Abandoned Since 2011

2018

This series was created during the longest hospital stay of my life, six weeks at Children's Hospital Los Angeles, three of them in the intensive care unit. My memories of the ICU remain fragmented, but the stay as a whole marked a turning point, altering the course of my life in ways I'm still adjusting to. Having recently turned eighteen, I spent much of my time this stay reflecting on a childhood shaped by frequent hospitalizations. I remembered visiting a cafeteria after appointments at the CF clinic as a young girl. In 2011, CHLA opened a new wing with a new café, and the original cafeteria quietly disappeared from view. Working from memory alone, I found my way back to the basement of the old wing and discovered the space still intact—movie posters from the early 2000s still on the walls, untouched since the year it closed. It felt like a time capsule, though an eerie and deteriorating one, not quite matching the place I remembered.