Wellcome Collection

This exhibition presents a range of ideas about science and medicine since Henry Wellcome's death in 1936. It reflects the experiences and interests of scientists, doctors and patients.

Within the huge field of medicine this exhibition attempts to focus on only a few topics: the body, genomes, obesity and living with medical science. Each is explored through a range of exhibits from science and everyday life, as well as artistic responses to the issues presented in red 'art cubes'.

Suitable for

• Family friendly

Website

http://www.wellcomecollection.org/exhibitions/medicine-now

The Institute of Sexology’ tells the complex and often contradictory story of the study of sex through its pioneers.

Featuring over 200 objects spanning art, erotica, film and photography, 'The Institute of Sexology' is the first UK exhibition to bring together the pioneers of the study of sex including Magnus Hirschfeld, Sigmund Freud, Marie Stopes, Alfred Kinsey, Margaret Mead, William Masters and Virginia Johnson, and the team behind Natsal.

From Alfred Kinsey’s complex questionnaires to the contemporary National Survey of Sexual Attitudes and Lifestyles (Natsal), the exhibition investigates how the practice of sex research has shaped our ever-evolving attitudes towards sexual behaviour and identity. Moving between pathologies of perversion and contested ideas of normality, it shows how sex has been observed, analysed and questioned from the late 19th century to the present day.

This is the first of our longer exhibitions in our newly opened Gallery 2. ‘The Institute of Sexology’ will evolve over the course of the year, with new commissions, live interventions, discussions and performances within the gallery space. The exhibition is part of a wider Sexology Season of activity across the country including Brighton, Southampton, Manchester and Glasgow.

Please note that ‘The Institute of Sexology’ includes exhibits and live events of a sexual nature.

Suitable for

• 16-17
• 18+

Website

http://wellcomecollection.org/sexology

'Forensics: the anatomy of crime’ explores the history, science and art of forensic medicine. It travels from crime scene to courtroom, across centuries and continents, exploring the specialisms of those involved in the delicate processes of collecting, analysing and presenting medical evidence. It draws out the stories of victims, suspects and investigators of violent crimes, and our enduring cultural fascination with death and detection.

The exhibition contains original evidence, archival material, photographic documentation, film footage, forensic instruments and specimens, and is rich with artworks offering both unsettling and intimate responses to traumatic events. Challenging familiar views of forensic medicine shaped by fictions that came out of the sensational reporting of late Victorian murder cases and popular crime dramas, ‘Forensics’ highlights the complex entwining of law and medicine, and the scientific methods it calls upon and creates.

Website

http://www.wellcomecollection.org/forensics

In July 2015 Wellcome Collection will present a major exhibition of works by acclaimed artist, Alice Anderson: ‘Memory Movement Memory Objects’. Anderson’s sculptures are entirely mummified in copper thread, creating glistening landscapes of beautiful, uncanny and transformed objects. Each piece is an exploration and act of memory. Both the making and display of works interrogate how we create, recall, transform and seal the past and imagine the future. Over 100 works will be displayed and, uniquely, visitors will be invited to contribute to the creation of a new work during the run of the exhibition, as a car from the artist’s life is mummified in the gallery.

The gallery will carry the mesmerising glint of displayed treasure, akin to entering a Pharaoh’s tomb, but the objects on show are fashioned relics, or new archaeology. Strikingly lit, the sheen of copper is, for the artist, key to the absorbing physical and mental experience of entombing objects. The process of mummification is simultaneously a gesture of protection and an invocation of death, and Anderson’s exquisite sculptures pose challenging questions about the comforts and consolations of creating and sharing memories. Offering an alternative way of remembering, the exhibition will animate the terrain where movement, objects and consciousness meet.

Suitable for

• Any age

Website

http://www.wellcomecollection.org/whats-on/exhibitions/memory-movement-memory-objects.aspx

Conceived by Lois Weaver and inspired by Marleen Gorris’s film ‘Antonia’s Line’, the ‘Long Table’ is an experimental open public forum that is a hybrid performance, installation, roundtable discussion and dinner party designed to facilitate dialogue by gathering together people with common interests.

Website

http://www.wellcomecollection.org/events/long-table