Hospital Equipment

Hospital Equipment consists of an installation of operating table and equipment, accompanied by a photograph of the installation exhibited in the gallery. Setting the scene of a life and death situation inside the gallery space, the viewer is positioned as a voyeur to a fatal conflict of war and loss. When the exhibition ends, the operating equipment is shipped directly to a selected hospital in a conflict zone to be used by doctors and patients. 

The photograph remains with the collector who purchases the work. Hospital Equipment questions our divergent reaction to the heavy stream of media and humanitarian fundraising campaigns involving conflicts of war, and challenges the concept of contemporary art practice, collections and ownership. SUPERFLEX refers to the work as a ‘ready-made upside down’. Transitioning from a Duchampian ‘readymade’ to a potentially lifesaving medical instrument, the equipment oscillates between artwork and functional object, highlighting the role of context in the definition of artistic practice.

Hospital Equipment is an ongoing series of works, currently in use in The Salamieh Hospital in Syria and in the Al-Shifa Hospital in Gaza, Palestine.