Autopsy: The Head Post Office Sheffield

An image of the front cover of Autopsy by Roger Bateman / Sheffield Institute of Arts, featuring a drawing of the building and a post mark
Title:Autopsy - The Head Post Office Sheffield
Publisher: Sheffield Institute of Arts
Editor:
Roger Bateman
Author:Roger Bateman
Publication date:October, 2016
Print ISBN:978-1-84387-4010
Format: 235mm x 280mm, paperback
Number of pages:50

Autopsy was a 2016 Catalyst Festival of Creativity project led by Sheffield Hallam University Principal Lecturer Roger Bateman and included both an exhibition and publication. The images in the Autopsy publication are just a few from the thousands that photographer India Hobson took before and during the refurbishment of Sheffield’s abandoned Head Post Office into the Sheffield Institute of Arts. Image selection was a painstaking process that demanded strict focus from all involved with the photographs placed into four broad stages that relate to distinct stages in the refurbishment. The original hand drawn and coloured architectural drawings for the Head Post office were tracked down to the National Archive in Kew, some of which feature in the publication and artist, writer and researcher Joanne Lee wrote the opening essay. Joanne’s rich narrative style and her interest in the transformation of post industrial sites and how places ‘lie in-between use’ fits perfectly with the objectives of Autopsy.