OFFICIAL FROM:
Ryan Park, Minister for Health, Minister for Regional Health
As the new $723.3 million Tweed Valley Hospital marks 4 months since it officially opened, a new documentary has been released celebrating the community’s contribution to creating the hospital’s centrepiece art sculpture.
The mini documentary follows celebrated local artist Hiromi Tango who collaborated with hundreds of patients, staff and community to create the specially commissioned sculpture, GARDEN | Healing Together, which is suspended from the ceiling of the main hospital foyer.
The documentary captures the contributions of community members throughout the development of the hospital’s central art piece, inspired by the local landscape.
Featuring a colour palette of blues and greens to represent the local hinterland and the ocean, GARDEN explores the healing properties of plants, including the medicinal and nutritional properties.
Hundreds of hands brought the artwork to life using small pieces of fabric to create ‘seedlings’ in the shape of Lilli Pilli berries, a process guided by Hiromi.
The artwork forms part of the hospital’s Arts in Health program, which includes more than 90 artworks, created by 30 local artists across 17 clinical wards.
The Tweed Valley Hospital opened to patients in May this year and has managed over 15,000 presentations to the Emergency Department.
The new hospital features:
- an expanded Emergency Department
- expanded outpatient services with more clinics
- 12 operating theatres, an increase of five from the previous Tweed Hospital
- new interventional cardiology service
- new radiotherapy service as part of integrated cancer care, including a PET-CT suite.
The GARDEN | Healing Together documentary and complete collection of the artworks can be viewed in a virtual “Arts Trail.”