Artists in the west will have an opportunity to have their contribution to the new Footscray Hospital.
The Plenary Health consortium, which is delivering the new Footscray hospital, is partnering with Footscray Community Arts to curate a range of integrated public artworks.
Footscray Community Arts producer Lucy Buxton said artists are required to apply for the new Footscray Hospital public art commission if they would like to be involved in the project.
“We have different opportunities for the art pieces, so there are different selection processes,” she said.
“For some of the art opportunities, it is open to the public and then for some of the other art projects we have specific criteria which we will select based on who we feel will be the best fit.”
Lucy said the ‘Journey to Footscray’ installation is set to be precast concrete placed in different locations around the hospital, this will be open to the public for anyone to apply.
The second piece will be artwork displayed in the new footbridge that will be used to connect Victoria University with the hospital.
Lucy said the team at the arts centre along with Plenary Health, have been working hard to figure out which types of art would be best suited for the hospital environment.
“We decided it will all be integrated into the existing infrastructure to try to make the atmosphere very calm and healing for the patients,” she said.
Plenary Health chairperson Kelvyn Lavelle said the artworks need to tell the story of the patients and people visiting the hospital.
“Art is so important here because it can impact the way people can feel safe and comfortable, which is the overall mission,” he said.
“It needs to visually communicate and reflect back to back to local people.”
Jennifer Pittorino
