Gemma Correll is a writer, artist and cartoonist. Originally from East Anglia, she currently resides in Southern California with her trusty pug sidekicks, Mr Pickles, Bean and Zander. Gemma’s published works include The Worrier’s Guide to Life and A Pug’s Guide to Etiquette, as well as her award-winning eponymous series of quirky, humorous greetings cards and gift products which are sold all over the world and displayed in pride of place on her Grandmother’s mantlepiece. Gemma’s comics appear at TheNib.com, The Lily and Tinyview. She has also collaborated with charities including Mental Health America and The Red Cross. She is currently working on her first full-length Graphic Novel memoir.

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Gemma Correll

Illustrator

Comic

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How to be human

Where do you find tranquillity?

Trying to recentre herself after her move back to the UK from the US, poet Bhanu Kapil remembered the art of Ana Mendieta, which reconnected the artist to the universe. In time, Kapil began to notice signs of the seasons, to look at the sun through water, to feel like herself again.

In 2004, I lay flat on the back seat of a Buick Riviera as it sped through Nebraska, a state so open and faint (that pale blue sky unfurling like a ribbon in the rear-view mirror), I felt dizzy. “Wake me up when we get to Iowa.” 

Proprioception: the sensation of your bodily outline within a larger space. Too much space, and perhaps that boundary, that quality of being a particular person in a landscape modified by the memories other people might have of that landscape, starts to blur.

Nevertheless, there I was, hurtling across the high desert, then the plains and then the prairie, to Des Moines, to visit a retrospective of the works of a Cuban artist Ana Mendieta, who once described her art as a way to adhere to planetary time: “I am overwhelmed by the feeling of having been cast from the womb (nature). My art is the way I re-establish the bonds that unite me to the universe. It is a return to the maternal source.”

In Iowa City, I walk with a friend to the place by the stream where Mendieta created her first siluetas, the imprint of her form repeated in the riverbank mud, refilled with blossom, vermilion powder, clay and gunpowder flares. Finally, in Des Moines, I slip down the wall to watch the Pacific Ocean flood another silhouette, the bubbles and gurgling foam almost palpable through the grain and silver tarp of the Super 8 film. The red washes out to sea.

“Writing these words, I remember eating a cheese sandwich in a diner that was also a gas station, at a zinc counter that sparkled like 1952.”

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Notes upon arrival

Am I imagining this film, bringing a still image to life? This was the week my divorce was finalised. My son was with his grandmother, baking cookies in an American childhood I was curating without, I have to say, much flair. The most I could do, back then, was march him to the bookstore, plonk him down in front of the outsize books featuring dinosaurs and/or monster trucks, then fling myself on the goth barista of the in-house coffee shop and order a cappuccino with coins retrieved from under sofa cushions and jacket pockets.

Thus, being in a city Jack Kerouac visited once, casually describing the women he met there, on its outskirts, as “the most beautiful” women he’d ever met, was an extraordinary change. Mendieta’s art filled me to the brim, offering a way through. Through what? To what? I don’t remember what we ate, or where we slept. No, writing these words, I remember eating a cheese sandwich in a diner that was also a gas station, at a zinc counter that sparkled like 1952.

Who are we when we are not with each other? Who are we when we are not alone?

I am not sure where these questions come from, but here they are, prickling at the tips of my fingertips, then pouring out as I type up this memory of an art museum in 2004. I’m thinking of Mendieta, so many years later, as I negotiate my return to England after half my lifetime in another place. Negotiate: the wrong word. I’m in shock as the darkness falls each night, like a lid, at 4 p.m.

”England is my birthplace, and so I’m stunned by the misrecognition: the awkwardness of greeting a passer-by, for example.”

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I’m in shock as the darkness falls each night, like a lid, at 4 p.m.

England is my birthplace, and so I’m stunned by the misrecognition: the awkwardness of greeting a passer-by, for example. You’re the only two people in a scrappy field. You pass within three feet of each other. “Good afternoon!” At this exact moment, the other person looks away. Or perhaps (this has happened more than once), they recoil in shock! It’s okay. I understand. And adapt, swiftly.

One day I notice that my clothes are too casual, and buy a coat from Marks & Spencer as an antidote. It is a conservatively cut winter coat in a leopard-skin print. I pass a woman – in her 40s, blonde-grey hair swept back in a tortoiseshell clip – and squeal, patting my sleeve triumphantly: “Hey! Same coat.” She looks horrified. I completely understand. When did I become so scruffy, loud and wild?

