Registration Link: For HKU members / For non-HKU members
MH Conversations and Connections Series – Lunchtime Seminar
Title: Caring aesthetics: A visual history of art in hospitals
Date: 9 January, 2024 (Tuesday)
Time: 12:30 – 1:45 pm HKT
Venue: Rm 608, 6/F, William M W Mong Block, 21 Sassoon Road
Mode: In-person
Registration Link: For HKU members / For non-HKU members
Abstract:
Visual art in hospital settings looks at the role of overlapping physical, social, and symbolic environments in producing a caring milieu. This trend in hospital environment design brings aesthetic value and practices into hospitals as a natural act of care. This talk looks at artworks in Western hospitals throughout history and reflects on the theoretical framework of hospital visuality, showing how the aesthetics of care and compassion helped shape modern-day hospital spaces.
Speaker:
Dr Eric Feng
Artist / Project Officer, Education University of Hong Kong
Eric Feng is an artist and project officer at the International Research Centre for Cultural Studies at the Education University of Hong Kong (EdUHK). Before joining EdUHK, he was an Associate Professor of Art at the Dept. of Painting, Academy of Arts & Design, Tsinghua University in Beijing. In 2015, he was awarded the “East Asia Fellowship” by ARIAH (The Association of Research Institutes in Art History). During the COVID-Pandemic, he founded the GONGYUAN Project, an urban farming project on top of a building located at the heart of urban Beijing, aiming to heal the mind and body of people in the post-pandemic era and to connect the community with art and humble labor practice. He was commissioned as the artistic consultant at the Hong Kong Chinese Medicine Hospital, working on several public art projects for this upcoming hospital.
Discussant:
Dr Alex K. Gearin
Assistant Professor, Medical Ethics and Humanities Unit, HKUMed
Dr Alex K. Gearin, Ph.D., is a medical anthropologist researching psychedelic substance practices across the globe. He has published on the intercultural ethics of medical tourism, spirituality and individualism among psychedelic healing groups, and metaphor and therapeutic literacies in psychedelic medicine. His forthcoming book Global Ayahuasca: Wondrous Visions and Modern Worlds (Stanford University Press, 2024) explores the psychoactive plant brew “ayahuasca” in Peru, Australia, and China. His work is featured in Current Anthropology, Social Science & Medicine, Frontiers in Pharmacology, The Journal of the Royal Anthropological Institute, and other outlets.
Welcome to join us!
Enquiry: Please contact Mr Edison Cheng (mehu@hku.hk).