Toll is the Dispensary Gallery’s second installation of 2022, following the two year anniversary of the first registered death of Covid 19 in the UK (13th March 2022). The encompassing marks spread across 3 walls and a table in the centre of the room engulf visitors in the reflective accounts of each UK death recorded in the first 12 months of the pandemic.

Due to the size of the space, you will likely find yourself isolated in the space as you gaze over the 145,652 marks across 53 meters of paper. The small space acts as a catalyst drawing the viewer closer to Andrew Brooks’ work. Once brought in and upon reflection, you will soon come to realise that you are likely closely related to or know of one of the marks permeated across the sheets. Though only a small amount of marks are on display, the scale of each death marked into the scroll confidently highlights the unfortunate outcome of a national pandemic that brings us all closer together.

With the majority of restrictions being lifted in Wales on the day of publication, Toll calls for renewing the analysis and the need for better policy-making when it comes to public health. Sitting roughly 5 doors down from the Regent Street campus in which this exhibition is installed, I should wish Conservative MP Sarah Atherton finds the time to visit the installation and reflect upon the destructive policies that were enacted during her parliamentary career in Westminster over the pandemic, before its closure on Friday the 1st April this week.

As you enter the entrance of the institution, you can bear witness to the 37-hour performance of Brook’s marking each death over 52 weeks with over a litre of black ink. This performance encapsulates the “anger, protest, recognition and remembrance by [the] artist”. Though this anger may not be obvious to viewers who find themselves in a temporal response of solitude as they stand with the work.

Through a process of reification, statistical mapping of mass deaths can quickly gloss over the vast scale of mortalities experienced. However, through viewing the performance and spending time with the piece, each mark intimately bleeds into the scroll reflecting the care and effort of Brooks’ performance and installation. Toll sits as a memorial to remind us of the poor decision making in recent government that resulted in so much unnecessary death. It is an exhibition we encourage you to view before its closing event between 16:00 – 18:00 on the 1st April 2020 with the artist and curators present.