A poet, a raconteur, and two nurses escape the clinical confines of dialysis to reveal how an Arts and Health programme enhances time and fosters human connection, long after their traces are wiped away by Actichlor.
Galway University Hospitals Arts Trust was awarded the 2017 artsandhealth.ie Documentation Bursary to work with filmmaker Tom Flanagan and visual artist Marielle MacLeman on the short film The Second Hand of The Clock.
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 Arts Trust’s dialysis arts programme, which was established in 2012 with an Arts Council Project Award. Made in response to a series of interviews with patients and staff, the film articulates the connection between ‘human’ being and ‘placed’ being in a context that habitually extracts or excludes people from the places and things that matter to them.