In a former Los Angeles hospital, an innovative art experience invites visitors to explore the complexities of human emotions. Right at the entrance, “Doctor Moodswing” and “Doctor Feelgood” welcome the public in white coats, handing out neon orange patient bracelets.
However, in this unique environment, the focus is not on vital signs, but on deeply analyzing the feelings of each person who walks through its doors.
The initiative, called “Hospital das Emoções”, is an immersive artistic experience dedicated to investigating the various facets of the human condition. All of this takes place on the premises of the once-active St. Vincent Medical Center, a building that remained closed for a long period just outside downtown Los Angeles.
The old medical center was founded in 1856 by the religious order Daughters of Charity to serve the needy population. After going bankrupt in 2020, the site was acquired by private investors and is expected to be transformed into a shelter for homeless people, as well as a mental health and chemical dependency treatment unit, with the first stage of opening scheduled for the end of this year. The artistic intervention offers a unique reflection on the transition from a traditional care space to a new form of reception and expression, highlighting the continuous human need for healing, whether physical or emotional, in this same place.
Until the end of September, the hospital’s corridors and rooms will gain new life with 80 installations created by 70 artists. Each received about $14,000 to reimagine four floors of clinical space, transforming them into sensory explorations that address everything from medical and family trauma to grief over climate change and the situation in immigration detention centers.
Sterile hospital spaces transform into vibrant art installations
The project was conceived with a similar inspiration to that of profitable entertainment centers like Meow Wolf, which see art as a form of fun and engagement.
Just like in Pixar’s film “Inside Out”, colorful figures scattered throughout the exhibition embody a range of emotions, ranging from joy and hope to anger and sadness. A furry orange monster blinks from behind a nurses’ counter, while green giants representing envy confront each other in a seemingly ordinary exam room, with exaggerated, comical expressions on their faces.
Saline is replaced with rainbow-hued liquids in IV bags, examination lights in the ceiling are adorned with a canopy of artificial flowers, and crutches are given an eccentric touch with cartoonish wigs.
In the “Department of Resilience,” a prismatic glass butterfly refracts light, accompanied by an unsettling, interactive audio piece that chronicles an artist’s experience with an epileptic seizure. Sounds of moaning and panting in headphones contrast with screams recorded and played back in the room, creating a surreal and dissociative effect.
In the next room, thousands of fried eggs are scattered across the bed, walls and floor, a representation, according to artist Melan Allen, of the eggs she was forced to eat as a child, despite hating them. This installation especially resonated with Sharon Maxwell, who traveled from San Diego to visit the exhibit.
“I have a lot of egg stories,” Maxwell said. “I’m in recovery from an eating disorder, so I’ve been in treatment, in hospitals. It’s all very sterile.”
While going to a hospital can be an isolating experience, Maxwell said visiting an art exhibit at one of these locations gave her a renewed sense of connection. There are no nurses, surgeons or patients there; everyone is on an equal footing as spectators.
“Being the person in bed, being treated for mental health issues, you’re kind of a spectacle,” she said.
A sensitive approach to anxiety, fear and trauma
In “The Department of Fear,” a virtual character, based on a real person, gives a vulnerable speech about the post-traumatic stress of serving in a combat zone and then reads a suicide note that combines multiple veterans’ experiences, generated by artificial intelligence. The installation is titled “The Wing That Never Closed”.
A hallway down, another room is completely covered in black-and-white portraits, drawn with frenetic lines by an artist who spent 15 months in an immigration detention center in the United States.
“I left Russia in 2022 because of my political views and because I am gay. What I thought was a search for safety became a prolonged encounter with fear,” said Grisha Stepanian.
Stepanian’s installation explores “how fear settles into the body, how it remains, even when there is no immediate danger. How safety, when it appears, seems temporary, almost unreal.”
The most effective rooms play with the visual language of a medical space without dictating what the visitor feels.
In another room in the “Department of Fear,” artist Dongpu Ling created an eerie installation of transparent figures — molded with duct tape to bring to life a vision of her grandfather. He passed away years ago in Shanghai, where he described seeing ghosts around his hospital bed shortly before he died.
Twisted into various positions, the faceless figures occupy gurneys and disappear into institutional gray ceiling vents. The work was also influenced by Ling’s experience as a child, spending ten days in hospital with a fever.
“I almost died. I couldn’t eat,” she reported. “I vomited blood three times a night.”
The process of creating the installation was intense, according to Ling. When trying to go to her studio room and accidentally ending up in the basement, where bodies are typically stored before going to funeral homes, she said she found something chilling: “It was freezing and dead silent.”
Understanding the duality of emotions
Ondrea Boggs, an ultrasound technician, said the facilities reminded her of people’s tenacity and resilience, even in the face of death, something she saw working in an intensive care unit and emergency rooms.
“I am confronted daily with people fighting, overcoming and being strong,” she said.
Boggs is moved to see a patient or their family able to maintain hope during a difficult time.
“It’s encouraging for me to remember that this is possible,” she said. “Even in times of sadness, you can still feel joy; it’s not an isolated experience where you have to overcome sadness to feel joy, right? Both can be shared at the same time and both can be honored.”
For other visitors, the installations also reflected this duality of emotions.
“There is comfort in someone seeing our emotion whether it be joy and celebration or sadness and pain. There is something about the human experience that makes us need to be seen,” Maxwell said. “This art exhibit really shows that in a profound way. I think it put humanity on display in a very powerful way.”