I’m still insured by my workplace in the US, and so I resume Zoom therapy with a counsellor in Colorado, J. I tell J I am struggling to connect, that I feel as if I can’t find a way to adhere to the surfaces of the place I am in.

I describe my discomfort in social settings, and the pre-emptive embarrassment I sometimes feel before entering situations that will require me to inhabit a certain role. That I flinch. That I sometimes feel numb. That I keep trying to connect, even with nature, with the trees and the plants and the flowers, but that it all feels so strange. That I can’t take it in.

It’s then that J says something that helps me so profoundly, I thought I’d simply repeat it here. She says: “Perhaps it’s not that you have to absorb this place, but rather, that you have to let it absorb you.”

“I stop and stare at trees as the light begins to change, and I no longer pick a daffodil without inviting consent.”

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The pandemic begins. Everything stills. I leave my flat and walk until I reach a playing field. Frost. I lie down on the grass. When I stand up, there’s the pale green shape of my body on the ground. I start to take very slow walks, taking in the start of spring when it comes: the incremental revelation of a quince, then a magnolia, and now a cherry blossom at dusk.

I stop and stare at trees as the light begins to change, and I no longer pick a daffodil without inviting consent. The consent is non-human.

One day my mother says: “When I was in India, and we memorised Wordsworth’s poem, I didn’t know what a daffodil was. We didn’t have photos, and nobody we knew had ever seen one. We didn’t know how to pronounce it! Duff-o-dhil, I used to say, and my classmates laughed. 

“Then when we came to England, and I saw them for the first time, I thought, yes, they are brighter than the sun. But one day, I realised even Wordsworth got that wrong. It’s not only the daffodils that suction the sun’s energy. Perhaps it’s the other way around! Perhaps it’s the sun that suctions its light from the yellow flowers!”

That day, a few weeks ago, walking with my mother, who I returned to England to care for, with my sister, I realised I felt like myself again. The next morning, I let the tap run until the water was cold. I filled a glass of water. I opened the front door. I held the glass up to the morning sun. Then tilted it. To pour the water. Into the dirt of our shabby garden. The mint and the nettles poking through. And then the morning after that.

Keep looking at the sun through the vertical stream. Pour the water so slowly it begins to rotate, like a braid. Don’t look away. Every morning, try to be here – that is the only ritual I know.

Bhanu Kapil is a poet and Fellow of Churchill College. She is the author of six books, most recently ‘How To Wash A Heart’ (Pavilion Poetry), which won the T S Eliot Prize. Bhanu is also the recipient of a Cholmondeley Award from the Society of Authors, and a Windham-Campbell Prize from Yale University. Forthcoming work includes a revised edition of ‘Incubation: A Space for Monsters’ (Kelsey Street Press).

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Bhanu Kapil

Author

Maïa is a Social Anthropology undergraduate at the University of Edinburgh and a multidisciplinary artist working with sculpture, painting, illustration and photography. Her work has been widely published and exhibited, appearing in the anthology ‘The Colour of Madness’ and as part of ‘Project Myopia’. Maïa was also the in-house illustrator for the literary magazine The Selkie, and photographer for photo exhibitions such as ‘The I'm Tired Project’ and ‘Celestial Bodies’. 

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Maïa Walcott

maiawalcott.com

@artyfartymaia on Instagram

@maiart on Twitter

Article

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In an effort to feel at home back in the country of her birth, poet Bhanu Kapil recognises the small revelations of nature in a chilly UK spring as a way to reconnect.

Rebecca Tamás

Editor

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Appointments with plants

Rebecca Tamás guest edits a series of articles exploring how ritual can be a way into understanding the living world, and our own bodies and minds, at a time of environmental crisis.

Ritual

Poet Elizabeth-Jane Burnett looks to nature to guide her in breaking the seemingly inescapable call of digital calendars and endless screen time.

In the constant call for presence, any absence is a blessing. Any moment off-screen is a chance to redeem the parts of the self that are lost – revive faint blossoming caught by the frost. As synced calendars smash their way through newborn days, I start scheduling time away.

