The artist Fred Mazère decorated a room at the Nantes University Hospital -

J. Urbach / 20 Minutes

  • A first artists' room was created this summer at the Nantes University Hospital.

  • The approach aims to improve the patient's environment but also to facilitate their relationship with health personnel.

From their bed, the patients in 866 now have something else to contemplate than a sad beige wallpaper.

On the 8th floor of the Nantes University Hospital, this room in the dermatology oncology department is a first of its kind.

For three days in August, the Nantes artist Frédéric Mazère transformed this small space with a sanitized atmosphere into a much more cozy place.

"I represented an imaginary forest with leaves, a silhouette, a deer… Something quite dreamlike, inspired by Matisse," he explains.

There were quite a few constraints, like banning the color black, which I usually like to work on.

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At the #Nantes University Hospital, artist Frédéric Mazere decorated a room in the oncology and dermatology department.

A framework that "helps the patient in his daily struggle" while the WHO defends the importance of art in the healing process, explains the hospital pic.twitter.com/eJavZymbnN

- 20 Minutes Nantes (@ 20minutesnantes) September 22, 2020

If artists' rooms are rather common in hotels, they are much less so in hospitals.

Despite the difficulties (the first being that the rooms are very rarely empty for several days in a row), the Nantes University Hospital wanted to take this step while "the world health organization defends the importance of art. in the healing process, ”says the hospital.

"It's a philosophy, but there are scientific data which prove that the brain reacts differently depending on the conditions in which we find ourselves," assures Professor Brigitte Dreno, head of the dermatology department.

The overall care of the patient is the treatment but it is also giving him hope, helping him in his daily struggle.

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The break room too

To make the project (funded by sponsorship via the Arc group) a reality, several artists were approached via the Arty Show collective.

It is then the staff of the service concerned who chose what would be the work that will cover the walls of the room, but also those of their break room.

"We wanted there to be a reminder so that caregivers also have their comfort time," explains Emmanuelle Fortun, communications manager at the CHU human resources department.

Thanks to this benevolent environment, their professional practices can be facilitated: we can already see that the bedroom sometimes leads to different discussions, not only related to the subjects of care or meals.

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By the end of the year, a new artistic room should appear this time at the North Laennec hospital, at the pain center.

A total of six projects are in the works, but not just in rooms.

For example, the Simone-Veil abortion center could accommodate a giant fresco on the ceiling of one of its treatment rooms.

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