Dr. Upali Nanda lets her hair down in a new opinion piece for Research Design Connections
As the leading researcher on Evidence-based Art she must hear complaints that she is promoting mediocrity since her studies keep showing that nature images are the best. In this article she addresses her critics and reveals her own feelings.
“… I have had my own trouble coming to terms with this blanket acceptance of nature images.”
“The point is that there is a fundamental link to nature that nothing man made seems able to supersede, which takes on special significance when we consider the circumstances of a hospital admission.”
“… we can still intuitively say that we don’t want a facility with the very same image on every wall, no matter how therapeutic that image is proven to be. So, do we want the same “type” of image?”
“The purpose of research is not to curb creativity, but to shape it and direct it, which becomes difficult when the word Evidence is considered to be the Enemy of “A”rt.”
“Artists have often critiqued some of the most prominent studies stating that they do not use examples of high quality art and that they promote mediocrity in the art field.”
“Hospitals are not museums to educate or entertain ... Patients who are certainly “challenged” enough by their health do not to want to be challenged further. Loyalty in healthcare art is not towards the Artist, or the field of the Arts, but towards the patient.”
“Evidence, to date, tells us about content, not media, and media is an untapped resource to create variety in an art program.”
“It is imperative stop wasting time by challenging robust findings and studies and instead focus on doing research that can answer important questions in what the studies done before do not address.”
Her article is titled “Visual Art in Healthcare: Is the Jury Still Out?” To read it you need to be a subscriber to Research Design Connections. It only costs $99/year. To subscribe click here.
If you are not ready to subscribe you can email me and I will send you a PDF copy of the full article. My email address is henry@henrydomke.com
Interesting article. Can you please send me PDF of Dr. Nanda's article? I am new to this topic, so please pardon my naiveté, but it seems that saying that "nature" art is more therapeutic then other types of content is overly general, and is confounding content with style. I can think of many examples of beautiful nature paintings that are very abstract, almost to the point of being non-objective.
Posted by: Michael Liebhaber | March 03, 2011 at 11:35 AM
I would love to read the PDF of this article. I'm a new visitor to your site -- I'm writing a research report on the importance of artwork in medical clinics/hospitals for an Interior Design class.
Posted by: Paris Henderson | June 15, 2011 at 09:45 AM