John Radcliffe Hospital, commission.
John Radcliffe Hospital Bereavement Ward Commission.
Ella was honoured to win this Artist's Commission back in January of 2023 for the Butterfly Suite in The Women’s Centre at the Hospital. The Butterfly Suite is for families who have suffered a bereavement as well as mothers whose babies are premature and in Special Care and may suffer a loss.
It is here, in the rooms and corridors surrounding this roof garden that Staff support parents in their loss and help them create memories of their baby. The brief was to create a programme of artwork for the Butterfly Suite to uplift the spaces, for staff and patients, to add colour and to unify the areas from the inside out, and vice versa.
After Ella’s site visit, she knew that she wanted to wrap the floor-to-ceiling windows with an oversized, colourful garden of flowers, and evoke a feeling of protection from the overhanging leaves from above as one would walk down the corridors that surround the roof garden. She chose willow tree leaves, as a tree symbolic of humans' capability to withstand hardship and loss. New trees can be rooted from cuttings with ease, and it's also seen as a survivor and a symbol of rebirth. She photographed the leaves under the heat of the summer sunshine for this project.
She brought Lara Sparey Designs onto the project to collaborate with her as a fellow designer, a multi-talented one at that, and a bereaved parent herself. 🤍🙏🏽🕊
Lara's design practice focuses on metal artworks for public realm projects.
The staff were clear they wanted butterflies, so they interpreted them both for the vinyl on the windows and on the wall mural that Lara designed. Echoing the garden of flowers, she focused on the fern leaves, with the butterflies rising from the foliage and the birds that carry your eye northwards. The colour combinations had to work across the wall and the windows and not be too overpowering, alongside a limited palette to fit with the budget.
It is a humbling process for a designer working in this realm, designing spaces that need to support people's healing, going through difficult emotions alongside both physical and mental pain. The instal day was an emotional one, as loss touches all at some point in our lives, but everyone, fabricators, staff, the Gardner, and Mark all got fully involved, which made it an unforgettable event.
