It has been a privilege to be a part of the team who created The Nurses’ and Midwives’ art exchange, at the RMIT Design Hub Gallery as part of the Big Anxiety Naarm/Melbourne. The exhibition highlights creative responses and stories from nurses and midwives who worked through the pandemic in Australia and the US. We wanted to surface nursing and midwifery ways of knowing beyond the dominant empirical models of positivist science, to include: the ethical, aesthetic, and personal (Carper, 1978).
We also wanted an archive of the pandemic that was from them rather than about them. These works are accompanied by responses from RMIT art students and staff. Our team wanted to develop experiential and embodied pedagogical approaches through material making for artists to respond to social justice challenges beyond and within the classroom and studio. We used an inter-professional/inter-sectoral approach to teach students for a semester and matched them with nurses working in diverse healthcare settings.
So, this exhibition is an innovative project, it is a love letter to Nurses and Midwives who have been front and center of the action, and also to those “informal” caregivers feeling the deep exhaustion of providing care during the pandemic. These professions stepped up to be there with those in need, despite the risks, lack of supplies and threats to their own health and that of their loved ones. But the pandemic also highlighted the gaps, the exclusion of Nurses and midwives’ voices at policy tables, the workforce shortages (three-quarters of nurses declared an intention to leave over the next two to five years), the horrible gaps, the lack of support, not being heard, the grind, the wear, and tear. We are grateful for support from RMIT Culture, CAST, the Australian College of Nursing, Eastern Health, Creative Care, and staff and students in the RMIT School of Art.
At the launch, we had the amazing Corona Choir perform from Eastern Health. Here are a few snaps from the night.
Project team
Dr Kelly Hussey-Smith is an artist-researcher focused on photography as a social practice, the politics of representation, and community-oriented education. She is a Lecturer in Photography at the RMIT School of Art.
Dr Fleur Summers is the studio coordinator in sculpture at the School of Art, RMIT. She focuses on teaching developmental working processes with reference to spatial practice. Fleur has experience in a range of technical processes and has a strong conceptual approach.
Dr Mark Edgoose is the studio coordinator of Gold and Silversmithing, at the School of Art, RMIT. Mark works at the intersections of craft, design and architecture and is fuelled by an interest in both traditional and high-tech materials and processes.
Associate Professor Grace McQuilten is a writer, curator and artist with expertise in contemporary art and design, public art, social practice, social enterprise and community development.
Dr Ruth De Souza is a Fellow of the Australian College of Nursing and a Registered Nurse with a PhD, MA (Nurs), Grad Dip (Counselling) and Diploma in Nursing. Ruth has extensive experience as a clinician, researcher and academic in Aotearoa New Zealand and Australia. She is a 2020 RMIT University Vice Chancellor’s Fellow and is based in the School of Art.
