Being Seen

Research students from the Florence Nightingale Faculty of Nursing and Midwifery were invited to explore the concept of utopia, to celebrate the 500th anniversary of Thomas More’s book. Working with artists Becky Shaw and Rose Butler, and curator Frances Williams, the process began by exploring the spatial ‘dimensions’ of utopia, as a ‘no-place’, which offered a rich, useful parallel to the edge-less space of research where new researchers must invent an entire new working structure. Inspired by historic images of nurses at Florence Nightingale Museum, we thought about how looking, seeing, observing, witnessing and experiencing affects and informs practice and research. From thinking about the utopian aspects of research as a way to see and change daily practice, we moved to the utopian space of the nursing simulation and learning environment at Guys Hospital, where the space provides a theatre for learning and simulating practice. In this environment we explored how we look at spaces- looking under, around and through a familiar environment; photographing the material of benchside and bedside. Inspired by Walter Benjamin’s text, Child Hiding, we played hide and seek, experimenting with the ways in which we can become visible or disappear to each other, our patients, our subjects and our colleagues.