Health-care professionals to prescribe nature-inspired exhibition visits to the Vancouver Art Gallery

The Vancouver Art Gallery's Emily Carr exhibition can now be prescribed by medical professionals to patients for wellness.

Medical professionals who have been touting time spent in nature as the panacea for all manner of medical qualms are now prescribing a new kind of nature immersion.

Following a collaboration between the Vancouver Art Gallery and BC Parks’ prescription for nature initiative “PaRx,” health-care providers can now prescribe a wellness visit to the gallery’s exhibition Emily Carr: Navigating an Impenetrable Landscape.

The exhibition houses a selection of paintings inspired by B.C.’s dense forests.

During an announcement at the gallery on Monday, the VAG’s Co-CEO Sirish Rao, describing the partnership as one that can happen “nowhere else in the world,” said the project was the first of its kind in Canada.

Rao said the gallery has been working with the well-being community – “scientists, physicians, Elders” – to enable access to nature for all, especially those who aren’t able to embark on a hike or get outside and immerse themselves in nature in the typical way.

To break down those barriers, patients who have been prescribed a visit to the gallery will receive free admission throughout the first year of the program. Visitors can then return as many times as they wish during the length of the project by keeping their PaRx nature prescription.

When guests visit the gallery, they will be offered a special printed guide for the sprawling Emily Carr exhibition, which encourages visitors to slow-look at the paintings, connect to the images of nature, and reflect on how the experience makes them feel.

“A significant body of knowledge shows that access to nature experiences, both indoors and outdoors, can improve health conditions ranging from depression and anxiety to high blood pressure and chronic pain – and the growing evidence behind the health benefits of art is similarly impressive,” says Dr. Melissa Lem, family physician and director of PaRx Prescriptions, in a statement.

Museums and galleries have a “wealth of potential” to become healing places, where visitors can reap the benefits of both art and the outdoors, she said.

“Combining social connection, creativity and natural landscapes in one space is a uniquely powerful way to improve people’s mental and physical health.”

The prescription program has the ability to combat the rising rates of loneliness and social isolation by nurturing those social connections, said Paula Toledo, a mental health advisor and the gallery’s lead well-being consultant.

“Research shows that interactions with art and nature can evoke feelings of awe and inspire wonder,” she said.

“In these moments, where people feel interconnected with something larger than themselves, they can often feel a greater inclination towards community involvement and pro-social actions.”

The PaRx nature prescription program launched in 2020 in B.C. and has grown to incorporate more than 17,000 health-care providers across the country. Among the options registered prescribers can offer is one Parks Canada Discovery Pass, which gives patients unlimited access to over 80 national parks, national historic sites and national marine conservation areas for a year.