2024 PENN IDEA Art Award Call for Nominations

Artist to create immersive art in GF Strong Rehabilitation Centre

This is a place of hope. GF Strong Rehabilitation Centre is British Columbia’s largest rehabilitation centre. It provides inpatient, outpatient, outreach and clinical support services to clients and patients in four unique programs: Acquired Brain Injury, Spinal Cord Injury, Arthritis and Neuromusculoskeletal.

Through a highly collaborative multidisciplinary approach, a team of world-renowned physicians, nurses, physical therapists, occupational and recreational therapists, social workers and allied health care professionals deliver individually tailored treatment for people from across British Columbia with the most serious and complex injuries and illnesses requiring rehabilitation.

Whether it’s following a catastrophic injury from activities such as mountain biking or snow boarding or diagnosis of a degenerative condition, patients receive intensive treatment through a holistic and integrated rehabilitation program of medical, physical, psychosocial, and vocational interventions which assists people in achieving their optimum level of independence and quality of life in the community.

The Opportunity

The PENN IDEA Art Award encourages innovation, asking emerging artists to expand their practice by reflecting on how their artwork can actively contribute to and promote healing. How art contribute to a healing environment? Invite hope? Complement therapy? Artists working in any medium are invited to create a proposal for a site-specific artwork that responds to the needs of clients and staff for a key area for outpatient services at GF Strong Rehabilitation Centre on Level G. This main corridor serves the EMG Lab, Seating Clinic, and Prosthetics & Orthotics. This is not only a waiting area for the clinics, it is also an active space for rehabilitation.  Located on a lower level, there are no windows, concrete walls and some utility doors form part of corridor. Artwork can focus on one wall or create interactive elements that flow through the space. (e.g. incorporate eye tracking exercise in hall with numbers on walls). Immersive and inspiring artwork will radically transform this space for patients and staff.

The artist whose concept is chosen by the selection committee will receive a cash prize of $5000 and there will be additional funds for production costs.

For insight into the everyday challenges faced at GF Strong Rehabilitation Centre, watch the documentary The Road Ahead.

More Information on the Clinics:

EMG Lab

Electromyography services (EMG) diagnose and assess problems with the muscles and nerves by testing how well your nerves respond to electrical stimulation.

The Interdisciplinary Spasticity Management Clinic at G.F. Strong Rehabilitation Centre, located in the EMG Lab, assists people with spasticity or increased muscle tone to better manage their symptoms.

Seating Assessment Clinic

The Seating Service assists clients who are wheelchair users to achieve optimal posture, safety and comfort to attain their highest level of physical/functional abilities, independence and quality of life.

The Seating Service performs comprehensive seating assessments, recommends intervention strategies to address client specific problems and goals, designs and constructs customized seating systems and/or components, and assists with the process of selecting, ordering, and fitting commercial and custom seating equipment. The client, caregivers, family members, program and community health professionals are integral members of the solution team.

Prosthetic & Orthotics

Comprehensive program where medical specialists, orthotists, prosthetists, technicians, and physical and occupational therapists work together to provide the client with the device that will give the best possible function. 

Services are available for people with a variety of physical disabilities and conditions. Devices may include prostheses for arms and legs, myoelectrics (prosthetics that react to electro-muscular impulses), foot orthotics, spinal orthotics, and orthotics for arms and legs that help improve skeletal instability or misalignments due to various weaknesses or pain sources.

Award Prize

The winner of the PENN IDEA Art Award, as selected by the award jury, received $5,000 with the winning artwork included in the permanent collection of the VGH & UBC Hospital Foundation Art Collection. Three finalists were featured in an exhibition at Trapp Projects.

2024 Nominators: TBC

2024 Jury: TBC Patrik Andersson, Katharine Knowles, Cori Ross (VCH, GF Strong Rehabilitation Centre Operations Director)

About the Award

Established in 2009 through a generous donation by Dr. Ian Penn and Dr. Sandy Penn Whitehouse, the PENN IDEA Art Award aims to build visibility and support the careers of creative individuals and promotes consideration of the intersection of art and healing. This year the award competition is open by nomination to current students enrolled in an undergraduate or master’s Fine Arts degree program at Emily Carr University of Art and Design (ECUAD), Kwantlen Polytechnic University (KPU), Langara College, Simon Fraser University (SFU) or University of British Columbia (UBC) and alumni of these programs who have graduated within the past three years. Finalists will be given a stipend to submit a proposal for the VGH Emergency Department Waiting Room windows. As selected by a jury, the winning artist will receive a $5,000 cash award.