Old Westlake hospital transformed into art exhibit: Hospital of Emotions

WESTLAKE VILLAGE (KABC) -- An abandoned hospital has been transformed into an art gallery focused on emotions. It's in Westlake at the old St. Vincent Medical Center, which is temporarily called the Hospital of Emotions.

"The idea is that you come here and you experience all of the emotions, the ones you're comfortable with and the one you're uncomfortable with," said Oshri Elmorich, the founder of ROYVA, which put the exhibit on with House of Art and Dreams.

The exhibit takes up four floors with 80 hospital rooms - which have been sitting empty since 2020. You go through several departments of emotions - everything from joy, gratitude and love... to fear, anger, and sadness. Installation artist Javiera Estrada put up a twister-themed room in the Joy Department.

"Hospitals, yeah obviously like, you know, there's a lot of loss, but there's also a lot of like hope and joy because people get saved all the time," said Estrada.

Down the hallway is the Resilience Department. Neon artist David Otis Johnson chose to depict a hospital bed.

"I chose resilience because You have to show a lot of resilience if you're in the situation of having to be in a hospital and getting out of the hospital bed is the key," said Johnson.

For some people, the experience can be emotional.

"People have cried, you know, there's a lot of very moving installations as well, so I think it's really touching people," said Estrada.

"A woman who's like, my husband passed away in a hospital bed, and it's just so emotional for me. So it is a powerful object in that regard," said Johnson.

It's a pop-up like no other, turning an old hospital into a canvas that is centered on how we feel, connect and process through art.

"It's a hospital, it's like people born here, people die here, people get saved here. So, yeah, we saw a few that had a beautiful journey, and they really thanked us," Elmorich said.

The exhibit runs through the end of July. It's open every day from 10am to 8pm. To get tickets, go to hospitalofemotions.com.

After it's all done, the building will eventually be home to the St. Vincent Behavioral Health Campus.