A Case History

Heaps of luggage scattered on the pavement

Walk along Hope Street, and at the top of Mount Street, you will find an intriguing sculpture, punningly entitled A Case History. It was the result of a competition organised by the nearby Liverpool Institute for the Performing Arts. The winner was John King, who had worked with the American architect James Wines on a similar piece at Salford Quays representing barrels, bales, oil drums, and machinery.

The original idea behind the suitcases sculpture was to evoke the arrivals and departures of the people who converged on Liverpool from all over Europe intending to emigrate to America – those who stayed as well as those who were merely passing through. When it was decided to place the work in Hope Street, it was made site specific. It includes a parcel from Penguin Books addressed to The Liverpool Poets (Adrian Henri lived in Mount Street), and another, marked Fragile, destined for the Hahnemann Hospital, the first homeopathic hospital in Britain; its building is still on Hope Street. A guitar case with a Concorde flight label to New York has Paul McCartney’s name on it; he supplied a real guitar case to be cast by the sculptor. McCartney attended the Liverpool Institute when it was a boys’ school. So did George Harrison and the comedian Arthur Askey, also name-checked on luggage labels.

The case labelled Uncle is for “Uncle” Kwok Fong, who worked with Asian seamen sailing from Liverpool. There is a suitcase for Josephine Butler, who worked with prostitutes at the workhouse on Brownlow Hill, and one for the activist Margaret Simey, who lived nearby. You will also find labels for John Lennon and Stuart Sutcliffe. Both went to the Liverpool College of Art, which used to be next door to the Institute. A Case History conjures up a whole world of fascinating people associated with the area. Perhaps in the future, today’s movers and shakers will receive similar recognition.