see project updates from Cox Architects and WSP
Image by Cox Architects
Catch up on our Culture to the Rescue series.
Read Futurecity’s Head of Strategy Andy Robinson’s blog post on our approach to collaborative partnerships between artists, medical staff, patients and their communities.
Read about our experience across Health & Science sectors.
Culture to the Rescue in 2021 - Part IV: The Art of Wellbeing
21/12/2021
Covid is the great leveller, joining up people and communities across the globe, raising awareness of the fragility of our mental and physical health. But there has also been appreciation of the power of art and the role of artists in encouraging a positive future and expressing our complex and sometimes battling emotions. Over the past 15 years, Futurecity has pushed for the arts to be included at as early a stage as possible on major health projects in London, Cambridge, Parramatta and Sydney.
In each case, artists have been involved in collaborative, multi-disciplinary projects encouraging people to engage in social activities, providing interaction within our communities, helping with major challenges such as ageing and loneliness, boosting confidence and making us feel engaged and resilient. Artists have influenced the design of hospital buildings, public realm and interiors of our health centres and hospitals. They have designed seating, sculpture, signage & wayfinding, introduced colour and pattern, composed music, encouraged poetry and storytelling. They have used programming to explore complex ideas through music, gaming, film, and photography.
We have seen first-hand how the arts have a transformative power to explain, popularise and make complex medical and scientific ideas accessible and to create new insight and solutions for research, public engagement, patient, and staff wellbeing. ‘All of our healthcare commissions involved massive collaboration to achieve a vision for healthcare environments to contain rich narratives and authentic content that will engage users for years to come’. – Andy Robinson, Head of Strategy
Here we highlight three recent projects where artists were at the fore of bringing medical communities together during the pandemic to enable them to express, share and create new insight and solutions for research, public engagement, and wellbeing.
Image by David Blandy
Lost Eons – 2021
Public Art Commission: Game playing across the campus 3000 years in the future
Artist: David Blandy
Client: Cambridge Biomedical Campus
Lost Eons is an interactive game developed by artist David Blandy and the Cambridge Biomedical Campus community. David Blandy’s residency took place online, working with CBC employees and students who participated in drawing, writing and active play workshops to create a future world. They generated self-portraits projected into a far-distant time, where humans have adapted and merged with the area’s flora and fauna. These new characters then developed new myths, with maps, legendary figures and illustrations. The project forms a future archaeology of Cambridge Biomedical Campus.
See More Here
Image from Cambridge Biomedical Campus
Making Visible – 2021
Public Art Commission: Connecting researchers through virtual poetry
Artist: Hannah Jane Walker
Client: Cambridge Biomedical Campus
Making Visible enabled participants to connect with colleagues from different research organisation on Campus and creatively reflect on the joys, pressures, and surprises of working within this challenging sector. Hannah Jane Walker’s virtual residency at CBC invited biomedical research employees to take part in writing workshops to explore their own work and personal motivations. Their creative writing was then translated into text-based artworks for public exhibition across the campus, to enable wider campus users to gain a small insight into the life of a researcher.
For Lost Eons and Making Visible, Futurecity led the project curation process to enable the CBC Public Art Steering Group of campus stakeholders to take the commissions through to completion. For a fuller overview of our arts and health work around the world, read Futurecity’s Head of Strategy Andy Robinson’s blog post on our approach to collaborative partnerships between artists, medical staff, patients and their communities.
Westmead Masterplan September – 2017 to ongoing
Cultural Masterplanning: informing a visionary masterplan for the Westmead Innovation District
Client: Westmead Alliance
The Westmead Innovation District is working to drive investment and jobs growth in Western Sydney through the transformation of Westmead into a globally competitive Innovation District by 2036. Futurecity was part of a consortium of local and international talent (with Cox Architecture at the helm) working with the Westmead Alliance (which includes City of Parramatta Council) to develop ideas for the next phase of development of a visionary master plan for the Westmead Innovation Precinct.
The team combined local knowledge, with innovative international experience, bringing lessons learned from other health and education precincts around the world. We conducted detailed research into existing government health wellbeing and cultural policies, audited the history and heritage of the area and contributed ideas on the challenges and opportunities involved. This insight fed into a two-day design charette, bringing a cultural lens to the development of design principles for the Westmead masterplan. One key challenge was the opportunity for Westmead to transcend the “buildings in a landscape” concept by creating a people-centric environment with a pervasive sense of purpose, identity, and community.
The Consortium included: Cox Architecture, WSP, CallisonRTKL, Urban Apostles, Futurecity, Six Ideas, Tyrell Studio, Oliver Klein Planning, Atelier10, HAA, Deloitte, KJA
For more information, see project updates from Cox Architects and WSP
Image by Cox Architects
Catch up on our Culture to the Rescue series.
Read Futurecity’s Head of Strategy Andy Robinson’s blog post on our approach to collaborative partnerships between artists, medical staff, patients and their communities.
Read about our experience across Health & Science sectors.