Adenbrooke’s Hospital in Cambridge, UK, is hosting a unique art exhibition featuring images of patients with scars covered in thin gold plates.
The idea is the brainchild of 65-year-old Cambridge artist Carol Holiday, who has made patients’ surgical scars “golden”.
Holliday said she was inspired by this art technique from an ancient Japanese method called “Kentsugi”, which involves restoring broken pottery using gold.
Holiday worked with photographer Ryan Davies to photograph the patients and then covered the scars in those photographs with thin sheets of gold.
“When people talk about their emotional disturbances, they naturally speak in terms like they are broken, broken, cracked, devastated, torn, hence the connection with the Kentsugi method,” said the psychotherapist and former lecturer at the University of Cambridge.
“It shows simply and powerfully that despite what happened, your experiences can and can be lived with well,” she added.
Holiday said the 11 participating patients were of different ages and ethnicities and had different scars.
She said she had 100 patients from the “Addenbrookes” hospital who volunteered to participate in the art project.
Fiona Curry, who has kidney cancer, was among those patients who took part in the show.
She said that the scar that she carries, an inverted V-shaped scar that extends from one hip to the other, up to the rib cage, and which has been opened four times for surgery, “now shines in gold.”
“The scar looks really cool,” said Curry, who was photographed playing wheelchair basketball, the game she plays on the national team.
“I’ve always been completely at peace with my scars. I’m really proud of them as a sign of what I’ve been through over the years,” she added.
She added, “The artist was also very sensitive.”
–
