Cross-Sectors Residency: Health Care
Since 2003, Elsewhere, a museum and artist residency in downtown Greensboro, NC, has supported internationally recognized site-specific programs and public engagement. Elsewhere’s bi-annual Cross-Sectors research Residency, realized by Creative Director Emily Ensminger, embeds artists within non-arts industries to build partnerships through project research and proposals, modeling the potential of interdisciplinary collaboration.
2020’s residency, themed around healthcare, aimed to introduce creative ways of bringing art into the service of human care. Residents were partnered with Cone Health’s Innovation Team and Union Square Campus. Placing the artist for two weeks in a state-of-the-art education facility that supports nursing programs for three universities and Greensboro’s regional hospital system. Focus areas, based on Cone Health’s understanding of the health and wellness needs in the Triad, included empathy, well-being, and access to care.
The Artists-in-Residence, who were already working at the intersection of such topics as science, technology, and human care, utilized the resources of the campus and regional hospital system to engage with students, faculty, administrators, and stakeholders of Greensboro’s healthcare community. During their two weeks in Greensboro, residents deepened research into health technologies and training.
After the residency period, residents produced proposals for a site-specific, public art project. Health experts, campus officials, artists, and community organizations were invited to provide feedback and vote on their favorite project(s) for commission.
2020 Artists, Proposals, and Presentations
Justus Harris is the founder of MedSculp. MedSculp specializes in the development and consultation of data visualization, user experience, and patient communication strategies for healthcare institutions.
Through the residency, Justus developed a proposal for a program called Sight of Change, which would train teaching artists already in Greensboro communities how to use science to communicate critical issues.
Adam Eckstrom is half of the artist collaborative Ghost of a Dream. The collaborative’s work embodies the essence of opulence while being constructed of materials that typically end up in the trash.
As part of the residency, Adam developed a proposal for Mobile Oasis Market or M.O.M., which turns a used city bus into a mobile grocery store.
Piero Passacantando (b. 1979 in Rome, Italy) is an interdisciplinary artist. His work combines painting, food, music, photography and participatory workshops focusing on dialogue, conviviality, and empathy. In addition, for the past 8 years, while he has been actively working as an artist, Piero has also delivering training and elbow-to-elbow support for healthcare software, specializing in electronic medical records for inpatient, emergency room, and operating room systems.
Piero created this Pecha Kucha style presentation (video below) about their practice and its connection to the healthcare system presented at the Artivate Summit put on by the Thomas S. Kenan Institute at University of North Carolina Winston-Salem.
Sareh Imani is an Iranian-born artist who lives and works in Brooklyn, New York. Imani received an MFA in Painting from the University of Tehran and an MFA from the Parsons School of Design in New York. Her interdisciplinary work incorporates video installation, sculpture, and performance, through which she explores the reparative potentials of art and science, intimacy and distance, instructions and poetics.
Sareh created a Pecha Kucha style presentation (video below) about their practice and its connection to the healthcare system presented at the Artivate Summit put on by the Thomas S. Kenan Institute at University of North Carolina Winston-Salem.
Related Events
Talk | Feb 01, 2020: Justus Harris + Ghost of a Dream
(CANCELLED DUE TO COVID) Talk | March 21, 2020 : Sareh Imani + Piero Passacantando
Happening | Sept 15, 2020: Proposal reveal + community forum as part of the Artivate Summit
Cross Sectors Presentation by Emily Ensminger, featuring proposals by Adam Eckstrom of Ghost of a Dream and Justus Harris
Pecha Kucha style presentations: Piero Passacantando and Sareh Imani
Cross Sectors residents, Justus Harris and Adam Eckstrom, learning about the high tech medical teaching tools used at Union Square.
Simulation mannequins at Union Square
Supporters
Cross-Sectors: HealthCare is funded in part by:
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