A new and exciting partnership was launched last week in Edinburgh, bringing together some of the city’s major institutions working in healthcare and the arts to deliver a project entitled ‘Unsung Heroes’.
The Royal Infirmary of Edinburgh (RIE), Edinburgh College of Art (eca), Innovative Craft (IC) and Lothian Health Services Archive (LHSA) have established a formal partnership to research and deliver a major new project.
Working with postgraduate students at eca’s jewellery and silversmithing department, the project focuses on an historic collection of enameled badges held by Lothian Health Services Archive. Part of this collection relates to nursing and Edinburgh’s hospitals and healthcare from the early twentieth century through the two World Wars to the AIDS awareness campaign of the late 1980s.
Mike Barfoot, Lothian Health Services Archivist, said: “Lothian Health Services Archive is delighted that the badges we hold in our historic artefacts collection will be showcased as part of a project bringing old and new together for the benefit of Royal Infirmary of Edinburgh patients, staff and visitors. It is gratifying to think that these badges, so treasured by those who wore them, will inspire works of art by eca students.”
Volunteer nurses and students, trained by the oral history specialist at Lothian Health Services Archives will interview current and retired nursing staff wishing to tell their stories. These interviews will help to build up a picture about nursing life in Edinburgh in living memory as far back as WWII. This collection of oral histories will be held by the Lothian Health Services Archives for future research and will also be explored by the jewellery and silversmithing students at eca, to help inform their creative responses to the historic badge collection as an integral part of the permanent installation at the Royal Infirmary of Edinburgh. Students will be working with enamel expert Elizabeth Turrell, who is based at the University of the West of England, Bristol.
The project was devised by IC: Innovative Crafts working in collaboration with Ginkgo Projects. Ginkgo Projects deliver an ongoing public art programme for the Royal Infirmary of Edinburgh. IC: Innovative Crafts’ has also been helping with the curatorial process and it is hoped that an exhibition of the final project will be held in the city before permanent installation at the Royal Infirmary of Edinburgh.
The project was devised by IC: Innovative Crafts working in collaboration with Ginkgo Projects. Ginkgo Projects deliver an ongoing public art programme for the Royal Infirmary of Edinburgh. IC: Innovative Crafts’ has also been helping with the curatorial process and it is hoped that an exhibition of the final project will be held in the city before permanent installation at the Royal Infirmary of Edinburgh.
Jane McArthur, Project Manager for the RIE Arts Committee said: “This heritage lottery funded project will bring together the often seemingly disparate worlds of the arts and medicine to result in a celebratory installation of our often ‘Unsung Heroes’ who have nursed the people of Edinburgh for the last 70 years.”
The project is currently looking for volunteers with an interest in people and a good listening ear to undertake oral history interviews. We are seeking to explore the history of nursing in living memory right up to the present day but also looking for anyone with memories of nursing during WWII or the Coronation Day Pageant of 1937 who may like to share their stories.
If you would like to find out more about this project, please contact us: lhsa@ed.ac.uk 0131 650 3392
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