students, patients, paupers

The many lives of the St Philips building

The St Philips building on the LSE campus is slowly being emptied of its contents. Knobs are disappearing from the doors, bookshelves lie exposed and a new light pours in from the bare windows. It would seem the life of this hundred-year-old building is at its end.

Exhibition: May 6 - 13 | Symposium: May 11
opening Night: May 5 | 6 - 9pm

contact: stphilips.exhibition@gmail.com

Curators: Adam Kaasa, Katherine Wallis, Christien Garcia, Miranda Iossifidis

programme

New work from: Vasco Alves, Guy Archard, Jesse Darling, Hannah Forbes Black, Tomoko Furikado, Honor Gavin, Fiona Grady, Miranda Iossifidis, Daniel Irons, Adam Kaasa, Christian Kerrigan, Margarita Louca, Stephen Nelson, Louie Rice, Liam Smale, Sabina Stefanova, Leah Stewart, Hannah Waldron and Dominic Wilcox.

Thursday 5 May
Opening Night 6 – 9pm
Performances from 7pm: Jesse Darling, Vasco Alves and Honor Gavin

Friday 6 May
Exhibition open 12 – 2pm & 5 – 9pm

Saturday 7 May
Exhibition open 10 – 5pm

Sunday 8 May: Closed

Monday 9 May
Exhibition open 12 – 8pm

Tuesday 10 May
Exhibition open 12 - 8pm

Film screening + Reception and Q&A with director, 7pm, A Palace for Us, dir. Tom Hunter. Plus ‘Best of Britain’ hospital films from the archive, including ‘A Day in Hospital’ (1931), ‘Here’s Health’ (1948) and ‘British Way of Health’ (1973).

Wednesday 11 May
Exhibition open 12 - 8pm

Public Symposium: Modern Ruin: Destruction & Creativity in the City. 6.30-8.00pm Followed by a wine reception.   Speakers include: Gus Casely-Hayford, curator and cultural historian. Richard Barnett, author of ‘Medical London: City of diseases, city of cures’. Ben Campkin, Co-Director, UCL Urban Laboratory, The Bartlett. Leslie Topp, Senior Lecturer in History of Architecture and Curator of ‘Madness and Modernity’ at the Wellcome Collection. Josephine Berry Slater, Editor, Mute Magazine, and author of ‘No Room to Move: Radical Art And The Regenerate City’. Richard McCormac, founder, MJP Architects.

Artist Jesse Darling leads us in a collaborative Sleep-in at the Ghost Sanatorium, her St Philips installation. 8:30pm. Prospective participants should get in touch as soon as possible.

Thursday 12 May
Exhibition open 12 - 8pm

Films screening + reception and Q&A with director, 7:30pm Under the Cranes, dir. Emma-Louise Williams and Michael Rosen, writer and poet.

Friday 13 May
Exhibition open 12 – 6pm

Exhibition and all events FREE.
Space limited. Please arrive early to avoid disappointment.

St Philips Building, Sheffield Street, London WC2A 2EX

Introduction to the exhibition

St Philips began its service in 1903 as a Poor Law workhouse, replacing a similar institution which was levelled to make way for the passage of the Kingsway boulevard. During World War I, the building served as an observational facility for refugees. And in 1919, under the auspices of the Metropolitan Asylum board, St Philips became the Sheffield Street Hospital for woman and girls with venereal disease.

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