Shoreditch Stories – review

Tony Kirwan, age 44. Photograph: © Michael von Graffenried, mvgphoto.com

A GP surgery just off the New North Road has its doors open to the public with a series of portraits of its patients.

GP and exhibition organiser Dr Kate Adams told the Hackney Citizen: “Doctors feel they’re under huge amounts of time pressure, trying to meet targets in every appointment. There’s a thing called narrative-based medicine, whereby you look at more than the biophysical reasons beyond someone’s health, and I felt we were starting to lose touch.”

For her, she says, the exhibition was an attempt to get back towards the personal approach that family doctors have previously used to diagnose patients’ problems.

The portraits, taken by Swiss photographer Michael von Graffenried, show patients from Kate’s surgery pictured in a wide panoramic view, either at home or at leisure.

Pictures show an elderly man swimming laps in the pool; a Hackney resident looking through the front door grille of his flat, and a woman showing off the view from her balcony; someone about to wash up a three-foot trail of dirty dishes, and a family in pajamas and dressing gowns.

Though the practice serves people from many different backgrounds – boasting 70 different nationalities on its patient list – all the portraits take an intimate view of their subjects, and life in Hackney.

Shoreditch Stories 2012
Shoreditch Park Surgery
10 Rushton Street
Hackney
N1 5DR

The exhibition is open to the public until 31 August, when it then moves to the Royal College of General Practitioners.