Hospital representatives, local First Nations and members of the public gathered at Victoria General Hospital on Tuesday to celebrate a colourful, eye-catching mural recently painted on the building’s exterior.
Commissioned to help patients and visitors feel safe and welcome, the work covers a long, rectangular slab of slate-grey concrete near the hospital’s main entrance.
“What you see when you drive up to the hospital will influence how you feel and your entire experience,” said VGH’s medical director and chief of staff Chloe Lemire-Elmore, who added the 42-year-old building isn't the prettiest in town.
“This mural is the beginning of a dream come true – a dream about making the hospital a more beautiful place, more warm and welcoming, somewhere that patients and families feel safe and staff feel proud.”
Painted by artist Sarah Jim, who hails from the Tseycum First Nation, the mural boasts bright colours and creative depictions of plants, animals and landscapes, all of which surround the artwork’s key elements.
“The two bears in the centre are what I wanted to focus on for this mural because of the family dynamics that are present … because of all the mothers that are helped here and all the babies that are born here,” said Jim, who added Coast Salish elements and themes are present throughout.
“I really want to have Coast Salish representation in my work because Indigenous people aren’t always present physically, so it’s nice to have big reminders that we’re still here and our art’s still alive.”
The native plants depicted honour the land, added Jim, while the hands on either side of the work “represent the uplifting nature of what happens here and how we want to be treated.” Rainbows twist throughout the painting, which salute the LGBTQ2S+ community, and the land, sea and sky “represent the interconnectedness of all things.”
Jim explained she was approached by the Victoria Arts Council last fall, on behalf of VGH, to paint the work. What followed were two community engagement sessions, where the artist gathered the public’s input about what to incorporate into the mural.
After months of planning, the real work of painting the wall began on July 7 – a process that took only 10 days with the help of a lift platform, dozens of paint brushes and a group of Jim's friends.
“While I was painting, I got a lot of active feedback from people going in and out. It was amazingly positive and ... people lit up rather than begrudgingly went inside to do their business,” she said.
“It just feels good to be able to contribute to a warmer feeling because nobody wants to be here.”
One of the many people who felt the work’s warmth was Dawn Thomas, Island Health’s vice-president of Indigenous health and diversity, equity and inclusion.
“I often, when talking to non-Indigenous colleagues, talk about the backpack that we as First Nations, Metis and Inuit people [have] when we come to these sites,” she said.
“It’s a heavy backpack with colonization, with racism, with our experiences that we’ve had over years – the mistrust, the poor treatment … and just seeing this mural today feels like my backpack’s lighter.”
Ultimately, that’s the reaction Lemire-Elmore was looking for.
“Our hope is that the mural expresses the humanity of this institution, revealing its heart,” she said.
