Michele Stueven
The St. Vincent Medical Center, founded by The Sisters of Charity in 1856, has seen its share of trauma and emotional ups and downs throughout the years at its Westlake location in Downtown LA. Due to bankruptcy, it closed in 2020.
In May, the Hospital of Emotions exhibit opened inside a former wing of the historic medical center, transforming the site into a fully immersive, large-scale art experience created by more than 70 mostly local artists across four floors and more than 80 immersive installations.
The deeply personal exhibition moves through the full spectrum of human emotions – joy, fear, grief, hope, resilience, gratitude, compassion, love, and healing. There are diverse interpretations of life and death, many using antique hospital beds, lights, and furniture that have languished in the rooms for decades.
Moving from hospital room to room, each display sparks conversation between parents and children, seniors, veterans, cancer survivors, and former hospital employees. Many of the previous St. Vincent nuns and nurses have visited the exhibit from artists using paint, sculpture, sound, fabric, found objects, and light, with positive responses and memories.
Resilience by Allison Reber (Michele Stueven)
The exhibit starts on the sixth floor with a work of resilience by Allison Reber, and joy by artist Lisa Waud, a botanical installation artist who creates large-scale environments using plant materials to transform built places. Waud’s hospital room, designed for sterility and control, is saturated with color and softness.
Her installation is built entirely from thrifted artificial flowers collected from Los Angeles thrift shops, giving discarded materials a second life after having been used by humans to celebrate, mourn, and adorn. Outsourcing them secondhand avoids purchasing new plastic while allowing these objects to carry their history into the work.
Artist Guy “Dioz” Bloom transforms a hospital room into a colorful living artwork, featuring figures that embody fear, anxiety, and depression, blurring reality with imagination.
Room 20, Fear by Dioz (Courtesy of Hospital of Emotions)
“Age of Glory” by Gil Hayun began during the COVID-19 lockdowns, when many older adults were suddenly isolated in nursing homes. Rather than focusing on fear and distance, this project reveals the humor, resilience, and vitality of women.
For Yaara Sachs, joy is not a condition. It is a decision. Her room holds a moment suspended between fragility and choice. “Surrounded by life-support, we are reminded how easily we define reality through circumstance,” says Sachs. “We wait for the right moment, the right outcome, the right version of reality. But joy does not belong to perfect situations. Reality is shaped by the way we choose to see it. It lives in the way we choose to feel, to interpret, to experience. Even here – in a space built around uncertainty, color insists on breaking through. Joy is a state of mind.”
Flower shop at the Hospital of Emotions (Michele Stueven)
Hospital of Emotions flower shop (Michele Stueven)
A movie set flower shop bursting with color and dozens of different soft artificial flowers perched on old hospital cabinets and equipment rounds out the tour.
Presented by St. Vincent Behavioral Health Campus, House of Art and Dreams, and ROYVA Group, Hospital of Emotions occupies about 45,000 square feet of the historic former St. Vincent Medical Center, transforming one of Los Angeles’ most storied landmarks into a temporary home for reflection, conversation, and healing.
Formerly St. Vincent Medical Center, The St. Vincent Behavioral Health Campus is being reimagined as a dedicated behavioral health facility centered on mental health, recovery, and community care.
Following an extraordinary response, Hospital of Emotions is extending its Los Angeles run through Wednesday, September 30.
Check out the gallery here, photos courtesy of Hospital of Emotions and Michele Stueven.