A collective beginning

When Professor Anna Harris began preparing her inaugural lecture at Maastricht University, it initially felt like a solitary task to write and deliver it entirely on her own. But solitude has never really suited her way of working. “I love books, reading and writing them, especially collaborative books,” Anna says. “So it made sense to make something collective.” That impulse to bring others in, to make the project itself a form of care, became the foundation of The Matter of Hospitals.

Thinking through objects

Published open access by Maastricht University Press in November, the book looks at hospitals not through policy or spectacle but through the quiet presence of everyday objects: a zipper, a meal tray, the smell of disinfectant in a corridor. Each essay in the collection begins with an ordinary object and unfolds into an exploration of what it reveals about care.

Anna invited a mix of friends, colleagues and admired scholars to “think through an object and a matter of concern”. Some approached it in abstract terms, others in very concrete terms, but all shared one premise: the life of a hospital is inseparable from its materials.

Design as collaboration

As the contributions came together, the book developed into what Anna calls a collective reflection on care. For her, collaboration is not only a method but also a subject of the work itself. “Hospitals are deeply collaborative spaces,” she explains. “They are made up of people, objects and practices all working together, sometimes smoothly and sometimes not. I wanted the making of the book to mirror that, to let different voices, styles and ways of seeing create something richer than I could ever do alone.” 

This spirit of collaboration extended beyond the circle of writers. The book’s visual design became another creative partnership. Each page pairs insightful essays with photographs and hand-drawn illustrations by Anna herself, as well as images contributed by others or developed with the support of Studio Reuring’s design team. Even a few AI-generated images found their place, offering an unexpected twist that fit the book’s experimental tone. “At first, I wasn’t sure about using them,” Anna says. “But something about the perfect blandness of the AI-created hospital food image just worked. The designers and I were continuously responding to each other’s ideas. It was a truly shared process.” 

Publishing with care

The collaboration with Maastricht University Press (MUP) was, for Anna, one of the most satisfying aspects of the project. She describes it as a relationship built on curiosity, open-mindedness and mutual trust. “From our very first conversation, it felt like we were creating something together rather than just producing a book. The MUP team listened, challenged, and helped bring the whole vision to life. That combination of creative freedom and practical structure made the process joyful.” She believes that when academic work is treated as a craft, visually engaging, beautifully produced and accessible, it can reach people in more meaningful ways. 

Open access as an ethic

That idea of accessibility lies at the heart of The Matter of Hospitals. Anna has long been an advocate of open access, seeing it as an ethical and creative principle rather than simply a publishing model. “There’s no point in doing this kind of research if it’s locked behind walls,” she explains. “The themes in this book, care, vulnerability, and community, belong to everyone, not just to academics. Making it openly available extends those conversations into classrooms, hospitals, and homes.” The open access format also allows teachers and researchers to use individual essays in their own courses or studies, encouraging further collaboration and exchange. 

An invitation to care

Much like the hospitals it explores, The Matter of Hospitals is itself a meeting place between disciplines, between art and science, and between public and personal experience. It invites readers to see care as something collective, made visible in the smallest materials and gestures that sustain us. For Anna Harris, publishing this book with Maastricht University Press was not just about documenting hospitals, but about reimagining how academic work can care for its readers too.  

 The Matter of Hospitals is available under open access from Maastricht University Press.
🔗 Read online, download, or order your print copy here: https://doi.org/10.26481/mup.2503 

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