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Care, creativity and a connected world

Find out about the challenges Wellcome Collection has faced during the last very demanding year.

The solidarity of sickness

Visiting an injured friend in hospital prompts writer Sinéad Gleeson to reflect on the instant rapport forged between compatriots in the kingdom of the sick.

Love, grief and assisted dying

In this deeply affecting story, Michelle Elliot explores the events and emotions around the time of her mother’s medically assisted death in Canada, where the practice is legal.

Breaking the rules of online dating

Artists are taking on the trolls of Tinder and the gremlins of Grindr to question the limits of online dating.

How architecture builds a profession of stress

Architects might produce buildings that enhance our health, but at what cost? Kristin Hohenadel explores architecture’s pressurised and stressful culture.

The empty bungalow

Grandma’s unsteady piles of stuff have been dismantled and dispersed. From an empty bungalow, Georgie Evans makes a plea for hoarding behaviour to be better understood.

How writing helps me manage schizophrenia

Not one yoga, but many yogas

From ancient tradition to modern gym class, yoga means many things to many people.

Shame, condemnation and conscience

Where does shame comes from and what fuels it? Lucia Osborne-Crowley explores audience, gender and the difference between shame and guilt, asking if either can ever be useful.

Inside the mind of George Vasey, co-curator of Misbehaving Bodies

Discover how curator George Vasey honoured the approaches of Jo Spence and Oreet Ashery, who mischievously subvert clichés around illness and death.

The meanings of hurt

In the early modern period, gruesome incidents of self-castration and other types of self-injury garnished the literature of the time. Alanna Skuse explores the messages these wounds conveyed.

Cowpox, Covid-19 and Jenner’s vaccination legacy

The well-known story of vaccination pioneer Edward Jenner has at its heart his drive to make vaccines free of charge and available to all. Now his principles extend to the global campaign for a people’s patent-free vaccine for Covid-19.

On body horror and growing up strange

A young child’s unusual feelings, reactions and assertions are routinely dismissed by adults. Find out how manga horror stories became a source of strength, and helped them trust their adult body.

Obesity and Britain’s boys

Six young men and six experiences of being overweight. Find out how these boys and their loved ones feel about this stigmatising issue.