St George Hospital Arts in Health Program – Cultural Capital

St George Hospital Arts in Health Program

Hospitals represent change. No matter how imperceptible this change is – or how monumental – we often leave these places in a different state to how we arrived. Hospitals then, play a significant role in our life cycle, the inevitable and most universal of human lived experience. Life revolves in and out of these places each day, carrying people through a multitude of mixed emotions and experiences. Regeneration, renewal, and natural cycles underpin the curatorial vision for the new Kensington Building for St George Hospital, Kogarah.

CURATORIAL INTRODUCTION, St George Hospital Arts in Health Program

Cultural Capital was engaged by Health Infrastructure to plan, procure and deliver a contemporary arts program for the new Acute Services Building at St George Hospital as part of the Stage 3 Redevelopment. Bringing together artists Lucy Simpson, Christopher Bassi, David Cragg, Louise Zhang and Brett Anthony Moore, the program invited each artist to extend their practice within the complex environment of healthcare, responding with care and sensitivity to the emotional and practical realities of a hospital setting.

Cultural Capital led an extensive engagement process with community groups, clinical teams, hospital staff and diversity and inclusion representatives to inform the development of the Arts in Health Strategy and curatorial framework. Grounded in themes of regeneration, wellbeing and connection to place, the program reflects the values and lived experiences of the diverse St George community while encouraging artists to work ambitiously within highly specialised contexts.

Delivered through a combination of limited tender, Expressions of Interest and direct commission, the project balanced ambitious artistic outcomes with the technical and operational requirements of a major healthcare environment. The resulting program positions art as an integral part of the hospital experience, contributing moments of reflection, comfort, and connection throughout the building.

Waterstory, Lucy Simpson

Waterstory explores themes of transfer, regeneration, and the cycles of life through the Yuwaalaraay concept of Baayangali — the interconnected relationships within the living world. Developed in response to regeneration, the work draws on the estuarine ecologies of Beddigal Country, where freshwater meets saltwater and land meets sea. These environments, rich in cultural and ecological significance, become symbols of convergence, exchange, and renewal. Reflecting on the healing qualities of water and the stories embedded within place, Waterstory offers moments of contemplation for the St George Hospital community, inviting connection to ongoing cycles of care, continuity, and wellbeing.

On Being With Bidjigal Country, Christopher Bassi

Christopher Bassi created a series of large-scale vinyl murals based on original watercolours responding to the waterways, tides and ecologies of Bidjigal Country surrounding the hospital precinct. Inspired by the seasonal rhythms and regenerative cycles of Saltwater Country, the works reflect connections between Country, water, community and wellbeing. Developed through time spent engaging with the landscape and its ecological systems, the watercolours reference both the fluidity of water and the painterly history of the Botany Bay region. Drawing on native plant species and Aboriginal healing practices, the murals introduce moments of calm, reflection and connection within the hospital environment.

Movement, Louise Zhang

Drawing inspiration from traditional Chinese textiles, which weave diverse elements of nature into a single fabric, Louise’s layered compositions use botanical forms as a shared visual language across cultures. As part of the commission, staff, patients, families, and the wider community were invited to contribute photographs of locally significant plant species. These submissions revealed stories of food, medicine, cultural symbolism, and memory, forming the basis of artworks developed in dialogue with the community. This collaborative process grounds the works in lived experience, fostering connection, familiarity, and a sense of belonging within the hospital environment.

Sun and Moon, David Cragg

Sun and Moon is a love letter to the natural world and our place within it, tracing rhythms of migration, regeneration, and renewal across the floors of St George Hospital. The work reflects the understanding that even within dense urban environments, human experience remains deeply connected to the cycles of Country. In a clinical setting often removed from nature, the artwork offers moments of calm, reflection and connection, supporting patients, staff and visitors through the ebb and flow of recovery. By reconnecting audiences with natural rhythms, Sun and Moon nurtures a greater sense of wellbeing, continuity, and care within the hospital environment.

Time in Colour, Brett Anthony Moore

Brett Anthony Moore’s work for the Clinical Floors at St George Hospital is a series of visual interventions designed to support calm, reflection and wellbeing within the healthcare environment. The project includes vinyl decals for the Rehabilitative Cognitive Transition spaces and sculptural works for Consultation Rooms, featuring circular light boxes and layered acrylic pieces incorporating Brett’s distinctive ‘paint skins’. Drawing on the symbolic language of circles, soft colour palettes and subtle light transitions, the works explore themes of continuity, renewal and interconnectedness. Through abstraction, materiality and light, the installation creates contemplative moments that support healing, recovery and emotional connection within clinical spaces.

Kogarah, NSW

Health Infrastructure

Lucy Simpson, Christopher Bassi, David Cragg, Louise Zhang, Brett Anthony Moore.

2023 - 2025

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