Don't Ever Mention His Name
Pivotal to the development of this project was an incident on the bus home when a senior nurse from the ward sat next to me and asked what sort of a day I had had. “OK”, I replied, "but Harry xxxxxxx was a bit difficult today.” The senior nurse answered curtly, “Don’t ever mention his name. In fact, your contract prohibits you from discussing patients outside the grounds of the hospital.”
I explore the anonymity of Harry through the blurring and the turning away of his face yet attempt to bring alive traces of his life using his drawings and my own photographic reconstructions. The use of text is also essential to me here. At the time, I wrote a short play, written on an old manual typewriter with lettraset headings. The play recorded conversations that occurred between staff and patients.