No one ever finds themselves in a hospital waiting room through choice. The body determines when it is time to go there; the mind follows, as far as it can. In hospital, an increasing sense of isolation encroaches over the course of the wait, maybe because the patient is – legitimately – preoccupied with his or her own illness and personal hopes and fears.

Monochromes is an action repeated in various hospital waiting rooms. Maude Pilon S., sitting behind an easel in the centre of the space reproduce the wall before her. White, grey, beige, green, orange, pink, blue, yellow; the colours of the walls vary. Over the course of these performances, a series of monochromes will be produced in the wall colours of the Hôtel-Dieu, Saint-Luc, Notre-Dame, and Maisonneuve-Rosemont Hospitals.

Monochromes attempts to embody the waiting room by reversing the causal and contextual relations integral to it. The action serves to alter the social dynamic of the space by heightening awareness of the room itself and of the time spent waiting.

The action took place at Hôtel-Dieu, Saint-Luc, Notre-Dame, and Maisonneuve-Rosemont Hospitals

 

Maude Pilon S.’s practice includes installation and performance art, and text-based projects; “contextual art” and “relational aesthetics” are convenient terms. She is interested in the relational interstices that exist in different places. She enjoys measuring the effect of art on the everyday and of the everyday on art.  Often, her projects begin and end with words. Her work has been shown in England, France, and Quebec since 2004.

 

Maude wishes to thank articule for its precious support, and Mathieu St-Gelais, Cultural Delegate at CHUM, and Céline Béland, Head of Volunteer Services at Maisonneuve-Rosemont Hospital, for their openness, confidence, sensitivity, and enthusiasm.

 

Since a little over a year, the Centre hospitalier de l’Université de Montréal (CHUM), (the University of Montreal’s Health Care Centre) has been engaged in integrating the arts to the health care environment. According to Mr. Christian Paire, Chief Executive Officer of CHUM, this approach allows for aesthetics and emotions to enhance hospital atmosphere all the while recognising and valorising the human dimension of every individual. Concerts in care units, exhibitions, performances by artists, the activities organized by Arts et culture à l’hôpital are integrated to the daily functioning of the CHUM for the benefits of patients, staff and visitors.

The Monochromes project by artist Maude Pilon S. is part of the CHUM’s will to open itself up to contemporary art forms and to thus allow for stimulating encounters between members of the hospital community and contemporary artists.

-Mathieu St-Gelais, cultural delegate, CHUM.
 

 

 The project submitted by Maude Pilon S. interests us because of its purpose to communicate in novel ways with the patients who go through hospital waiting rooms. In making monochromes, the artist offers the possibility for a break from the anxiety and negative emotions fuelled by the state of introspection in which many patients find themselves while in waiting rooms. This innovative experience of dialogue between the artist and the patients goes hand in hand with our most cherished value, namely the well being of patients.

- Management of the Hôpital Maisonneuve-Rosemont.
 

Special projects  

Participating Artists: Maude Pilon S.
Curator(s):
Credits: Image : Maude Pilon S.