A symposium of snowdrops. A colloquium of crocuses. I write these plant appointments down, using longhand. They have to shift as calendars twist into ever-evolving configurations. While nature abhors a vacuum, the digital calendar tolerates no room for anything offline; there is no conception of time away from the camera. Yet I exist as a physical thing – I write this down too and colour in the margins of my journal – a diurnal ritual of writing I cling to and sing to.

But offline, in the space of the field, tongue unwinds and teeth unravel, throat melts free and air can travel in any direction it chooses.

Song! A process the body forgets in the endless call to what’s next in the matrix. The throat starts to grow over. The tongue knits strange tapestries of teeth, straining for release. When called to speak online, the mouth finds it can only bleat, padded by boundaries of expected speech. But offline, in the space of the field, tongue unwinds and teeth unravel, throat melts free and air can travel in any direction it chooses. There is music. 

“The digital calendar tolerates no room for anything offline. Yet I exist as a physical thing – I write this down too and colour in the margins of my journal.”

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I write the agenda for a meeting with the daffodils. In place of ‘Apologies’, ‘Thank Yous’. Minutes from previous meetings aren’t required, since there is trust, and memory needs no further guide. As there is no business, there is no ‘Other Business’. I do not need to circulate an agenda – paperwork is slender. There is a careful stillness where I take my seat, under daffodil petal and leaf, bending my body in new ways to reach.

Beneath the yellow canopy, I am still aware of the calendar’s beam through screen and wall and field, but with each inhalation it grows more distant, I yellow breathe each yellow instant making yellow breath persistent yellow follows yellow twists into a yellow mist of yellow mist of yellow like a yellow fist of yellow fist resist the siren screen resist the tracking beam resist, resist with yellow fists.

Song! A process the body forgets as it re-enters screen-time – as the eyes take over, the throat rolls over. The tongue slicks syrupy around teeth that wear away in automated decay. In the blue light of the camera, my head pulls up on the neck. I try to forget that I would not let a flower feel this. That I would resist. How I had waited four hours for the crocus that would not rise. How I had taken my cue from the sky. No yanking of the head aboard the neck but waiting for the sun to take effect.

While my head is held high like a marionette, my fingers record what I don’t want to forget. Something the crocus has begun. Something about leadership and sun.

“Collect material from the margins of a journal, plant it over the page in spread of vernal voices.”

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I make appointments with the buds about to open. Apple and beech, willow and pear, while the hazel catkins are already there, brimming with news about what it is to come to life just at this particular time. I do not know if they know of the human pandemic – no masks in the field, no outward panic, though it is hard to conceal behaviour this manic – there must be seepage, with such quantities of fear, of loss, of denial, of trial, there will be leakage. 

All the time I am locked into screen, the hazel sways metres from me. Just the other side of the wall, there are bodies that call from the sway of a branch, living splendidly open to chance.

Song! Under hazel catkins I hear the flush of the air move through bright flower-flare. Pollen drifting, falling, landing. Catkins lifting, calling, leaning into wind in a wordless whispering. This is useful when you have forgotten how to sing. What if every meeting began as a choir, with a warm-up of each voice prior to speech? It would mean listening first and the space to rehearse in wider body, understanding what it is not to conquer somebody but to move and think as a different thing – to be fuller and nimble and open to spring.

I cannot reasonably suggest this, though an essay might reflect it. Collect material from the margins of a journal, plant it over the page in spread of vernal voices. Crocus: rest, in full confidence that internal colour is there; you are not beholden to share any part before you choose to. Orange in white. Invisible flight.

“There is a careful stillness where I take my seat, under daffodil petal and leaf, bending my body in new ways to reach.”

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Daffodil: fresh as a yellow sea, relearning how to breathe, filling your armoury, covered in yellow shields. Charge. Heal. Hazel: dangle of sound, reshaping how to speak without mouth, all together, without drowning out the lighter tones, in communication without force, no need to form a response from anything but air – there is space to think here before speaking; there is something else we are reaching for from conversation. It is not domination.

The digital calendar burns for my return and millions like me all logged into screens, unquestioningly. The pandemic has necessitated new ways of working, but these – say unfreshened skin, say stiffened limbs, say tethered teeth, say fettered speech, say trampled buds, say forgotten blood – are hurting. Instead of new ways to continue old conversations, might we not look for new ways to speak? Might now be the moment to seek:

When scheduling a meeting, wait for the sun.

