In her participatory art project How Does It Feel?, artist Hannah Santana invites patients to customize and paint on hospital gowns; using them as a canvas to express their emotions. SomoS is proud to present a selection of the works.

The theme of illness and the threat to health is something that is hanging above us all during these recent pandemic times. The fear of contagion, the acknowledgment of the possibility that one may fall ill is a silent companion. This group exhibition deals with the sense of vulnerability and objectification that accompany treatment and hospitalization.

Participants:

Carla Steinbrecher – Christine – Elisabeth – Elisabeth W. – Elke – Evita Emersleben – Fabian – Gunda – Insa Pape – Johanna – Johanna Wildhagen – Kathrin Stalder – Lea Berndl – Marion – Michaela Marcian – Nina Romming – Norma Ingenfeld – Raphael – Sigrid + 5 anonymous participants

Artist and performer Hannah Santana initiated the participatory art project How Does It Feel? in February 2019, looking on social media for prospective participants among patients currently suffering from an illness or people that have been recently in treatment. The 24 participants who accepted her invitation – consisting of 21 women and 3 men between 19 and 77 years old from Germany and Switzerland – received a plain patient hospital gown, which they then inscribed and processed with thoughts about their experiences.

The focus of this project is not on a specific disease or disease itself, but on the human being and their world of thoughts, first as an individual and then as a collective. The process of using the patient gown as a medium allowed the participants to externalize their inner states, thoughts and experiences, resulting also in the possibility of allowing others to enter their secluded and emotional spaces. Within this process, the gowns were alienated from their original purpose, becoming a canvas for the articulation of inner feelings; an open and non-judgemental space for self-expression.

Hospital customs are beginning to be more widely researched and questioned in search of more holistic approaches. Currently, patients are expected to conform to strict hospital standards once hospitalized, and are allocated in plain and aseptic rooms with very few personal items, dressed uniformly in plain gowns, in an environment that can’t reflect their personality or allow its expression. Dehumanized, objectified, and reduced to their medical condition, patients often feel devalued, undignified, and vulnerable, their medical condition becoming more real and defining, potentially negatively affecting the healing process.

The eerie feeling is given a historical and philosophical dimension, when we bring to mind how French scholar Michel Foucault spoke of the common focus on discipline, uniformity, and efficiency shared by institutions such as hospitals, asylums, schools, factories, the military, and prisons. Symbolically seen, the hospital gown may stand for the helplessness of the subject within technocratic institutions. In “How does it feel?,” however, Hannah Santana invites the participants to reverse the symbolism of the gown, in a liberating creative process that leads from powerlessness to agency and dignity.

Santana’s installation of the gowns in the gallery, floating from the ceiling, gives the artworks an intimate, poetic and pensive aura. The presence of the feelings and thoughts expressed on these smocks is emotionally impactful. The dedication that these current or former patients have put in the personalization of the gown stands in strong contrast with the common standards of hospital care. The handwriting, the thoughts and words of the patients transform the gowns and give a voice to the invisible traces of the everyday life of disease.

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About Hannah Santana:

Hannah Santana is a Portuguese-German artist, performer, mediator, and researcher. Her background is within the fields of art and art therapy. Since 2018 Santana has held collaborative performance workshops in the capacity of tutor and research assistant at the University of Applied Sciences and Arts in Ottersberg, following the university’s focus on the “Artistic Interventions in Prevention and Health Promotion.” Santana is currently enrolled in the MA program “Spatial Strategies” at Weißensee Kunsthochschule, Berlin. Here she is continuing her research on art interventions in both public and private spaces, and pursuing her participatory projects on the topic of care, using art as a space for genuine communication and inquiry.

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How Does It Feel? – group exhibition/art project organized by Hannah Santana
July 28th – August 15th, 2020, Tuesday-Saturday 2-7 pm
Entry free, RSVP required
SomoS, Kottbusser Damm 95, 1.0G, 10967 Berlin (U8 – Schönleinstraße)

This post is also available in: German