Congratulations to Garvin Chinnia, a third-year visual arts student whose piece, A Soft Place to Rest, was selected to receive the 2017 IDEA Art Award. Garvin’s sensitive piece will help to transform and humanize its new home: the Joseph & Rosalie Segal Family Health Centre, scheduled to open in the summer of 2017 on the VGH campus.

The subject of Garvin’s piece is a nesting Anna’s Hummingbird. In Garvin’s words, “I depicted a nesting female keeping in mind the patients who are to be passing through the Segal Family Health Centre. Sitting comfortably in her nest, the bird’s posture and repose are meant to invite reflection and create a sympathetic connection with the viewer. The hummingbird has a soft place to rest, so too should the patients.

Jim O’Hara, Vice President of Leadership Giving at the VGH + UBC Hospital Foundation – and an IDEA Art Award juror – is a strong proponent of this ongoing project. “The artwork we have received through the IDEA Art Award has added to our collection’s goal of providing much need beauty and distraction for our patients, their families and those who toil in healthcare. I cannot imagine our hospitals without art.”

About the Award:

Established in 2009 through the generosity of Dr. Ian Penn (2010 alum) and Dr. Sandy Whitehouse, the IDEA Art Award aims to encourage emerging artists’ creativity, community involvement and engagement, and to use art to neutralize negative perceptions of hospitals by creating a welcoming and caring atmosphere for patients, patients’ families, and hospital staff. This $5000 annual award offers emerging artists the opportunity to have their works displayed in a prestigious collection which includes works by artists such as Jack Shadbolt, Martha Sturdy, and Gordon Smith. Previous award winners’ works have brightened spaces such as the GF Strong Rehabilitation Centre cafeteria, and VGH’s Emergency waiting room and Intensive Care Unit.