When scheduling a meeting, be sure you need one.

Make reasonable adjustments for those who wish to speak in hazel.

Recognise that leadership, like language, is unstable.

Where there is no business, there is no ‘Other Business’.

Could the last item be: Any other kinship?

Elizabeth-Jane Burnett is an author and academic whose creative and critical work has a largely environmental focus. Publications include the poetry collections ‘Of Sea’ (2021) and ‘Swims’ (2017), both from Penned in the Margins, nature-writing memoir ‘The Grassling’ (Penguin, 2019) and a monograph, ‘A Social Biography of Contemporary Innovative Poetry Communities: The Gift, the Wager and Poethics’ (Palgrave, 2017). She is a Leverhulme Research Fellow (2021–2), researching ‘Creative Writing and Climate Change: Developing a New Wetlands Literature’ and a nature diarist for Oh magazine and the Guardian.

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Elizabeth-Jane Burnett

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In our ‘always on’ culture, poet Elizabeth-Jane Burnett find a route away from screens – by following the ways of the trees and plants outside.

Like nearly all of us, novelist and poet Daisy Lafarge was unable to travel in spring 2020. But a new microscope afforded her a view of another world: that of the miniature creatures living in drops of pond water. Her visits to this alternative universe became an escapist ritual during a period of enforced isolation.

Before all this, the 2020 of my mind was filled with travel and vegetating animals. It was the last year I would have access to the small grant that came with my PhD, the compromising kind where you pay up front and invoice later, to be used strictly for travel costs incurred for research. My plans included visiting the Station biologique de Roscoff in Brittany, where I had hopes of seeing Symsagittifera roscoffensis, a species of tidal flatworm that spends its time moonlighting as seaweed on sandy Atlantic beaches.

S. roscoffensis, also known as the Roscoff worm or mint-sauce worm, was of interest to late-19th-century biologists, who observed that the tiny, bright green worms appeared to be filled with a chlorophyll-like substance. But that couldn’t be right, they thought, because Plantae formed one branch of life, and Animalia another; animals don’t photosynthesise.

Not until Scottish polymath Patrick Geddes – then stationed in Roscoff as a 24-year-old student of marine biology – discovered that, actually, some do. He noted that the abundance of worm colonies in shallow pools during fine weather was “very striking”, and through a series of experiments was able to determine that the Roscoff worms did indeed photosynthesise, and concluded that they “may not unfairly be called Vegetating Animals”.

I’d hoped to spend a few days of spring 2020 with these vegetal animals myself, but as March turned into April, all these plans were pushed into the anxious, indeterminate future. A novel pathogen was circulating, and during those early days in the epidemiological dark, intense scrutiny of unseen, microorganic life was becoming a fraught part of day-to-day existence.

“A month or so into the first lockdown I used the travel grant to purchase a beginner’s microscope – ‘perfect for kids and students’.”

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Drops of water

There was plenty of cause for paranoia in my personal life, too, and somehow, in the midst of all this, I thought it would be a good idea to get a microscope. I couldn’t get to the Roscoff worms, but maybe, I thought, I could find an approximation closer to home.

A month or so into the first lockdown I used the travel grant (with some persuasion) to purchase a beginner’s microscope – “perfect for kids and students”, as the online description put it. On my government-sanctioned daily walks to nearby city parks and woodland, I collected water from ponds, pools, bodies of stagnant water, puddles in the cavities of tree trunks.

This new-found attention to water – its places and qualities – became a ritual in itself, affording me a rhythm and focus outside of my thoughts and fears. The next stage of the ritual took place at my kitchen table, where my microscope was set up. I would begin by placing a drop of water on a glass slide, and soon lose myself to hours of enraptured observation, witnessing life – which seemed oblivious to the world raging around it – unfold on the slide.

The pond-water samples were my favourite – each drop was a living stained-glass window, an impossibly wrought lattice of green and gold. Slowly I began to identify what I was looking at: the gliding thumbprint bodies of flatworms, coils of filamentous green algae, fanged insect larvae and crystalline diatoms.

In one fortuitous sample from a swampy part of my local woods, where the red soil is staked with field horsetail and the shallow water capped with a mercury-like meniscus, I found tangles of Vorticella, bell-shaped ciliates whose glitchy movements rank them among the fastest-moving organisms.

