Summa Health - Healing Arts Program

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

Submission Details

Project summary: Summa Health seeks to commission a site-specific work for the exterior courtyard space at 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 are invited 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 “Great Lawn Sculpture” (see below drawing and details).

These are architect's renderings of the north side of the new West Tower. The sculpture pictured here on the grass island in front of the main entrance is a placeholder for the art that will be displayed. Dimensions of the oblong island are roughly 95 feet across at its longest point and 40 feet at its widest point. Exact dimensions for the finished sculpture -- including height -- will be determined later in the process.

The exterior sculpture we are commissioning will be immediately visible to the vast majority of visitors to Summa Health System -- Akron Campus, as the West Tower will serve as the new “front door” of the campus.

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. Artists also should submit a resume and artist statement in a single PDF file. Please include dimensions of each submitted piece.

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

The deadline for submissions is January 31, 2018. 




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 April 30. 

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. 

If you experience an issue or have a question while uploading, contact Scott Brown at the Summa Health Foundation at 330.375.7380 or brownsc@summahealth.org.