Royal London
2018
4'35"
16mm film transferred to digital media
Supported by Vital Arts/Barts Health NHS Trust and the Wellcome Trust

Royal London is a film of the Royal London Hospital as it is being demolished. The camera follows the process from inside the building, eventually being covered by rubble and dying with the hospital. The hospital is a living organism, and while some of its buildings are being rebuilt another part of its body is being demolished. As a place that has witnessed births, deaths and all the states in between since 1740, the hospital is a place equally about death as life.It is not only the hospital that is being dismantled. The letters NHS are just discernible on the dust sheets coming down with the rubble, unintentionally hinting at the steady erosion of NHS services. In the midst of this collapse, the hospital's title Royal London suggests that both London and our sense of statehood are under threat of destruction, especially in these historical moments of uncertainty.