“I would begin by placing a drop of water on a glass slide, and soon lose myself to hours of enraptured observation, witnessing life unfold on the slide.”

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Mostly I felt I had passed through into another world. In ‘Drops of Water’ (1851), a guide to amateur microscopy by the 19th-century scientist Agnes Catlow, I found a good description of this ethereal transportation:

“My readers must fancy themselves spirits, capable of living in a medium different from our atmosphere, and so pass with me through a wonderful brazen tunnel, with crystal doors at the entrance.”

For me, the ritual of microscopy is something that could only have come out of that time when it seemed as though the world had stopped turning.

I felt as though I was peeking through a crack in the crystal doors and I never wanted to look away. Keen as I was to learn about the minute inhabitants of water, I also knew my motivations were more meditative than scientific. For me, the ritual of microscopy is something that could only have come out of that time when it seemed as though the world had stopped turning, and we all began living in an atmosphere estranged from the one we had known.

As for the vegetating animals, my approximation arrived surprisingly early on. My lens was focused on the translucent body of a mosquito larva, its segments expanding and contracting as it munched on something out of view. As a result, I paid little attention to the slow-moving blob of green that drifted into sight, and stayed put when the larva slithered away a minute or so later. The green thing was unassuming at first, but the closer I looked, the more it seemed to glisten, as if filled with emerald sand.

“I felt as though I was peeking through a crack in the crystal doors and I never wanted to look away.”

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Some weeks later I would identify this as Paramecium bursaria, a single-celled ciliate filled with endosymbiotic cells of algae. These Zoochlorella algae live in the Paramecium’s cytoplasm and provide it with food via photosynthesis, while the Paramecium affords the algal cells greater movement and protection. The emerald sand was symbiosis – or what Geddes called “reciprocal accommodation” – in action, one species living inside another; my makeshift Roscoff worms.

In her preface to ‘Drops of Water’, Catlow introduces an unnamed microorganism (possibly the globe algae Volvox) as a community: 

“…it is not one being alone, but is formed of hundreds of minute beings, all enjoying life, and grouped together in this curious manner for mutual support.”

In this “mutual support” I couldn’t help but hear an echo of “mutual aid”, and I wondered if my attraction to the anarchic sublime of life and liveliness in the pond water was connected to the enforced isolation of lockdown. I was craving the company of other organisms, and life in a drop of water was as close to a crowd as I could get.

During a time of fear and revulsion towards microscopic life, I was grateful for these encounters with the micro-non-human, and the reminder that wonder is not predicated on travel or expertise. When I shared the first images I had taken from my microscope on social media, mentioning the (now unusable) travel grant, a poet commented, as if channelling Agnes Catlow: “This is travel.” I would have to agree.

Daisy Lafarge was born in Hastings and studied at the universities of Edinburgh and Glasgow. Her collection of poetry ‘Life Without Air’ (Granta Books) was shortlisted for the T S Eliot Prize 2020 and was recommended by the Poetry Book Society. Her debut novel ‘Paul’ received a Betty Trask Award, and was published by Granta Books in August 2021.

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Daisy Lafarge

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In the compulsory isolation of lockdown, Daisy Lafarge’s repeated visits – via a new microscope – to the miniature worlds contained by drops of pond water provided her with the company and escapism she craved.

Join celebrated crime writer Sophie Hannah in this online event unravelling the mystery of happiness.

Sophie will discuss her new book and how she has used her decades of experience in crime writing and observations from her own life to scrutinise and solve the clues that lead to happiness.

Sophie Hannah’s book ‘Happiness, A Mystery And 66 Attempts to Solve It’ was published by Wellcome Collection on 24 September 2020. 

This event will be live-streamed on Wellcome Collection’s YouTube channel and available to watch afterwards. After booking a ticket, you will receive a confirmation email with joining instructions.   

You will be able to comment and ask questions live online using YouTube Live Chat and via Slido during the event. Your microphone and camera will be switched off for the whole session.   

Sophie Hannah is a Sunday Times and New York Times bestselling writer of crime fiction, published in 49 languages and 51 territories. Her books have sold millions of copies worldwide. She has published two short-story collections and five collections of poetry. 

