Anne Guest and Ann Wilkinson: A Sign of the Times

This project is a valediction of Birmingham’s Selly Oak Hospital, from its origin as a workhouse in the 1870’s until the present where it stands empty following transfer of services into a new hospital.

The derelict space has become a metaphor for the physical and psychological nature of the human condition and the images represent transient impressions, shards of memory, and random observations. Weeds growing around and on the building symbolise the earth starting to reclaim the building for the future.

This is an artist’s perspective of the institution. It is a perspective developed from research of archives combined with on site photography that has resulted in a collage of imagery placed together to create a new narrative which alludes to its own histories and questions its futures.