FREE EVENT
Level 2, Building 100
RMIT University
Entry to Design Hub Gallery via the Victoria Street forecourt.
TIMES
Tuesday to Friday: 11am – 5pm
Saturday: 12.30pm – 5pm
Sunday: Closed
Monday: Closed
VENUE: RMIT Design Hub Gallery
The nurses and midwives’ art exchange is an exhibition of creative responses and stories from nurses and midwives who have worked through the pandemic, accompanied by works created by local artists in response to their work.
This project acknowledges that frontline workers during the COVID-19 pandemic, and nurses and midwives, in particular, have experienced increased workloads, stress, burnout, exposure to illness, and abuse. While they have been acknowledged as heroes, their collective requests for protection, fair pay, and safe and manageable workloads have not been met with the same enthusiasm.
Works created will be gifted to participating nurses and midwives at the end of the exhibition, which forms an archive of pandemic responses and activates public conversations about the ongoing impact on nurses and midwives.
This project will be included in the Archives of Feeling exhibition at RMIT Design Hub Gallery.
Image: We are the Front-line (2022), by Xander Savage
This project will include creative responses and stories from nurses and midwives who have worked through the pandemic, accompanied by works created by local artists in response to their work.
The nurses and midwives’ art exchange is a collaboration between Nurses and Midwives, Creative Care, CAST, and staff and students in the RMIT School of Art with support from the Australian College of Nurses.
Visitors are warmly invited to visit the exhibition and engage with the artworks, stories, voices and reflections of nurses and midwives who have worked through the pandemic. We ask visitors to consider what is at stake when care labour is undervalued in society.
The exhibition will be accompanied by a public program focused on Radical Nursing Futures led by RMIT Vice Chancellor’s Research Fellow Dr (Nurse) Ruth De Souza.
At the end of the exhibition, there will be a gifting event, where the artworks made by local artists in response to the nurses’ creative submissions will be gifted to participating nurses and midwives.
There will be cake.
Dr Kelly Hussey-Smith is an artist-researcher focused on photography as a social practice, the politics of representation, and community-oriented education. She is a Lecturer in Photography at the RMIT School of Art.
Dr Ruth De Souza is a Fellow of the Australian College of Nursing and a Registered Nurse with a PhD, MA (Nurs), Grad Dip (Counselling) and Diploma in Nursing. Ruth has extensive experience as a clinician, researcher and academic in Aotearoa New Zealand and Australia. She is a 2020 RMIT University Vice Chancellor’s Fellow and is based in the School of Art.
Dr Fleur Summers is the studio coordinator in sculpture at the School of Art, RMIT. She focuses on teaching developmental working processes with reference to spatial practice. Fleur has experience in a range of technical processes and has a strong conceptual approach.
Dr Mark Edgoose is the studio coordinator of Gold and Silversmithing, at the School of Art, RMIT. Mark works at the intersections of craft, design and architecture and is fuelled by an interest in both traditional and high-tech materials and processes.
Associate Professor Grace McQuilten is a writer, curator and artist with expertise in contemporary art and design, public art, social practice, social enterprise and community development.
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