FRIENDLY GUIDANCE FOR THE INTEGRATED BRAIN
Iris Kiewiet’s Friendly Guidance mural at Bruyère’s Stroke Rehabilitation Unit (left)
Introducing Iris Kiewiet’s new mural for Bruyère Stroke Rehabilitation Program
by cj fleury, Radical Connections Co-founder
In 2018 when I began designing the artist-in-residence program for Bruyère, and again when Dr Carol Wiebe and I co-founded Radical Connections in 2021, a critical goal was to bring more artists into healthcare. Artists need support to understand this sector and their appropriate roles as creative partners. Radical Connections nourishes artists’ confidence and expands their capacities to integrate artistic skillsets into the lives and imaginations of people in care. Mature, sensitive creators make important contributions to many patients, family members, staff, and spaces in healthcare. Friendly guidance is a great approach to educating all about the value of the arts in strengthening paths towellness.
Last summer, Julie Savage, Clinical Manager of Bruyère’s Stroke Rehabilitation Program, invited me to create a welcoming mural for the 3rd floor outpatient stroke Rehabilitation unit, at Elisabeth Bruyère Hospital. She wanted everyone who stepped off the elevator to know they were (1) in the right place, and (2) at a centre of excellence for stroke recovery. Julie dreamed of a collaborative project that would incorporate the word and patient-letters work she had initiated with stroke patients. I immediately thought of Dutch-Canadian artist, Iris Kiewiet, who has witnessed the depth of Bruyère’s care for brain-injured patients through her brother-in-law, a permanent resident at the organisation’s Saint-Vincent Hospital, Ottawa’s only complex continuing care facility.
Iris brought her sensitivity to healing, communication, transformation and place-making. Her background in editorial illustration and teaching, combined with her broad range of creative, production and management skills, strengthened her capacity for collaboration with Julie, clinicians and past patients. She learned about strokes and how Bruyère works with patients on medical, practical, and social levels.
Iris’ care-filled composition of colour, symbols, and shapes spreads across a 3’x7’ wood panel that raises slightly off a gentle lavender wall. Her successful blend of visual and verbal languages builds meaning, as it expresses information and milestones through beauty. Other visual treats can be discovered over time and repeated viewings, by a wide variety of site users; patients, physicians, allied health practitioners, staff and other supporters. Art transforms the once-silent area into an optimistic place of belonging.
The “Friendly Guidance” mural offers ideas, avenues to inspire imagination and great energy! Congratulations Iris, Julie and all participants! It’s a wonderful, much longer story and you can get the full report from Iris.
studio@iriskiewiet.ca
Iris Kiewiet’s Friendly Guidance mural at Bruyère’s Stroke Rehabilitation Unit (left)