‘Embrace’ is a public sculpture commissioned by the Mater Hospital in Brisbane and designed and built in collaboration with Urban Art Projects.

The sculpture celebrates 100 years since the hospital’s establishment by the Sisters of Mercy and memorialises the names of 265 Mercy nuns who have been involved with the Mater over those hundred years. Each name is handwritten in copperplate, and is laser cut from aluminium sheet.

The sculpture is a place of quiet reflection, the curves of the work inviting you in to be embraced, as the nuns extended their care through the hospital to all despite race, wealth or creed. 

photography by Don Holcombe