Penn State Health is seeking applications and samples from a variety of artists who work in various media to be considered for future commissions or purchase of artwork. The artwork will be installed permanently in the Penn State Health Lancaster Medical Center and attached medical office building in East Hempfield Township, Lancaster County, when both open in fall 2022.
The complete call for artists, including submission guidelines and link, can be found here. This call is in partnership with Center Stage Arts in Health, the arts program at Penn State Health Milton S. Hershey Medical Center and Penn State College of Medicine, and Aesthetics, Inc., design consultants. Submit questions to Pam Nickell at nickell@aesthetics.net. Submissions are due Friday, July 16.
Lancaster Medical Center will enhance an already vibrant network of Penn State Health primary and specialty care providers across Lancaster County, including practice sites of the former Physicians’ Alliance, Ltd., that joined Penn State Health in 2017 and Penn State Health Lime Spring Outpatient Center that opened in East Hempfield Township in January 2019. Expanding this footprint will help ensure residents of these communities have access, quality and choice of care as close to home as possible.
“The physical design of the Lancaster Medical Center is crucial to the patient experience, and the art, in its many forms, is an integral element in our plans to create an unmatched healing environment for all of our patients,” said Joseph Frank, interim regional president at Berks and Lancaster, Penn State Health. “This facility will be a place of healing and hope, and we are excited to engage the local arts community in the commissioning of works that reflect the core of our healing mission.”
The art at Lancaster Medical Center will engage patients, family members and staff of all ages and backgrounds. Proposals for artwork should tell the stories of Lancaster, Lebanon and York counties and their legacies, histories and contributions. Artwork that is representative and inclusive of the diversity of the region is encouraged. Artists are invited to submit both representational and abstract interpretations of the themes, in all media.
“Our goal for this art collection is to support the health care mission of the hospital as place of healing and hope while also creating a welcoming and inclusive environment reflective of the diversity of people and community that Lancaster Medical Center serves,” said Claire de Boer, director of the Doctors Kienle Center for Humanistic Medicine and Center Stage Arts in Health. “We want the art highlighted in our facilities to be co-created by the community, so that the art is restorative, accessible, timeless, celebratory, multi-sensory and multi-dimensional providing beauty, hope, comfort and joy.”