TEDxVCU Illuminate: Sterling Hundley on Applied Arts for the greater good
At TEDxVCU’s Illuminate event on Saturday, April 11, Sterling Hundley, BFA, MFA, professor of communication arts took the stage to reflect on an unexpected intersection of art and medicine. As a co-principal investigator of the Applied Arts Lab Vertically Integrated Project at VCU, Hundley shared stories from his time documenting surgeries and complex clinical moments through drawings.
“We draw for a lot of reasons to understand, to communicate, to observe. But it turns out I wasn’t drawing to see, I was drawing to think.”
Rather than simply recording what he saw, Hundley described drawing as a way of thinking. Inside operating rooms and hospital settings, sketching became a tool for slowing down, noticing patterns and translating high-stakes medical environments into observable and interpretable art. His reflections traced how the creative process can function inside systems defined by urgency, precision, and technical expertise.
He also connected these experiences to broader interdisciplinary work through the Applied Arts Lab VIP, including additional collaborations with VCU Health and research-driven projects that extend beyond the hospital system. From visualization efforts tied to large-scale scientific observation to student-led work translating complex systems into accessible visual language, Hundley highlighted how artists are actively contributing to problem-solving across medicine, engineering and technology – all with a focus on making people’s lives better. His talk pointed to a larger idea: that artists should not only operate outside of systems like healthcare and science, but should be increasingly embedded within them.
“As you sit still long enough, you start to notice patterns, and the chaos becomes more understandable.”
Watch Hundley’s full presentation here: