Distract and play.
The first vitrine embedded in the timeline in the new Maitland Hospital acknowledges children as patients in, and visitors to, the hospital. It includes an artwork created by Anita Johnson, and a photograph of the children’s ward in the 1950s.
Distract and play, New Maitland Hospital, January 2022.
From early in its history, children were patients in the hospital. Eventually a dedicated children’s ward was established. Attention was increasingly paid to providing means to distract the young patients. Evidence of this is the rocking horse that is in the Maitland Hospital Collection and can be seen in photographs of the children’s ward, the Pixie O’Harris wall paintings that enlivened the children’s ward in the 1950s, and the many other creative strategies aimed to distract and calm the hospital’s youngest patients.
Multi-disciplinary artist Anita Johnson was invited to respond to this history and to the idea of the therapeutic benefits of distracting and entertaining young patients with an artwork that could, at the opening of the new Maitland Hospital, occupy one of the vitrines embedded in the hospital’s timeline. She created Bubble Truck.
Anita Johnson, Bubble Truck, 2021
collected objects
36 x 36 x 22cm
(photographs by Bernhard Fischer)
(Maitland Hospital Collection 424)
“I was asked to make an artwork for the children’s vitrine of the new Maitland Hospital. I remembered visiting hospitals a lot when I was young, and what that experience was like. Hospitals can be intimidating, alienating and scary for young children and this artwork is intended to provide some relief to those feelings. I intended to make a sculpture that was uplifting and engaging of the imagination of young children who might visit or be hospital patients. In making this ‘Bubble Truck’ I have used some found objects from the old Maitland Hospital: the spout from a teapot, the handles of two tablespoons, a chemistry flask, plumbing pipe, and the castor wheel from an armchair. Wouldn’t it be wonderful if this bubble truck came to life and blew bubbles around the children’s ward?”
Bubble Truck being created in Anita Johnson’s studio, 2021.
The vitrine also includes a photograph of the children’s ward in the 1950s. The photograph emphasises the hospital’s aim to make hospital less frightening for its young patients. It has smiling children, a boy on the rocking horse, an older child sharing a book with a younger child, and text and drawings evident on the walls. The chenille and plaid dressing gowns are reminders of another era. An enlarged version of this photograph, printed from a mid-twentieth century photoengraving plate, is on display in the Image waiting area of the new Maitland Hospital.
Visit No separate children’s ward for a brief history of the children’s ward at Maitland Hospital.
Visit Provided great enjoyment for memories, stories and different uses of the rocking horse that was in the children’s ward.
Visit Give … a cheerful atmosphere to find out more about the Pixie O’Harris murals and the use of art more broadly throughout the hospital.