Exit

At the far end of a corridor in the novitiate building of the former Lewisham Hospital, Convent and Grounds, a doorway stands open. Daylight comes through the frame. Paint has peeled from the walls and the doorframe in long curling strips, exposing the layers of material beneath. The corridor is empty. The photograph, made in 2019, records a passage that once connected an interior built for contemplation and communal religious life with the world outside. The complex in Lewisham began with six sisters of the Little Company of Mary who arrived in Sydney in 1885 carrying five pounds. Within two years they had established a convent on land donated by Cardinal Patrick Francis Moran, Archbishop of Sydney. The first wing of the Children's Hospital of the Holy Child opened on 9 June 1889, serving women and children. Over the following decades the complex grew through seven construction phases, each marked by a foundation stone blessed by Cardinal Moran or a subsequent archbishop. By 1912, when male patients were admitted for the first time, Lewisham had become a general hospital. Between 1890 and 1948, the hospital treated 140,757 in-patients and recorded 950,691 outpatient attendances. The novitiate building, the principal subject of the Lost Collective photographic series, is where women entered the Little Company of Mary and trained as nurses. From this building the order grew into the largest Australasian province of the congregation globally, with hospitals subsequently established in North Adelaide, South Africa, Christchurch, Wagga Wagga, and Wellington. The Little Company of Mary vacated the site in 1986 after nearly a century of continuous operation. The Society of St Vincent de Paul took ownership in 1987, and the hospital formally closed around 1988. The doorway in this photograph was once a threshold with direction and purpose. The peeling paint and the quality of the light that comes through it now record the interval between what the building was and what remains of it.