About

Emily Hagn Introduces Project Art Heals Utah

I wanted something to symbolize our path to healing

My Story

On Tuesday December 22, 2020, I received my first COVID-19 vaccination.  As a health care worker on the front lines of the pandemic, it was a very positive and hopeful experience.  That day, I asked for a vial so that I could use it to make a tree ornament or perhaps drill a hole in it and attach it to my work lanyard.  I wanted something to symbolize our path to healing.  I wanted to honor our patients, honor our staff, honor our community, and honor science. 

I never made that vial trinket because I put my sights on something bigger: something to pay a grander, collective tribute to what we have been through and continue to go through, to those we have lost to COVID, to the healthcare workers that continue to show up every day to fight this pandemic, and to the resiliency within each of us.  

With the help of some wonderful people at the Salt Lake County Health Department and a U of U undergraduate sculpture student (Eden Merkley, BA ‘21), we collected a majority of the COVID vaccination vials from the mass vaccination sites set up throughout Salt Lake County from January to June 2021.  I also collected vials from the U of U Health’s Pharmacy Department.  I now have tens of thousands of COVID vaccine vials with the intent of creating a collaborative, mosaic project out of them.  

Emily Hagn, MD. Heart in the OR
Heart in the OR

I crave something that has the potential to unite our community, acknowledge our separate and individual pandemic journeys, and memorialize lives deeply affected by or lost to COVID-19.

At a time when many in our healthcare communities are suffering profound moral injury and burnout, and people across the globe are experiencing pandemic fatigue, I crave something that has the potential to unite our community, acknowledge our separate and individual pandemic journeys, and memorialize lives deeply affected by or lost to COVID-19.  The University of Utah community demonstrated innovative and courageous adaptability during the pandemic on the Main and Health Sciences campuses alike.  This project would commemorate our shared trauma, our shared resiliency, and our shared recovery.  

University of Utah Health is committed to a system-level approach to moving forward from and through the pandemic.  As described by the U of U Resiliency Center’s Dr. Megan Call PhD, the system-wide initiative lays the groundwork for collectively healing by “Using Science as our Guide, allowing space to “Recognize, Rebuild, Recover” and fostering “Post-Traumatic Growth.”  By offering a creative way to acknowledge and pay tribute to the effects of the pandemic on the greater Utah community, this proposed sustainable art project is in complete alignment with U Health’s above stated goals of creating space to thrive after trauma.”

–Emily Hagn, MD


Project Team

Project Principals, Student & Community Collaboration

Emily Hagn, MD. Project Lead. Department of Anesthesiology and Division of Pain Management, University of Utah.

Heidi Calega. Artist. Project Creative Lead. University of Utah BA, 1996.

  • Heidi Calega is an extraordinary artist (https://www.instagram.com/heidi.calega/) and leads the creative efforts of this project, creating sustainable art out of COVID vaccine vials, healthcare waste, and mementos from our community.  Heidi is a U of Utah alum (BA ’96).  She currently resides in Denver.  She specializes in creating art out of items that would otherwise end up in the landfill.  She has been featured in various news articles and news channels in Colorado:

Heidi Calega work samples:

Artist: Heidi Calega, "Pieces-of-Me" series

from pieces of me series

Heidi Calega materials samples (closeup):

Artist: Heidi Calega, materials closeup

this is me. stuff I love…