Inspired by a passionate belief in the healing and uplifting powers of architecture, Maggies Cancer Caring Centres are quietly extraordinary spaces in the landscape of modern medicine. It was while suffering from advanced cancer that Maggie Keswick Jencks conceived the idea of a beautifully designed space offering free practical, emotional and social support to those affected by cancer, and, following her death in 1995, the first Maggies Centre opened in Edinburgh in 1996. There are now 17 centres across the UK, designed by leading architects including Frank Gehry, Zahah Hadid and Richard Rogers. In September 2011 Timothy Hyman was asked to be artist in residence at the London Maggies Centre at the Charing Cross Hospital, and this book records his reflections on the people he met and the drawings and paintings he made there. Having himself been touched by cancer through the death of his twin brother twelve years earlier, Hyman sensitively captures the experiences of the centres users and the rhythms of life in this small haven away from the world.
While not always an easy journey, The Maggies Year is an intimate meditation on the determination to not lose the joy of living in the fear of dying.