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    To watch Minutes & other short films, get in touch
    Register of Escapes 
1874 - 1969 

LHB33 Lothian Health Services Archive

    Through An Open Door

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    A project to explore ways of recording movement, whilst developing work with Midlothian Asylum's Health Archive.

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    This work was made possible with the support of Creative Scotland, and in spite of huge additional pressures during the pandemic.

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    I intended to a make a short film, and in the end made two - Minutes (4:35), and Notes (6:00).   Both films draw on the experiences shared by people with lived experience of the mental health system (service user and/or staff).  Many described the unwelcome feelings of restraint from the increased social isolation, and the longing for escape in its many forms.  

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    There are myriad ways of moving; shifting from one state of mind to another; crossing thresholds so slowly movements are imperceptible.

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    2020/21​

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    A right hand page from the Register of Escapes

Staff have chosen to use the remarks column to record where patients were caught, and occasionally who caught the escapee.
    Frame from a recording of the abandoned hospital, in 2020, ten years after it closed.  Taken from underneath the fencing to stop trespassers.
    untitled image
    Soap carving, and folded receipt from the time of the new asylum, from 2019 installation By Moonlight
    Image from Minutes follows the journey of a sample of water from a spring running through Kirkettle Farm, transported to Surgeons' Hall to be processed and scrutinised so values obtained would form the first clinical measurements recorded in the hospital building, that now stands empty awaiting the next set of residents to arrive.
    Kirkettle farmland, before the asylum, 1750-1850
    untitled image
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    Project funding from 
Creative Scotland:
Create Inclusion
    1900's Portobello, overlaid with 2021 Portobello
    Portobello shoreline, pre pandemic
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