Accident Book by Simon Faithfull
A sculpture made with the echoes of accidents, mishaps, and slips, Accident Book is an inventory of strange events that tells the stories of things that went wrong.
UCLH Arts & Heritage commissioned artist Simon Faithfull to create an innovative and challenging artwork called Accident Book, which chronicles, through text and drawing, in the form of a book, all the accidents that have occurred in the artist’s life. This was placed within seven Accident and Emergency departments across London.
Apart from its obvious content, the idea behind placing it within an A&E is a reference to people’s hidden curiosity when in a waiting room or A&E department and their need to communicate their own private drama. This curiosity stems from wanting to know the reason for a fellow human’s visit to the A&E.
Accident Book enables them to satisfy this curiosity and, at the same time, contribute to an art work. An A&E ward can be a very soulless environment, reducing the patient to an item on a slow-moving conveyor belt of care. As with other aspects of Faithfull’s practice, Accident Book aims to humanize what can otherwise be a very alienating environment of the A&E waiting room.
About UCLH Arts & Heritage
UCLH Arts & Heritage is the hospital arts and heritage project that serves UCLH NHS Foundation Trust and its surrounding community and is funded entirely by charitable donations and fundraising. UCLH Arts & Heritage is committed to providing a welcoming, uplifting environment for all patients, visitors and staff through the use of a varied and stimulating arts and heritage programme. Its work aims to improve the patient experience, boost staff morale, increase engagement with the arts and celebrate the Trust’s unique heritage and community.
Since 2005, UCLH has worked to improve patient and staff outcomes through the Arts. It does this in a number of ways, including a changing exhibition and music programme, creative workshops on wards, artist residencies, commissioning site-specific artwork, and a staff culture club. UCLH arts and heritage receives its funding from UCLH Charity and the Friends of UCLH.
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