Artists have taken over the St. Vincent Behavioral Health Campus to showcase immersive installations
A hospital is an emotional place where life and death converge, and Los Angeles artists have created artwork to process the complicated feelings provoked, turning the range of human emotion into an immersive pop-up art installation, “Hospital of Emotions” at the St. Vincent Behavioral Health Campus.
70 artists have taken over 80 rooms within the St. Vincent Behavioral Health Campus, transforming them into a “living museum of emotions.” Operating rooms, patient rooms, ER spaces, nurses’ stations and corridors feature artistic installations, covering the walls, ceilings, floors and furniture. The exhibit is located at 2131 West 3rd St in L.A. and opens on Wednesday.
“At Hospital of Emotions, each emotion becomes its own hospital department. From joy and love to fear, anger, hope, sadness, gratitude and resilience,” the organizers said on its website. “Through this transformation, the hospital becomes a surreal and powerful artistic landscape. For a limited time, the hospital itself becomes the artwork.”
The exhibit brings together emerging and established artists working across disciplines, who each were given the opportunity to design a hospital room and transform the space.
Installations and sculptural artwork turn the sterile environment into a multi-colored, multi-textural experience for visitors. Some of these artworks enveloping hospital beds include a forest of floor-to-ceiling cardboard trees, a cocoon of cool-toned gradient streamers, extravagant floral arrangements, a gigantic teddy bear and fake raw eggs.
The exhibit was organized by House of Art and Dreams, a company that organizes pop-up exhibits, ROYVA, a design studio specializing in immersive installations, and the St. Vincent Behavioral Health Campus. The organizers said the project aims to make contemporary art more accessible to the general public.
“By presenting art in an unexpected environment outside of traditional museums and galleries the exhibition invites a wide audience to experience art in a direct, emotional, and approachable way,” they say on their website. “One of the most unique aspects of the project is the building itself. A place that until recently functioned as a hospital – a space of care, vulnerability, and human stories.”
Scroll to continue reading
The location of the exhibit is significant as the St. Vincent Behavioral Health Campus, formerly the St. Vincent Medical Center, was the first hospital in Los Angeles, but shut down after its owners declared bankruptcy in 2020. The newly renamed, renovated campus will focus on providing services for unhoused individuals and those dealing with mental health and substance abuse issues. The campus is set to reopen in June to provide housing and treatment.
“This transformation reflects a broader shift toward accessibility, dignity, and long-term support,” the St. Vincent Behavioral Health Campus said in a statement. “With Hospital of Emotions underscoring the connection between environment, emotion, and lived experience.”