My alma mater, the University of Alberta, just hosted a fascinating exhibit that melds art, science and medicine together. Entitled “Insight: Visualizing Health Humanities” the exhibition showed multiple manifestations of design & health coming together in vastly different—and highly personal—interpretations.
The 32 submissions in gallery of the Fine Arts Building ranged in format, focus and message: from the poetry of a cancer survivor to a 3D diorama of a seniors-enabled home to a video on Mongolian spiritual rituals to something called the “Phantasmagoric Amphygorium of Dr. Wybury.” Each represented how human needs relate to healthcare and the practice of medicine. In other words: health humanities.
As noted by Dr. Alan Bleakley, a professor of medical education in the UK, “the culture of medicine has little tolerance for ambiguity and uncertainty.” This is a culture is built on precision, analysis and reliability. In other words, the opposite of “medical arts,” which are intuitive, immeasurable and subjective (in my mind, this harks back to Rotman Dean Roger Martin’s “reliability vs. validity” paradigm). Whereas the steady march of medical science in the 20th Century removed doubt to determine answers (Bleakley cites the use and overuse of medical screenings as a day-to-day example) medical arts are making a comeback in the 21st, reveling in their inherently ambiguous nature.
As Insight demonstrates, if we reframe the medical arts as health humanities, then we are left with a truly staggering number of influences to comprehend: “literature, narrative medicine, history of medicine, philosophy and ethics, medical anthropology, medical sociology, environment and health, art, visual culture, health design & communications, drama, music” to list just a few. And as every graduate student learns early on, any particular field breaks down into further levels of exploration. Co-curator and assistant design professor Bonnie Sadler-Takach cites the visual arts, which alone “encompasses health information design, health communications, knowledge translation, information and data visualization informatics, visual research and discourse analysis, visual rhetoric, semiotics, visual representation, visual grammar, visual literacy, visual communication, visual culture, visual identity design, public graphics and more.”
The idea of using art for therapeutic, restorative or palliative purposes is a relatively recent one, going back to the 1930’s & 40’s. Over the last 5 years the U of A has made concentrated efforts to explore, blend and crossbreed these disciplines. This, according to Pamela Brett-Maclean, the director of the university’s Art & Humanities in Health & Medicine Program, makes this exhibit unique: “This is the very first time design has been used to examine the potential of an emerging field (such as health humanities).”
Underscoring this point, Sadler-Takach said the idea was to have not only artists but anyone connected with the U of A (one of three prominent health humanity programs in Canada) submit works that “weren’t just living in the design space, or weren’t just living in the health space.” That’s not to say designers didn’t play a part–more than 60 visual communications design students helped visualize and brand the project. “As a designer, this seemed to be an optimal project to see what health humanities could be and what healthy societies can be.”
With pieces ranging from the plight of homelessness to therapeutic journeys on bicycles to feminist critiques of body imagery, critics might say the exhibit lacks focus but that is precisely the point. The goal was to challenge conventional models around health and wellness so the curators pointedly refused to limit what expressions could be submitted. “We wanted very much not to fit everything into little spaces but rather have the viewer make their own connections,” says Sadler-Takach. “We had a feeling there were people working in different areas who maybe felt isolated or didn’t quite fit in a specific space but they knew it was important and compelling so we thought we could bring some folks together to see how it could add up. Its called an exploratory exhibition to translate knowledge in ways that are innovative, accessible and engaging. The third member of the curatorial team, Aidan Rowe says “This breadth of form of submission and the wide range of exhibitors speak to how far this nascent field has progressed under individual pursuit.”
16 different faculties and units across the university were represented at Insight. Sadly, dentistry was not represented. As the son & brother of dentists, I can kind of see why that is. However if they’re ever going to make a visit to the dentist less scary than the fear of death itself (and make a dent in this morbid urban legend), then participating in this conversation would be a start.
Next year, the organizers plan to stage a similar exhibit but open it up to submissions beyond the U of A. Ultimately, they hope Insight can open the door to a possible undergraduate certificate or even a Master of Arts degree in medical health humanities.
Musings & meanderings on design thinking and other things 