WANTAGE COMMUNITY HOSPITAL
A series of community projects with members of the public, Vale and Downland Museum, Sanctuary Care Home, and local schools to remember and celebrate Wantage Community Hospital.
Members of the public were invited to record memories of their time at the hospital on postcards. These cards were designed from artwork from the original certificates issued to those who made contributions to the building of the hospital.
Two community projects were run with Vale and Downland Museum, King Alfred's School and local schools to consider the hospital garden and the place of the garden with regard to health. The outcome was a series of panels which decorate the hospital corridors and waiting areas.
Project 1. Doctrine of Signatures
‘The doctrine of signatures’ held that many minerals, plants and animals have ‘signatures’, i.e. visible resemblance to human organs, bodily fluids or disease symptoms, and that these signatures indicate the curative effects of natural things for instance, a walnut looks like a brain, and therefore could cure brain diseases.
Using medical vessels from the museum's handling collection, participants drew a plant which related to an illness or part of the body.
Images
// Completed Panels (1.50m x 1.50m)
The completed panels are hung on the walls of the corridors to the waiting room, with particular attention to one design based on the iris flower which is sited near the Ophthalmology department.
Project 2. When You Fall - The Hospital Will Catch You (2.00m x 2.00m)
Working with groups from Wantage C of E Primary School, the younger children painted and cut out leaves, while older participants made the insects and devised a title for the artwork. Friends of the hospital made letters to spell out the words. Each panel shows the golden key, a symbolic object used by Princess Louise, daughter of Queen Victoria at the opening ceremony in 1927.
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