Children admitted to Southland Hospital are now surrounded by neon artworks and colouring walls after He Waka Tuia took a version of its annual Play exhibition into the children's ward.
The installation adapts Play 5.0, which opened at the Invercargill gallery in July, and adds elements from earlier editions of the show. Artworks by Electric Confetti have been installed in the ward alongside vinyl colouring sheets on the walls.
He Waka Tuia manager Sarah Brown said the collaboration was believed to be the first of its kind between a public art gallery and a public hospital children's ward.
"There's evidence from around the world that demonstrates just how therapeutic art can be," she said.
Brown said Play had been popular with the community every year, but some of its youngest fans had missed out because they were in hospital. Taking the work to them was, she said, particularly meaningful.
A ward made brighter
Southland Hospital general manager Simon Donlevy said the colouring sheets and neon pieces had turned the ward into a bright and welcoming space for children and their whānau.
The project also aims to give children in the ward a way to take part in community events they would otherwise miss.
Outreach curator Saskia Whall said interests often take root when children are young, and that was part of the thinking behind bringing the gallery to them.
"Art makes the world so much more beautiful and interesting," she said.
Play's growing pull
Play has become He Waka Tuia's biggest drawcard. The fifth edition opened on 3 July with a free pyjama-party-themed evening featuring balloon animals and face painting, and ran until 16 August.
Auckland artist Sara Hughes was the featured contemporary artist, and the exhibition was divided into zones mixing artworks with hands-on activities, including a large loom where visitors wove wishes for the future to mark Matariki.
The show drew 6033 visitors in 2025, up from 4428 the year before and 4613 in 2023, and Brown has said it attracts the gallery's highest visitor numbers each year.
She has argued that public arts spaces play a critical role in a community's vibrancy, and that the hardest part is getting people through the door for the first time. Play was designed to break down the idea that galleries are not for everyone.
The hospital installation extends that thinking to the one audience Play could not reach on its own, and gives the ward's young patients something other than the usual hospital walls to look at.
