Nancy Siesel
Aren”t these images wonderful?
Now imagine to have a display of large prints of images like these in room hospitals where the patients can feel the soothing calmness of looking at photographs, the pleasure that comes from images that convey the beauty of life. Humans respond to visual clues in ways that affects the intrinsic biochemistry of our brains and so guide our response to the environment and thinking of our place and time. For a patient this means a faster way to recovery, or at least a more hopeful and tranquil transition for what is to come.
© These are images by Nancy Siesel, part of a project entitled ”View in a Room” that received funding from the Brooklyn Arts Council. You can see the rest of the series under “In Search of the Baobab Tree” at her website. The photographs are currently on view at Woodhull Hospital in Brooklyn.
View in a room would be comprised of 10 -12 30×30 landscape photographs that have a dreamy, mystical quality. They would initially be exhibited in public areas of the hospital that are easily accessed by patients, caregivers, visitors, and hospital personnel. The photographs would then be hung on the bare walls of patient’’s rooms in the intensive care unit. According to a nurse in the unit patients often become claustrophobic in this small space cluttered with medical equipment. She felt that landscape photographs could significantly improve the patient’’s state of mind and calm their anxiety.
I have been lucky so far. Few visits to hospitals and for minor things. And yet, I recall vividly the last time I visited, 2 years ago, when I saw beautiful prints hanging on the walls of the waiting room. Arts serves for many things, and perhaps the most genuine purpose is to make people feel better in times when they can””t, to make people be optimistic in times when they think they shouldn”t.
It is time to bring art to all places, not to galleries alone, and doing that at hospitals serves a double purpose, to provide visibility of the work and humanize an environment that may look otherwise sterile and threatening.
If you browse the website of Nancy you will see many more wonderful projects that communicate the level of sensitivity and beauty of a true artist.
The following is a description of Room “View in a Room” by Nancy Siesel.
###########
View in a Room is a project that has evolved through recent experiences in my life. I have spent significant time in hospitals, as a caregiver for my boyfriend who was suffering from brain cancer. I wandered down hallways, and explored various spaces in the hospital and was impacted by the sterility of the surrounding environment. As a photographer, I have been working on a series of landscapes for the past 10 years in South, Central and North America, as well as in three countries in Africa. This exploration of the natural world has had a profound impact on me. I hope to have the opportunity to transmit the healing qualities of nature to others in the form of large-scale photographs in hospital corridors and patient rooms.
When my boyfriend was first diagnosed with a brain tumor he was hospitalized for two surgeries nine months apart at Beth Israel North on East End Ave in Manhattan. The hospital (which has since been converted to luxury condominiums) overlooked Schurz Park, Gracie Mansion and the East River. The view from the window of his room on the eleventh floor was spectacular. The cloud formations of changing skies, the river currents and the tugboats silently moving through the water had a calming effect on him. I believe his rapid recovery from these surgeries can be partially attributed to the way he spent his waking hours gazing out the window.
View in a room would be comprised of 10 -12 30×30 landscape photographs that have a dreamy, mystical quality. They would initially be exhibited in public areas of the hospital that are easily accessed by patients, caregivers, visitors, and hospital personnel. The photographs would then be hung on the bare walls of patient”’’s rooms in the intensive care unit. According to a nurse in the unit patients often become claustrophobic in this small space cluttered with medical equipment. She felt that landscape photographs could significantly improve the patient’’s state of mind and calm their anxiety.
[...] Read more here. [...]