The Hospital as Art: “Field Hospital X” Exposes Social Ills
The University of Haifa’s School of the Arts will have a unique presence at the 58th International Art Exhibition - La Biennale di Venezia, also known as the Art Olympics. Prof. Aya Ben Ron’s project “Field Hospital X”, chosen as Israel’s art pavilion, is a powerful and bold multisensory hospital that communicates personal stories of social ills and injustices.
Field Hospital X (FHX) is a new project that challenges the way in which art can act and react in the face of social ills in society. “Learning from the structure and practice of hospitals, health maintenance organizations and healing resorts, FHX provides a space in which silenced voices can be heard and social injustices can be seen,” explains Prof. Ben Ron.
Like in a hospital, FHX’s visitors take a number and wait in a reception area. “Our goal is for all our visitors to receive equal treatment,” explains Ben Ron, “this is why no private or ‘skip the line’ visits are available.” While waiting, visitors watch the FHX TV Program - a video that provides information about the hospital’s ideology, its Care-Areas and Care-Kits. In it, FHX presenter Victoria Hanna repeats some of the hospital mottos: “Take care; be patient; be a patient; care needs time.”
At the reception desk, each visitor receives a hospital ‘Risk-Wristband’ that determines which of the four Care-Kits they will watch in the ‘Care-Chair Area’ before being discharged. Each Care-Kit contains a video by an invited artist, telling a personal story and revealing a social injustice. Currently, the 'Care Kit' videos are a collection of four personal stories of social injustices experienced and recounted by invited artists. In between, they visit the hospital’s ‘Safe-Unit Area’, where they can learn how to produce a ‘Self-Contained Shout’.
Among the project’s most enthusiastic supporters is Tzili Charney, Vice-Chair of the University’s Board of Governors, art patron and Jewish philanthropist, under the auspices of the Leon Charney Resolution Center.
Field Hospital X was created by Ben Ron with curator Avi Lubin and producer Miki Gov. Following its launch at the Venice Biennale, it will travel to other venues around the world and produce additional Care-Kits with new participating local and international artists.
Aya Ben Ron is an award-winning artist and art professor at the University of Haifa and Hadassah Academic College.
Her works range from site specific projects and installations to moving-image, documentary, and film, and includes collaborations with medical institutions and hospitals.
Photo: Noa Yafe
Photos from the Official Opening, May 11, 2019
