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Eastside Projects: Building a hospital art gallery
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hi my name is Gavin I'm artist curator
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here at East Side Projects Um I've
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co-founded East Side Projects back in
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2008 with five other amazing creative
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people And it's a it's an experiment
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It's a way of exploring and researching
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ideas of exhibition making and the role
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of artists in society Um and from the
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very start it's been a partnership with
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Birmingham City University Part of
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making experiments here in the gallery
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is thinking about display architecture
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the light the smell the sound all the
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different elements of what make the
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context for this gallery space Quite
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early on we started making things and
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recycling materials and started to be
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very aware of the fact you use a lot of
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resources in making exhibitions in an
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exhibition called narrative show in
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2011 Um we decided to bring over a
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mobile wall system to learn from it and
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to experiment with it And that was the
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beginning of you know what's been a long
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a long body of research and thinking
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through how do you how do you exhibit
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art so I've just made a brand new
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version of a mobile wall system for the
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Midland Metropolitan University Hospital
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in Sandwell But this is the prototype
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here in effect So this this yellow pole
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is um the pole that holds up the mobile
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wall system and it's the version that we
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developed from an original mobile wall
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system at the Vienna Session This is
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where all the ideas and development and
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experiments that happen in the gallery
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then find an application a new need a
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function a role in a an amazing
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environment that is all about support
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It's about well-being It's about making
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environments that are part of people's
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recovery So the diamonds um are based on
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and are are replicas versions of um
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diamond cuts in a marble wall that's in
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a building in five ways Fiveways is just
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down the road John Maiden's very
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important influential architect who made
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a lot of key buildings in Birmingham the
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majority of which have been torn down
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now There's hardly any standing It is
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about life It is about change and
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um people recovering and and to make an
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artwork that can be part of that process
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is a dream
Gavin Wade’s Mobile Wall System with 164 permanent pole positions on a square grid (After Adolf Krischanitz & Frederick Kiesler & John Madin), (2025) is a new permanent support structure for the large People’s Gallery on the 5th floor of the new ‘super’ hospital in Smethwick, Sandwell. It builds on over twenty years of the Birmingham born artist-curator’s research and practice around ideas and forms of support and display to deliver an adaptable and very functional artwork.
On the edge of the huge Winter Garden space, which is the entrance level to access all points in the hospital, the People’s Gallery is an 88 metre long custom made space with views across the skyline of Birmingham. The 18 walls are an invitation to display artworks of all kinds, to curate exhibitions, events and happenings of all sorts in the hospital and there are 283 positions you can place the walls to get the most out of the bright and open gallery space. As well as being an exhibition resource for creative community activities in the hospital the walls speak to histories of local and international art practices, the innovations of artist run spaces and clean wipeable surfaces.
Commissioned by Sandwell and West Birmingham NHS Trust, Supported by Arts Council England.
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