Local artists and poets to enhance patient environment of new unit
25 October 2024
The beauty of Ceredigion and neighbouring landscapes will serve as inspiration for artists and poets selected to enhance the patient environment of Bronglais Hospital’s new cancer treatment unit.
Work began in May on the £3million development to remodel and repurpose the current facility to deliver a modern and welcoming healthcare environment following huge local support and fundraising for the Bronglais Chemo Appeal.
Alongside the planning for bricks and mortar, a Public Art Group with staff and patient representatives has worked together to co-create an artistic vision for the unit:
“Drawing on our beautiful environment to help us to nurture our patients by choosing colours, shapes and imagery that reflects the tranquillity and dependability of nature.”
Rachel Bran, Senior Nurse in Cancer Services at Bronglais Hospital, said: “It cannot be overstated how important a role art plays in creating an environment that promotes healing and calm.
“We are incredibly lucky to have so many incredible, local talents involved in creating a beautiful environment to help us to nurture patients and provide a sense of security, privacy, dignity, comfort and calm.”
The BGH Cancer Treatment Unit Public Art Group is pleased to confirm Catrin Jones as the lead artist for this project.
Born in Ceredigion, Catrin is a Welsh architectural glass artist with over 30 years of experience in creating artwork for healthcare settings.
Catrin is working on a series of five large scale landscape murals, which will give the impression of distance and serenity for the reception, waiting areas and treatment room, drawing on the route of the river Leri.
The colour scheme is inspired by mood boards made by staff members and the landscape itself. Muted blues, greens and neutral spring-like shades associated with nature, will be used to promote a healing environment, and generate soothing feelings via a sense of space, light, and calm.
Catrin said: “It is wonderful to be a part of this important project that will improve the patient experience for people with cancer for many years to come.
“I have created imagined landscapes along the route of the Leri, which give the impression of land and sea. They evoke places where the river swirls around and runs over rocks into reeds, and transitions to the sea. It also references the ecologically unique peat bog landscapes, and the estuary where the river joins the sea.
“The ancient woods of beech and oak are also represented, a symbol of strength, resilience, and endurance, and is also known as the wishing tree, used as a good luck charm.”
Alongside Catrin, additional local artists and poets have also been selected to create work to create a patient environment that feels calming, safe, homely and reassuring.
Over the summer, Aberystwyth artist and printmaker Marian Haf worked with patients, staff and those with a connection to the unit to create a series of artworks for display.
Together using seaweed, nature and found objects from the beach, the grounds of Bronglais Hospital and the shores of the Leri river to make sun prints called cyanotype.
Eurig Salisbury, poet, Aberystwyth Town Poet 2023–5 and Lecturer in Creative Writing at the Department of Welsh and Celtic Studies at Aberystwyth University, is creating two poems, one in Welsh and one in English, to be applied to the walls of the unit.
The poems will subtly augment the care provided in the facility by compelling readers to contemplate it as a place of compassion, of support, and ultimately of defiance.
Marian will also add a series of embossed words from Eurig’s poetry in copper for that extra bit of something special.
Aberystwyth Art School Graduate, Molly Brown will be creating a series of bespoke framed Linocut prints for the outpatient waiting area, depicting domestic garden scenes to invoke a sense of homeliness and familiar leisure.
And current Aberystwyth Art School Students and staff will be creating a series of nature inspired drawings for display across the consultation and staff rooms throughout the unit.
The new unit at Bronglais Hospital would not have been possible without the fundraising efforts of local and neighbouring communities. This survey is your opportunity to share your thoughts on how informed you feel about the project so far, as we progress to the next stage www.haveyoursay.hduhb.wales.nhs.uk/bronglais-cancer-day-unit-project