Summa Health - Healing Arts Program

Bring the healing power of your original art to the Summa Health West Tower

Art Submission Details

Project summary: Summa Health seeks to commission a site-specific work for the interior, ground floor atrium space in its new West Tower on the Akron Campus (see more information below). Artists working in any medium and with an Ohio connection through birth, education, or living and working in the region will be asked to submit digital images of recent work for review. From these submissions, a group of semifinalists will be selected to submit proposals specifically for the West Tower “Wall Work” (See below drawing and details).

This is an architect's rendering of the atrium lobby of the new West Tower. The blue tiles pictured here are a placeholder for the art that will be displayed. The dimensions are roughly 21 feet, 2 inches high by 9 feet, 4 inches wide.

The artwork we are commissioning will be immediately visible on a large two-story wall (featured above) in the atrium lobby of the new West Tower.  The atrium lobby will be the new front door to the Akron Campus, featuring 12,880 square feet of space.  One side of this wall will be adjacent to a grand stairway and the other side will be flanked by large, two-story windows that flood the area with natural light. 

Initial selection review process

All invited artists are asked to complete the online form below and attach up to 9 images of recent work, including 3 to 5 images created in large scale. These should be in jpg format and 72 dpi and 1920 pixels on the longest side.  Name your images as follows:  LnameFname_01.jpg, such as SmithJohn_01.jpg and so on, increasing the number for each image. 

(Submitted materials become the property of Summa Health for purposes of this project.)

The deadline for submissions is November 3, 2017. 


Further review of submissions (semifinalists):

A committee of selected Summa Health staff and members of its Healing Arts Leadership Council Curatorial Committee will review submitted materials to identify semifinalists, who will then be invited to submit a detailed proposal.  All semifinalists will be invited to visit the site, where they will learn more details about the project.  We anticipate proposals will be due early spring of 2018. 

Project background and institutional history

Providing the best care

In 1892, Summa Health began as a single hospital dedicated to providing healthcare to all those in need in the local community. In honoring that principle for 125 years, we have grown into an integrated healthcare delivery system that serves more than one million patients each year across the Greater Akron region.
 
Enhancing the patient experience

To keep the promise of our founders for generations to come, we recently broke ground on the six-story West Tower on the Akron Campus, the centerpiece of a multimillion-dollar investment in the health of our community. This modern multidisciplinary facility will house same-day surgery, the labor and delivery unit, neonatal intensive care unit, the Women’s Health Center, the Center for Breast Health, and state-of-the-art inpatient medical/surgical suites. Designed to facilitate team-based, coordinated care for each patient, the West Tower puts the patient at the center of everything we do.

In keeping with its mission to enhance the patient experience, Summa Health is initiating a Healing Arts Program which will bring the arts in all its forms into the hospital. The visual arts component will focus on regional art that aspires to relieve the anxiety of the viewer through inspirational work. Our aim is to create a hopeful, healing environment to benefit patients, staff and visitors.

For questions about the Summa Health West Tower art project, please call Summa Health Foundation at 330.375.3159.

To be considered as an artist for this project, please complete the form below. 

Some artists have experienced technical issues while uploading submissions. If you experience an issue while uploading, contact Scott Brown at the Summa Health Foundation at 330.375.7380 or brownsc@summahealth.org.