Abandoned Goods
A 40-minute film that tells the story of the Adamson Collection – a major collection of British postwar asylum art created by patients in Netherne Hospital, Coulsdon, Surrey, between 1946 and 1981.
- Submitting institution
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Kingston University
- Unit of assessment
- 32 - Art and Design: History, Practice and Theory
- Output identifier
- 32-64-0000
- Type
- L - Artefact
- Location
- Festivals and exhibitions, including 2014 Locarno Film Festival
- Open access status
- -
- Month of production
- October
- Year of production
- 2014
- URL
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- Supplementary information
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- Request cross-referral to
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- Output has been delayed by COVID-19
- No
- COVID-19 affected output statement
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- Forensic science
- No
- Criminology
- No
- Interdisciplinary
- No
- Number of additional authors
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- Research group(s)
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- Proposed double-weighted
- No
- Reserve for an output with double weighting
- No
- Additional information
- Abandoned Goods (2014) is a 40-minute film that tells the story of the Adamson Collection for the first time: a major collection of British post-war asylum art created by patients in Netherne Hospital, Coulsdon, Surrey,1946-1981. Filming the Collection being moved from storage into the Wellcome Archives, London, and displayed in international galleries, the film interrogates the complexities around artworks made by people in psychiatric hospitals. Lawrenson and co-director Borg complicate and extend documentary representations of the relationship between art and mental illness, celebrating the overdue recognition of the artworks, while highlighting that little is known about the people who made them. Uncovering the never-before-seen archives of Netherne Asylum and working with present-day residents of the site (now a housing estate), Lawrenson evoked the atmosphere of the psychiatric institution in which artist Edward Adamson worked. The filmmakers combined rostrum photography with archive voice and narration, and merged experimental film practice with art documentary, to evoke the forgotten lives of the artists, and the layered history of the Collection.
The filmmakers conducted 20 interviews and consulted 10 archive and record repositories, including the Adamson Collection; the Dax Centre, Melbourne (AU); Surrey History Centre; Wellcome Library; the Mental Health Testimony Archive held at the British Library; the BFI National Archive, London; and Edward Adamson’s personal archive. The primary research conducted around the Adamson collection is central to Abandoned Goods; the archival importance of the audio testimony the filmmakers collated is recognised through its inclusion in the digital records of the Adamson Collection.
Abandoned Goods premiered at the 2014 Locarno Film Festival, where it won the Golden Leopard for Best International Short; and featured in the Wellcome Collection’s Bedlam: The Asylum and Beyond exhibition (2016–17). UK film magazine Little White Lies named it among their ‘100 Greatest British Films’ (Issue 80, Jul/Aug 2019).
- Author contribution statement
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- Non-English
- No
- English abstract
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