Sites of Memory Exhibition
The closing of a hospital is a significant event. Perhaps no other civic institution touches as many lives as deeply as a city’s hospital. The Coventry and Warwickshire Hospital had served the region at its Stoney Stanton Road site for more than 130 years when it closed its doors in July 2006. For the people who spent time in the hospital, whether as a patient, visitor, or member of staff, such an institution deserves celebrating, its closure bears memorialising.
Sites of Memory combined display of objects salvaged from the hospital site with the personal stories of former staff and patients to chart the history of the hospital since the mid-nineteenth century. Utilising the empty space of the hospital, and filling it with these traces of the past, the exhibition provided an opportunity to reflect on the Coventry and Warwickshire Hospital as a site of memory.
The exhibition was curated by Molly Rogers and Mathew Thomson, with technical support provided by David Thomas. Ruth Semple curated the workshops for children. Oral history interviews were conducted by Michael Bevan, and research on the history of the hospital and its objects was undertaken by Mark Chapman and Charlotte Grove.