Accident Book
2009, University College Hospital London

A sculpture made with the echoes of accidents, mishaps and slips. An inventory of strange events that tells the stories of things that went wrong.

Accident Book is an intervention in eight Accident and Emergency wards across London and Cambridge. The book tells the story of 33 accidents that befell the writer over a period of 42 years. In this time many things have gone wrong, on many occasions events have become inexplicable. Sometimes the results were uterly banal, at others more serious but each time (even if only for a moment) the world has been turned on its head.

From June 2009 onwards, people waiting for treatment, prognoses or friends, began to discover books lying amongst the copies of old magazines in these Accident and Emergency wards. The 500 copies of Accident Book distributed through these eight hospitals are each individually numbered and the finders of these books are encouraged to take them home but also to register them here.

To view the stories of strangers click here

To register your copy click here

To read a sample of the stories from the book click here