The Second Hand of the Clock

Galway University Hospitals Arts Trust was awarded the 2017/18 artsandhealth.ie Documentation Bursary to work with filmmaker Tom Flanagan and project artist Marielle MacLeman on a short documentary film about our Dialysis Arts Programme. Set against the relentless routine of chronic kidney disease and the leafy grounds of Merlin Park University Hospital, the film offers an intimate account of the programme which was established in 2012 with an Arts Council Project Award.

Collaborating for the first time, Flanagan and MacLeman’s film avoids a ‘talking heads’ documentary approach, instead using a series of interviews with patients and staff to shape narrative and imagery. By this means, the process became part of the participatory person-centred programme, rather than an interruption to it. Borrowing its title from a participant’s poetic reflections on clock-watching in dialysis, The Second Hand of The Clock follows the fluctuations of a day in Unit 7 – from still to throng and back. It accompanies patients on journeys of the imagination, reconnecting them with the things their thrice-weekly visits extract them from. Instead we find the hospital a place of possibilities and enduring friendship.

The 2017/8 artsandhealth.ie Documentation Bursary was funded by the HSE and the Arts Council. Given the nature of Arts and Health practice, particularly around the confidentiality of health service users, much of it happens behind closed doors. The documentation bursary therefore aims to showcase Arts and Health practice to national audiences, to raise awareness around the impact of arts and health practice, and to inspire artists, healthcare staff, and service users involved in Arts and Health projects. If you would like to screen The Second Hand of the Clock at an event, please get in touch via the Contact page.