Imperial Health Charity is delighted to present Love of a Long Vocation, a newly
commissioned body of work by artist Joy Gregory.
Invited to work with us as an artist-in-residence, Gregory has worked closely with staff across
Imperial College Healthcare NHS Trust to produce this series of photographic portraits.
Taking the Trust archives as a starting point, Gregory explored how collective memory is
documented within the institution, questioning how we can ensure that the voices of the
people who work here are remembered. Following an open call to long-standing staff with a
tenure of over 10 years, Joy worked with fourteen staff members.
Spanning a collective 380 years of institutional memory, the resulting body of work captures
the stories of people who work across our five hospitals. From lifelong friendships, to ghosts
in shower-rooms, to ground-breaking medical breakthroughs, the collected oral histories
trace the day-to-day lives of our staff.
Gregory asked her collaborators several questions about their time at the Trust, why they
came into their profession and what advice they would give to future generations of NHS
staff. Selected texts from these conversations accompany the portraits, which were
developed as albumen prints – a Victorian photographic printing method using egg whites
and silver nitrate. Both the photographs and oral histories will enter the Trust archive,
ensuring the endurance of the stories.
Joy Gregory is an award-winning artist specialising in photography who is known for her
work concerning issues of identity politics and 'beauty' culture. A graduate of Manchester
Polytechnic and the Royal College of Art, she has worked and exhibited widely both in the
UK and internationally participating in numerous biennales and festivals. Her work is
featured in both private and public including the Victoria & Albert Museum, UK Government
Art Collection, Institute of Modern Art, Brisbane, Australia and Yale University, New Haven.
She is the editor of Shining Lights, an anthology of Black British Women’s Photography in
1980s and 1990s published by MACK/Autograph available February 2024.
Thank you to all of our collaborators, who have generously shared their stories.