Ghosts of the Past

Jeremy Bright

Hastings City Art Gallery
201 Eastbourne Street East, Hastings

18 February – 7 May 2023

In 2009, Taupō-based photographer Jeremy Bright was travelling through to the Wairarapa when he drove past the old Waipukurau Hospital – a group of disused buildings on Pōrangahau Road. He stopped to look closer, sparking a decade’s worth of regular visits documenting the site.

The hospital was founded in 1879 and closed in 1999. Originally sold to be developed, the site sat dilapidated for more than 20 years. Most of the buildings are now demolished and the land is currently earmarked for a housing project.

Jeremy Bright is a photographer originally from Essex, UK, and lives and works in Taupō. Bright’s images show different traces of human presence – objects and infrastructure used to provide comfort and medical care, along with signs of people who used the abandoned hospital as temporary shelter. In documenting the buildings, he was particularly interested in the ways in which they were taking on a different persona through the damaging effects of time, use and vandalism.

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