Bienalsur is committed to a project at Muñiz Hospital that combines art, nature and health

As Dr. José Penna looked at the terraces that surround it Muñiz Hospitalthought that all these plants, still growing in the early stages, would one day provide oxygen, shade and temperance to the patients admitted to the wards. More than a century later The plants grew and multipliedRecording of new species, which have now been added all lovingly drawn by Chilean artist Hernán Pitto Bellocchio on the walls of Vaccination this health center specializing in acute infectious diseases.

The project “Plant vaccination. Aesthetics and health in the hospital ecosystem”developed under the impulse of the 5th edition of Bienalsur, is the consequence of an interdisciplinary investigation that the artist developed together with Teresa Politi and Gabriel NoelCardiologist at Argerich Hospital and anthropologist with a focus on biomedical engineering. “I first asked Tere what kind of art there is in public hospitals in CABA. I was interested in thinking about the importance of aesthetic sense for health.“says the artist.

Thenceforth The three undertook a series of explorations. “When Hernán initially mentioned this idea of ​​the right to beauty as part of the right to health, it caused me a lot of pain because I thought that we couldn’t think about these things given the lack of so many basic things in the hospital,” says Politi.

But the questions his partner asked him about art in hospitals allowed him to denature a scene he had never paid attention to from urgency to urgency.

“We tend to think that the aesthetic sense is just decorationor in any case a supplement that comes after the basic and elementary needs have been satisfied. But that’s not the case – explains Noel –. The first human questions we have news of have aesthetic meaning. Beauty – adds the anthropologist – is an integral part of the right to healthbroadly defined.”

The explorations then began to take the form of fieldwork: Pitto Bellocchio, Politti and Noel They visited various hospitals and thought about the positive effects of beauty on health (be it the opportunity to view art and nature, or simply the fact of entering a care room that is clean and orderly, rather than in complete chaos). Even in the prevailing inequalityresulting in those who can choose to receive care in private facilities just “because the walls are whiter”.

This is how they got to know rooms, specialists, patients and life stories. Before arriving in Muñiz, they visited Garraham, Argerich and Rawson. But when they entered the hospital on Uspallata Street, they sensed that there was room to experience something, even if they didn’t know exactly what.

“The first thing that caught our attention was the green surroundings.one of the main goals of its founder. “Penna created in writing a kind of botanical layout based on the medicinal function that this vegetation could have,” says the artist from his home studio in Barracas, where plants are also ubiquitous.

In his career, which he spent between Buenos Aires and Milan, the plant world appeared again and again in different ways.. In fact, Pitto Bellocchio had already been selected to participate in a previous edition of the Bienalsur, with a project focused on the native trees of various Latin American cities and the courtyards of their respective government buildings.

Thus, in dialogue with the hospital staff, in particular with Tuti Maglio, institutional relations analyst of the hospital and the spirit of all the cultural projects that take place in its spaces, the initiatives of the interdisciplinary group began to take shape.

“The area surrounding Muñiz is a park, remember a little The magic mountain by Thomas Mann“, a novel in which people go to the mountain to be healed not only by the air but also by contact with beauty,” says the artist. Its greenery ignited the botanical flame of his creativity. Along with his staff, they talked to everyone they could within the institution.

Bienalsur’s support enabled them to finalize and implement the idea. The biennale was organized by Aníbal Jozami and Diana Wechsler from the National University of Tres de Febrero has placed particular emphasis on this from the beginning Push the boundaries of contemporary art beyond the usual traffic areas. For Bienalsur, Bellocchio’s intervention in Muñiz was the first time he presented an exhibition in a public hospital.

After agreeing on a location, The dialogue with the employees began. “We didn’t want to do anything intrusive, we wanted to respect this space,” they say. Bellocchio began to go to the surrounding parks to draw all those species that now populate the walls of the vaccination center and caress the eyes of those who come for treatment and those who spend countless hours caring and giving their bodies to the care of children and adults.

Each wall is a composition of several specimens of these species, Residents of the three parks near the hospital grounds (Parque España, Ameghino and Patricios), in front of which Bellocchio copied in detail for hours, days. “Long time is synonymous with a dialogue with the plant that is being drawn,” he says.

Each drawing is a sum of times: That’s why there are bald and bushy types, among other subtle differences that explain the months that the artist patiently devoted to his life notes.

The specific copies of Lime trees, willows, rubber trees and plane trees, replicated in the parks, coexist on the walls with jasmine, tree ferns, pothos and passion flowersamong other species chosen by the vaccination workers.

“Draw the plant each of them asked me to draw It was a way to make them part of the project. “Now I like to go back to the wall and tell them that here is your plant,” says the artist. Against the white walls, the blue veins of his drawings remain vibrant, inspiring vitality and resilience to those who need it.

Vegetable vaccinationat Muñiz Hospital (Uspallata 2272).