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Sophie Hannah

Speaker

<p>A chance to hear about and talk about ideas with others.</p>

Discussion

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Library Insights: Happiness, a Mystery with Sophie Hannah. Photo: Kathleen Arundell. Portrait of Sophie Hannah © Onur Pinar

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This event will have live speech-to-text transcription which may be useful for people who are D/deaf, hard of hearing, deafened or neurodiverse. The text will be embedded in the event video window and ticketholders will also receive a link to open subtitles in a separate window.

Speech-to-text

Booking a ticket guarantees you entry to the online event. You will be given joining instructions in your confirmation email. If you have any access requests or requirements, for example a transcript of the event, email us at access@wellcomecollection.org or call 020 7611 2222.

Guaranteed (online)

Join celebrated crime writer Sophie Hannah in this online event unraveling the mystery of happiness.

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The viewing room at Wellcome Collection

Hear from researchers and Wellcome Collection staff about the stories that they unearthed in our collections, and take a closer look at some of the items they discovered.

Library Insights

Happiness, A Mystery

Join Dr Ruben Verwaal to explore the oldest acoustic hearing aids in Wellcome Collection: the ear trumpet. 

You will learn about how ear trumpets were developed at the turn of the 18th century and why this large acoustic device became increasingly commonplace among the hard of hearing.

Joshua Reynolds, Elizabeth Vesey and James Hutton are some of the best-known ear-trumpet users in Georgian high society. This presentation will investigate the experiences of the hard of hearing as well as the perceptions of their interlocutors at art academies, science societies and church congregations, and show how these social contexts accepted the new technology as a means of increased participation.

Ruben Verwaal has a PhD in History of Medicine from the University of Groningen, the Netherlands. He is currently researching medical perceptions and personal experiences of deafness and hardness of hearing in early modern Europe at the Institute for Medical Humanities, Durham. 

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Dr Ruben Verwaal

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Exploring Research with Dr Ruben Verwaal

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This event is British Sign Language interpreted. An interpreter will be embedded in the event stream/visible to all attendees and will interpret what is discussed into BSL for d/Deaf, hard of hearing and deafened attendees.

British Sign Language

Join Dr Ruben Verwaal to explore the oldest acoustic hearing aids in Wellcome Collection: the ear trumpet.

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Researcher talk in the Viewing Room

Hear from people who have researched our collections, as they share their discoveries. They'll draw on examples from our collections to relate the stories that they've uncovered. And you’ll have a chance to ask them questions afterwards.

Exploring Research

Experiencing Ear Trumpets in the Enlightenment

14 to 19-year-olds

Join artists Jamie Hale and Jess Thom in a creative workshop exploring how we can use laughter and joy as a catalyst for change.

The workshop will start with a conversation focusing on the connections between community, creativity and protest. Jamie and Jess will draw on their own experiences as disability activists and artists to share powerful ideas and artworks that have inspired them. 

Then you’ll have the opportunity to take part in a creative activity inspired by the aesthetics of protest and disability history. You can design a physical or digital banner that shares your message with the world. 

Or explore how creating something that captures a positive experience, such as a moment of shared joy and solidarity, can be a form of protection when things feel tough and help build capacity to resist. 

This is a relaxed event. Cameras can be on or off as needed. You can move around and make noise at any time. If you need to dip in and out of the session, you can. There will be multiple ways to communicate, ask questions and participate (such as using the chat function if you do not want to use your voice).  

If you have any access requests or requirements, for example a transcript of the event, email us at  access@wellcomecollection.org or call 020 7611 2222.  

This workshop is for 14- to 19-year-olds. It is limited to 16 places and booking is essential. You will be given joining instructions for Zoom in your confirmation email. 

Jamie is an artist, curator, and founder and artistic director of disability arts organisation CRIPtic Arts. They create poetry, comedy, scriptwriting and drama for page, stage and screen, and are currently directing a showcase at the Barbican Centre for autumn 2021 and a disability arts documentary. They have written for Wellcome Collection and the Guardian newspaper and have performed at venues including the Southbank Centre. Their poetry pamphlet, ‘Shield’, was published in January 2021.

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Jamie Hale

@jamierhale on Twitter

Facilitator

Artist, activist and part-time superhero, Jess Thom co-founded Touretteshero in 2010 as a creative response to her experience of living with Tourette’s syndrome. She has written in the mainstream and disability press, including the Guardian, the Observer and Disability Now, and has been a Wellcome Trust Engagement Fellow.

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