THE GROVE, Children’s Hospital, Oakland

Chandra Cerrito / Art Advisors was honored to help facilitate a site-specific installation by internationally acclaimed artist Walter Hood at a children’s hospital deeply rooted in Oakland, CA. After a robust selection process with diverse stakeholders including hospital leadership, administrators, medical providers, staff, patient advocates, an artist-in-residence, and neighbors, Hood was invited to create a large-scale work to meet the city’s public art requirement for the newly renovated hospital and outpatient center.  As an accomplished public artist and Oakland resident, Hood fulfilled stakeholders’ aspirations to work with a local artist who represents Oakland’s exceptionally diverse community. CC/AA worked closely with the hospital, the City of Oakland, community members, and the artist to develop, obtain approvals for, and realize this project, which met stringent health, safety, and durability requirements for a sensitive, child-focused environment.

Hood’s installation entitled The Grove transforms the hospital’s concourse, a partially open space that leads from the parking garage to the outpatient center and main hospital, into a verdant and materially rich nature-scape. It summons an imagined natural habitat of Temescal Creek, which flows nearby in underground culverts, and references a small stand of redwood trees at the hospital’s entrance. The project title recalls Grove Street, the pre-1984 name of Martin Luther King Jr. Way, on which the hospital is located. Grove Street divided where minorities could or could not live or buy property. According to Hood, the installation “references both the past geographical and racial divisions of landscape and the present-day redwood grove outside the hospital, altogether creating a collective memory of neighborhood and nature.” 

Three Spanish cedar “tree” sculptures wrap support columns on one side of the concourse, and a lenticular glass screen printed with photographic and mixed media imagery lines the opposite wall. When entering the concourse from 52nd Street, the glass panels depict children within a forested creek habitat. When entering from the parking garage, visitors view youth exploring the dewy redwood landscape of Muir Woods. The Grove transforms the concourse—a space of quick transit—into an immersive environment for relaxation and wonder.