ARTiculture at Magee

Every year, the City of Brotherly Love welcomes spring with the Philadelphia Flower Show. And while it’s hard to see spring through all this snow, the Flower Show is finally here! This year’s theme is ARTiculture: Where Art Meets Horticulture. We LOVE this theme. You see, here at Magee, art and horticulture meet each and every day — and the results are indescribably beautiful.

Freddy Cisneros

Freddy Cisneros

ARTiculture is present throughout the hospital, but its home base is in our 6th floor greenhouse. In this tranquil space, patients have the opportunity to participate in both horticultural AND art therapies. So what does that mean exactly?  Let’s break it down.

Horticultural therapy uses plants, gardens, nature crafts and gardening activities to provide patients with emotional and physical benefits. Tending a plant not only offers physical benefits, such as increasing strength, improving range of motion and honing fine motor skills, but it also helps relieve the pressures and stresses of everyday life. Art therapy offers similar benefits through the process of creating art. It helps patients cope with the rehab process and is often regarded as a crucial part of their recovery. Art therapy has also been shown to help people increase self-esteem, reduce stress, inspire self-discovery and achieve insight. 

In the greenhouse, both of these therapies work together. For example, patients may pot a plant in horticultural therapy, and paint the ceramic pot in art therapy. The greenhouse space also provides the perfect setting for art making, and many patients will draw, paint or sculpt the horticultural therapy projects they or their fellow patients have created. The worlds between the two therapies collide so much that they become completely interwoven. One becomes an extension of the other. Together, they help patients believe in a way back, both physically and emotionally. And that is a beautiful thing.

Check out the slideshow below for examples of ARTiculture at Magee.

We want to hear from you! When you were a patient at Magee, how did ARTiculture impact you?

 

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