EXPOSURE (2020-2024) by the vacuum cleaner

EXPOSURE (2020-2024) is a series of contemporary film portraits of health professionals who worked in and around Newham University Hospital during the first wave of the COVID-19 pandemic.

EXPOSURE was created by the vacuum cleaner and commissioned by Wellcome Collection as part of the COVID-19 Responsive collecting strand.

Shot in a DIY and conversational format in artist's studio over the summer of 2020, the portraits expose the complexity of the workers’ experiences, both the challenging and beautiful. The films focus on how humans cope during an extraordinary moment and how this compares to the official narrative we see in the media. Their stories reveal their moral struggles, resulting mental health challenges and frustrations, but they also speak of their resilience in team work and peer support, and the hope that health inequalities can finally be addressed.

Description was taken from the website: www.thevacuumcleaner.co.uk

Newham University Hospital is an acute general hospital situated in Plaistow in the London Borough of Newham. During the height of the pandemic the borough had the highest per capita death rate in the UK.

The global COVID-19 pandemic (also known as the Coronavirus pandemic), caused by severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2), began with an outbreak in Wuhan, China in December 2019. Soon afterward, it spread worldwide in early 2020. WHO declared the outbreak in 30 January 2020 and assessed it as having become a pandemic on 11 March. The WHO declared the public health emergency caused by COVID-19 had ended in May 2023 (Wikipedia)

The first wave of COVID-19 in the UK took place in spring 2020, with early cases identified in January and a national lockdown introduced on 23 March 2020. Widespread restrictions on movement and social contact disrupted daily life, education, work, and cultural activity, placing significant strain on the NHS. The period was characterised by isolation, uncertainty, and collective disruption, with the first wave easing by early summer 2020.

Keywords: Accident and Emergency (A&E), Death from Covid, Teamwork, Impact on family, Lockdown, Public Health, Moral injury, Preparedness, Care Homes, Leadership, Difficult conversations, PPE; Obstetrics, Gynaecology and Midwifery; Faith, Management roles, Health inequalities, Covid messaging, Intensive Treatment Unit (ITU), High Dependency Unit (HDU), Mental Health Services, Covid testing, Covid Policy, Radiology.

The films are catalogued according to the original order established by the creator and are arranged alphabetically by first name. Each film has two or three versions:

Final edited version: this version does not include audio description.

Final edited version with audio description: this version is identical to the Final edited version but includes an added audio description track voiced by James Leadbitter.

Alternative version: this version contains sensitive information that falls under our access policy and is therefore closed.

Acquired directly from the artist (acc. o10566417)

The interview summaries were created by RV. The content advisory note and selected keywords were provided by the artist. The artist does not want the content of the films shared on social media. However he has provided text and images that can be used for this.

the vacuum cleaner is the name of a UK based artist and activist who makes candid, provocative and playful work.

His work combines madpride and disability justice organising, direct action and deep ecology, but always with a lightness and silliness. Over the last 12 years he has focused on design of mad spaces, organising and crip aesthetics. Often working with large groups including young people, health professionals and different communities, his art and activism aims to challenge and change how mental health is understood, treated and experienced.

With roots in activism and radical art, the vacuum cleaner has created one-man interventions and large-scale actions as well as performance, installation and film. His work has been shown in galleries, theatres, hospitals and schools and has appeared on streets, within social movements and in public spaces internationally.

Recent major commissions include: Manchester International Festival in 2023, Chisenhale Gallery, Mayor of London in 2022 and Wellcome Collection 2021.

Selected performances, exhibitions and festivals include:

Whitechapel Gallery. Southbank Centre. Freud Museum. FACT. The Mac. Contact. Bethlam Gallery. Wellcome Collection. National Review of Live Art. Arnolfini. Fierce Festival (x4). Liberty Festival. Nottingham Contemporary. SWG3. Peacock Visual Arts. Tramway. Centre for Contemporary Art Glasgow. ICA. Barbican (UK)

Grand Rapids Art Museum (USA), Spielart Festival, Politik im Freien Theater, No Limits Festival, HAU, Schwankhalle, Tanz Tendez (Germany), Gessnerallee/Festspiele, Les Urbanies, Museum für Gegenwartskunst, Basler Dokumentar-Tage, Theatre de l’Usine, Roxy Theatre, Far Festival, Vidy Theatre (Switzerland) Steirischer Herbst, Tanzquartier (Austria) Kaai Theatre, Vooruit/Dr Guislain Hospital (Belgium) National Gallery of Indonesia, Homo Novus, National Library of Latvia (Latvia) Short Theatre (Italy) Vårscenefest (Norway) Anti Festival (Finland) Blackwood Gallery (Canada).

For the National Health Service projects and designs have included Great Ormond Street for Children, Royal Hospital for Children & Young People, Broadmoor Hospital, Beacon Centre (Thanet), Hope and Horizon Units (Bury), Coborn Centre (Newham).

He was artist in residence at Tate Modern and Tate Britain 2016/17 with Travis Alabanza, Gal Leshem and Zinzi Minott.

He co-founded the Laboratory of Insurrectionary Imagination 2004 – 09.

He received the Paul Hamlyn Breakthrough Fund 2018.

the vacuum cleaner’s Studio Madlove is an Arts Council National Portfolio Organisation 23-27. the vacuum cleaner has come second in every art prize he has ever been nominated for including The Anti Festival Live Art Prize.

The content was taken from the website: www.thevacuumcleaner.co.uk

EXPOSURE was commissioned by Wellcome Collection, and has received support from Arts Council England, Newham Council, Paul Hamlyn Foundation, The Royal Docks Team Wellcome Collection and Gessnerallee.

All Rights Reserved (ARR)