When the AIDS pandemic really got a grip on London, it made so many people have to re-think the treatment and care of an unprecedented vast number of patients whose chances of recovery or survival were extremely slim.  It meant the creation of hospital wards specifically to treat people diagnosed with HIV or full-blown AIDS.

The first of these new wards was the Broderip at the Middlesex Hospital which was opened in 1987 by Princess Diana.  In 1993 Gideon Mendel spent a number of weeks photographing both the Broderip and Charles Bell wards at the Middlesex Hospital.

Very little remains of the Hospital today and when 12 of his images were exhibited as The Ward they were hung in the Fitzrovia Chapel the only remaining building of the Middlesex.

Now, this exhibition is being revisited to tie in with Terence Higgins Trust’s 40th anniversary,  as the photographs for The Ward had originally been commissioned as part of their 10th anniversary in 1993. There is now a large-screen video installation of many more previously unseen images with a specially composed soundtrack, as well as a new short film with interviews of people who appear in the original photographs.

Marking 30 years since the photographs were taken, this new film by Gideon Mendel is a visceral depiction of the effects of HIV/AIDS on the lives of the individuals in the photographs, as well as a much broader questioning of the essence of photography and its relationship to memory. Gideon describes: “All the patients I met, many of whom were young, gay men, were facing the terrifying prospect of an early and painful death. I focused my work on John, Andre, Stephen and Ian, who all died in the months after the pictures were taken. They were some of the unlucky ones, who became sick just before life-saving antiretroviral treatments became available. Considering the extreme levels of stigma and fear that existed back then, their decision to allow themselves to be photographed, alongside their lovers, families and friends, was an act of considerable bravery.”

The photographs that I made in this short period have had their own journey over the 30 years since I took them and it has become clear that despite the passing of so much time they still speak deeply to many people. As the period they document recedes into history, interest in them seems to keep growing.”

This remarkable exhibition ….. and particularly the video ….  are not always easy to watch, especially for those of us that lost so many of our loved ones at the time.  Yet it does great service by not just memorializing all those people who were taken far too early, but also celebrating the remarkable selflessness of the medical staff and complete strangers who were there for all of us. 

Princess Diana was publicly recognized for her contributions but this exhibit makes us remember those people who were there for our community far away from  the public gaze