exhibition of student photographs

21 April 2004

Tom Wichelow – Examination

Gardner Arts Centre 1 May - 6 June 2004

Gallery talk - Tom Wichelow will be in-conversation with Helen Smith, Professor of Primary Care at BSMS, in the gallery on Saturday 8th May at 2pm.

Examination is an exhibition of photographs produced by the photographer Tom Wichelow and first year medical students at the new Brighton and Sussex Medical School (BSMS) in Falmer. Examination is being shown during the Brighton Festival and will offer festival visitors an opportunity to view a rare glimpse behind the scenes in medical training and, explore a unique and successful collaboration between medical science and photographic art.

Examination was jointly conceived and commissioned by Photoworks and Brighton & Sussex Medical School, as a yearlong teaching residency, to document the development of the new medical school and the experiences of the first intake of students in the academic session 2003/04.

During his residency, which has been generously funded by the Calouste Gulbenkian Foundation and BSMS, Tom Wichelow has been working towards developing an archive of photographs for the medical school.

As part of his residency Wichelow has taught the medical students the techniques of colour documentary photography through a variety of practical workshops and critical seminars.

Wichelow's own work has also had to fulfil two very different functions - documenting the development of the new medical training facility and commenting on the role and image of the medical student. As part of the project the Gardner Arts Centre exhibition, supported by Arts Council England, will be showing a selection of photographs from across the project.

Tom will continue to teach Examination at BSMS until the end of the current academic year and the project will culminate in a publication that is due to be published in autumn 2004. The complete archive of images will be deposited at the medical school.

Examination is an educational project by Photoworks in collaboration with Brighton & Sussex Medical School and supported by the Calouste Gulbenkian Foundation.

Ends