LONDON.- The Fitzrovia Chapel announced a second edition of The Ward by Gideon Mendel, to coincide with the exhibition The Ward Revisited at The Fitzrovia Chapel in London from 5 January - 5 February 2023.

In 1993 Gideon Mendel spent a number of weeks photographing the Broderip and Charles Bell wards at the Middlesex Hospital as part of the ten year anniversary for the Terrence Higgins Trust. The Broderip was the first dedicated AIDS ward in London, and was opened in 1987 by Princess Diana. Today, The Fitzrovia Chapel is the only remaining building of the Middlesex Hospital, and stands metres away from where the original photographs were taken. In The Ward Revisited Gideon Mendel has produced a new large-screen video installation of many previously unseen images and contact sheets, with a specially composed soundtrack, which focusses on the stories of four patients John, Andre, Stephen and Ian.

Now marking thirty years since the photographs were taken, this new film is both 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. John, Andre, Stephen and Ian 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 thirty 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.”

Accompanying the film of images are recent interviews, filmed in the chapel, of people that also appear in the original photographs - family and friends of the four patients and medical staff on the ward. We hear from Patsy, the mother of John, Sarah and Hannah, the sister in law and niece of Stephen, Dr Rob Miller (now also a trustee of the chapel), Jane Bruton the sister on the ward, Dr Ade Fakoya, Dr Duncan Churchill, nurse Sarah Macauley, Chris Mazeika the shiatsu therapist on the ward and friend of Stephen, as well as Gideon himself. They tell us the stories behind the people and times of The Ward, and how and why these important images were taken.