Leaving Their Mark: How OT’s Newest Cohort is Painting Their Legacy
Every year, the School of Occupational Therapy in the Faculty of Health Sciences hosts an event during orientation week with the OT Student Council as a way to bring together first and second year classes, and encourage students to get to know one another within the program.
This year, the tradition held great responsibility, and an even greater opportunity, as the School looked to commemorate its 50th anniversary, which occurred the previous academic term. From such a big number, a big idea was born; a painted mural fixtured on one of Elborn College’s sprawling walls, a collective contribution of this year’s incoming students.
The piece was originally conceptualized by School Director, Lynn Shaw, and faculty member and chair of the Student Engagement Committee, Colleen McGrath, in collaboration with Occupational Therapy Student Council Presidents, Gracie Cook and Shania Adam.
Natasha Beaudoin, second year Master of Fine Arts candidate at Western University, adds the final touches before the piece is installed.
The group met over the summer to discuss what they envisioned for the mural, and how to best visualize the many values of the profession. Shaw, who graduated from the School in 1984, and has been a faculty member for over a decade, had long dreamt of bringing this piece to life. “Capturing where we are, and teaching students of the values we aim to anchor ourselves within the profession, was really important to me.”
McGrath recalls the brainstorming process, saying, “We wanted to create something that would remind us, every time we walked past it, of our grounding and the things that are important to us as occupational therapists. We wanted it to embody the idea of being rooted in the core values we hold dear.”
After carefully selecting these core values, the team reached out to Natasha Beaudoin, second year Master of Fine Arts candidate at Western University. “When I saw the email from Lynn, I ran to my computer straight away to accept,” Beaudoin recalls, “I was very passionate about this piece.”
She describes the artwork as a multi-layer landscape, made up of the sky, the people, and the Earth, all wrapping around into the five threads of learning valued in the occupational therapy program. A total of 32 twelve-by-twelve-inch canvases, the piece stretches across one of Elborn’s wall, fixtured directly underneath an atrium window which casts down upon it a pool of light.
Such a large artwork called for immense preparation, as Beaudoin sketched out each individual canvas for a month in advance of orientation week, leaving it up to students to fill in the outline with colour on paint night.
Cook, who helped supervise paint night, recalls the excitement. “Even people who were hesitant at first started getting more comfortable and excited. They mixed colors, tried new things, and surprised themselves with what they created.”
To her, that night represented what the mural inherently symbolizes: collaboration, as a form of collective occupation. “We emphasize independence in society, but collective occupations remind us there’s so much value in doing things together,” Cook contemplates. “This art piece wouldn’t have been possible with just one person, it took the whole School participating to make it happen.”
Students show their collaboration during orientation week's paint night.
This essence of collaboration will definitely be felt as students walk through Elborn’s halls, glimpsing their first week’s work up on the wall. Standing as a time capsule for decades to come, Shaw beautifully and aptly labels the piece as a legacy of the profession.
“We’ve come to the edge of the horizon with the past. The way we view learning and enacting has significantly changed in the past several years with new competencies in 2022, and we’re at a turning point. This piece is a snapshot of where the profession stands before launching into a new direction. Perhaps 50 years from now some of these threads that we’ve included will change, but right now, they’re anchors to take us into the future”
As a student outside the program, Natasha herself appreciates the profundity of this work: “It’s a form of reflection – a way to see where you came from. The participation in this mural acted as the students’ first steps of entering the profession. Hopefully, it becomes a point of reflection for current students, but also for future classes to look back and see what this group was able to accomplish together.”
