Culture And Memory

A Legacy of Care: 170 years at the Royal Hospital for Neuro-disability

Following a generous grant from the Heritage Fund in 2019, the Royal Hospital for Neuro-disability (RHN) was able to catalogue, preserve, and digitise much of its archive collection. A new collaboration with the arts and educational charity Digital-Works will build on these foundations in time to mark the 170th anniversary of the RHN. This follow-up project will gather historical content and create a series of 16 interviews that will become a documentary film. Through extensive research of our newly-accessible archive and interactive workshops featuring actors from the disabled community, the project will uncover and reassemble the stories of past patients. Through the recording of brand new oral histories and the use of specially-adapted technologies, the project will support current patients to express themselves and leave a lasting legacy of their experiences. This is hugely important because people with brain injuries often need to rely on others to communicate.