First Nations tapestry installed at new Footscray Hospital

A stunning wool tapestry is now taking pride of place inside the new Footscray Hospital’s main entrance.

Hanging across two levels, the artwork is ready to welcome patients, staff and visitors to the new hospital when it opens on 18 February 2026.

Maree Clarke, a Yorta Yorta/Wamba Wamba/Mutti Mutti/Boonwurrung woman, and Mitch Mahoney, a Boonwurrung/Barkindji man, designed ‘Welcome to Country – now you see me: seeing the invisible’.

Their design is inspired by microscopic images of river reeds from the nearby Maribyrnong River, and skeletal drawings of local native flora and fauna.

The tapestry:

• weighs more than 135 kilograms
• spans 42 square metres (4.2m high x 10m wide)
• includes more than 270 kilometres of wool from Victorian farms.

It took 12 weavers, two dyeing specialists and support staff more than 10,000 hours to hand-weave the piece at the renowned Australian Tapestry Workshop in South Melbourne.

The tapestry is one of several public artworks commissioned for the new Footscray Hospital, led by Plenary Health in partnership with Footscray Community Arts, and in collaboration with the Victorian Health Building Authority and Western Health.

Artwork in the new Footscray Hospital aims to foster a welcoming, inclusive environment and improve the health and wellbeing of patients, staff and visitors.

Your new Footscray Hospital

The more than $1.5 billion new Footscray Hospital will open on 18 February 2026 and be operated by Western Health.

Once fully operational, the hospital will provide more than 500 beds, and every year it’ll enable 15,000 more patients to be treated and almost 20,000 extra people to be seen by the emergency department.

Learn more about the new Footscray Hospital.