A Consultation Room of the Future
The Consultation Room Of The Future is a seven-metre-tall golden bird perched proudly on a giant egg. Visitors can enter the egg through a door. It is one of Atelier Van Lieshout’s latest functional sculptures: a work of art and a consultation room in one. The work is part of Sanitas Futurum, Van Lieshout’s ongoing exploration of the future of healthcare. Within this project, he creates provocative, speculative scenarios that invite us to consider how healthcare might evolve in the future. The Consultation Room Of The Future and the Colonic Cleansing Clinic are two of the first immersive works within Sanitas Futurum to be presented in the public realm. The sculpture is not simply an object to look at, but a place to enter, speak and reflect. The consultation room thus becomes, quite literally, a space for conversation about the future of health and the way we care for one another.
Humans and Technology
Inside The Consultation Room Of The Future, patients can quite literally “get something off their chest” or, as the Dutch expression goes, “lay their egg.” Through this simple and humorous image, Van Lieshout raises a fundamental question: do technological innovations such as artificial intelligence and robotics truly help us become healthier and happier? Or do they risk pushing the human experience of illness and care into the background? As technology becomes increasingly embedded in healthcare, the relationship between patient and caregiver is changing as well. At the same time, the sector is facing staff shortages and growing financial pressure. Could technology actually create more space for human interaction rather than replace it? The work invites us to explore this tension. Rather than placing efficiency or technological progress at the centre, it asks what truly makes healthcare human. How can we ensure that attention, empathy, emotions and personal contact remain an integral part of an increasingly automated healthcare system?
The Consultation Room as a space for encounters
The Consultation Room Of The Future functions as a speculative platform that critically reimagines the blueprint for tomorrow’s healthcare system. In the spirit of Dutch Design Week, the project breaks down traditional disciplinary boundaries by bringing together art, technology, science and healthcare. During Dutch Design Week, the sculpture will become a fully functioning consultation room.
