The Ward

The Ward is a photographic record of two London AIDS wards in 1993, made in the years before antiretroviral drugs changed the course of HIV.

Gideon Mendel spent several weeks on the Broderip and Charles Bell wards at the Middlesex Hospital. The Broderip, opened in 1987 by Diana, Princess of Wales, was the first AIDS ward in London. He followed four patients in particular, John, Steven, Ian and Andre, and photographed their treatment and the daily exchanges between staff, patients, families and lovers. The wards were among the few dedicated to AIDS that allowed themselves to be photographed at a time of heavy stigma. All of the patients pictured died soon after. The book appeared in 2017, thirty years after the Broderip opened, alongside an exhibition at The Fitzrovia Chapel, the hospital's former chapel.

Mendel is a photographer whose work runs from the South African struggle against apartheid to long projects on HIV and AIDS and, more recently, on flooding and fire. The Ward sits alongside his other AIDS projects, Framing AIDS and Living Proof.