Drawing Attention to Sustainability Through Recycled Art

Integrating sustainable artwork in a hospital setting can have numerous benefits, from enhancing environment’s aesthetics to promoting well-being among patients, staff, and visitors.

There are over 4,000 whimsical art pieces at Lucile Packard Children’s Hospital Stanford, which is the center of the Stanford Medicine Children’s Health network. Among the vast collection of paintings, drawings, photographs, and sculptures, 2% of the artwork are made from recycled materials.

Used books transform into a colorful chameleon

Dog on soccer ball created from pencils

Old telephone & answering machine parts to form tele-com dog

Cow sculpture made out of used miniature toy

Computer & keyboard parts form a mighty-looking white ram

For instance, artists made a cow sculpture completely out of used miniature toys, repurposed outdated electrical conduits, gaskets, and keyboard parts to create a mighty-looking white ram, constructed a soccer ball of recycled black and white pencils, and reused old telephone and answering machine parts to form a tele-com dog.

This approach not only benefits the patients, but also health care employees.

“We talk a lot about building resilience for our staff population so they can do their job to the best of their ability, which in turn affects our patients,” said Antonia Dapena-Tretter, Stanford Medicine Children’s Health art curator. “Having the artwork all around you is like a cocoon—it’s warm, fuzzy and brings whimsy. joy, levity and peace to all who see it.”

Stanford Children’s plans to add more sustainable artwork to its collection to emphasize their continued commitment to prioritizing sustainability and creating a healing environment that promotes health and well-being while also demonstrating a commitment to environmental stewardship throughout its organization.