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53 results
  • Article
  • Article

Divining the world through an artist’s almanac

| Amanda Couch

Amanda Couch's artists book, 'Huwawa in the Everyday: an almanac' is inspired by the entrail like folds of a medieval folding and its function as a guide for astrological divinations linking the body, health and the heavens. Like the original almanac her work is designed to be carried out into the wider world.

  • Article
  • Article

Book design, dissected

| Gwendolyn Smith

Gwen Smith talks to art director Peter Dyer about imagery, colour, type and staying true to the pages within.

  • Book extract
  • Book extract

How to stay together while keeping apart

| Vivek H MurthyKathleen Arundell

Vivek Murthy explores how we can keep physically distant while staying emotionally connected.

  • Book extract
  • Book extract

You know the drill

| Richard Barnett

Richard Barnett opens wide the true meaning of a healthy mouth.

  • Book extract
  • Book extract

Sockets and stumps

| Dr Emily Mayhew

Historian Emily Mayhew has met soldiers who have survived the seemingly unsurvivable. Here, she explores the part prosthetics play in the process of military rehabilitation.

  • Article
  • Article

A reflection on art in a mental hospital

| Beth Hopkins

Artist Beth Hopkins explains how she used her experience of researching the Adamson Collection to create an embroidered wall hanging.

  • Article
  • Article

Who was Audrey Amiss?

| Elena Carter

Elena Carter introduces the vast collection left behind by artist Audrey Amiss, who documented her life in astonishing detail.

  • Article
  • Article

Printing the body

| Julia Nurse

The 18th century saw multiple technical developments in both printing and medicine. Colourful collaborations ensued – to the benefit of growing ranks of medical students.

  • Interview
  • Interview

Inside the mind of Somewhere in Between’s curator, Laurie Britton Newell

| Gwendolyn Smith

The exhibition's curator shares her secrets.

  • Photo story
  • Photo story

Beautiful bedding and how to die well

| Poppy NashSteven Pocock

When you are unwell, your bed can be both a refuge and a prison. Discover how artist Poppy Nash created a bed-centred artwork inspired by her own chronic illness and depictions of ill health from history.

  • Article
  • Article

Mary Bishop and the surveillant gaze

| Rose RuaneMary Bishop

Writer and artist Rose Ruane explores the paintings of Mary Bishop, created during a 30-year stay in a psychiatric hospital, which speak of constant medical surveillance and censorious self-examination.

  • Article
  • Article

In the tracks of Derek Jarman’s tears

| E K MyersonBenjamin GilbertGeraint Lewis

Researcher E K Myerson shares her moving encounters with the personal papers of artist and filmmaker Derek Jarman.

  • Article
  • Article

How homesickness inspires art

| Gail TolleyMaria Rivans

Gail Tolley looks at homesickness through the eyes of three contemporary artists and finds powerful new themes of identity and connection.

  • Article
  • Article

The politics and power of audio-description

| Jamie HaleKirsten IrvingChristopher Andreou

Traditional theatre audio-description often lets down artists and audiences. But, done well, it has the potential to be a force for creativity as well as accessibility.

  • Article
  • Article

Notes upon arrival

| Bhanu KapilMaïa Walcott

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.

  • Article
  • Article

Chemotherapy-day drawings

| Clare Smith

Undergoing treatment for bowel cancer, artist Clare Smith produced around 70 abstract drawings while sitting in the chemotherapy chair. She reflects on how creativity can bring respite in a crisis.

  • Article
  • Article

Cataloguing Audrey

| Elena Carter

Work begins in earnest to restore order to the archive Audrey Amiss kept of the minutest happenings in her life. Like detectives, the archivists search for subtle clues to chronology in the mass of materials.

  • Article
  • Article

Why the 1918 Spanish flu defied both memory and imagination

| Mark Honigsbaum

The Black Death, AIDS and Ebola outbreaks are part of our collective cultural memory, but the Spanish flu outbreak has not been.

  • Article
  • Article

Mapping the body

These intricate anatomical drawings show how Ayurveda practitioners have explored the human body and how it works.

  • Article
  • Article

Genius spirits and the mystery of creative inspiration

| Anna Faherty

Once upon a time, we all had a genius.

  • Article
  • Article

Audrey in the world

| Elena Carter

As the collection is fully catalogued, the archive is opened up to the public. A feature film about Audrey premieres, and Audrey gets her own Wikipedia page, so people can learn about her. For archivist Elena, it’s time to step back.

  • Article
  • Article

Giving shape to sound

| Jamie HaleSamuel DoreKirsten IrvingThomas S G Farnetti

Fascinated by language and how music feels, Deaf rapper Signkid creates tracks that give shape to sound. He discusses inspiration, access and performing for all audiences, D/deaf and hearing alike.

  • Article
  • Article

Rocking psychiatry with R D Laing

| Adrian ChapmanSteven Pocock

Turn on, tune in, drop out. Discover how six rock songs from the 1960s and 1970s link the ideas of famous therapist R D Laing with the era’s counterculture.

  • Article
  • Article

Ken’s ten: looking back at ten years of Wellcome Collection

| Ken Arnold

Wellcome Collection founder Ken Arnold picks his favourite exhibits.

  • Article
  • Article

Rejecting shame and a decade of change

| Jess Thom

Jess Thom spent years trying to ignore and suppress the tics of Tourette’s syndrome. Read what happened when she decided to celebrate them instead.