Wellcome uses cookies.

Read our policy
Wellcome Collection homepage
All
Stories
Images
Catalogue
Events
83 results
  • Interview
  • Interview

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

| Gwendolyn Smith

The exhibition's curator shares her secrets.

  • Article
  • Article

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

| Ken Arnold

Wellcome Collection founder Ken Arnold picks his favourite exhibits.

  • Podcast
  • Podcast

Tranquillity

Moya Lothian-McLean asks: when was the last time you felt utterly tranquil?

  • Interview
  • Interview

Inside the mind of Ayurvedic Man’s curator, Bárbara Rodriguez Muñoz

| Gwendolyn Smith

The choices a curator makes – what goes in? what stays out? why? – are often as fascinating as the exhibition itself.

  • Interview
  • Interview

Inside the minds of A R Hopwood and Honor Beddard

| Gwendolyn SmithThomas S G Farnetti

The curators of ‘Smoke and Mirrors’ reveal the stories behind the exhibits, and the intriguing truths the show confronts us with.

  • Article
  • Article

An insider’s view of Play Well

| Gwendolyn SmithSteven Pocock

Curator Shamita Sharmacharja offers behind-the-scenes insights into an exhibition about the serious business of play.

  • Interview
  • Interview

Meet the climate emergency

| Gwendolyn SmithThomas S G Farnetti

Find out what led Yinka Shonibare to create the compelling artwork ‘Refugee Astronaut’.

  • Article
  • Article

Photographs as evidence of gender identity and sexuality

| Dr Jana Funke

Intriguing photographs from sexologists’ archives suggest they could have helped people explore their gender identity and sexuality.

  • Article
  • Article

Witches

| Helen FosterEast Midlands Oral History ArchiveAsma Istwani

Many of the women persecuted as witches in the 16th-century “witch craze” were over 50 and exhibited signs of menopause. Helen Foster suggests that the stigma of the wicked witch still affects older women and how they deal with menopause.

  • Article
  • Article

The Transvengers as foe of the paradigm of heteronormativity

| Jason Barker

Jason Barker writes about his experience of working with a group of young trans people and describes the process of developing the theory which underlies The Transvengers comic, and society, today.

  • In pictures
  • In pictures

Dear Tooth Fairy

Once upon a time, people dreamed up the Tooth Fairy and, ever since, children have had lots of questions to ask her in their letters.

  • Article
  • Article

Dazzling luxury

| Ruth Garde

As the 20th century dawned, both elite and masses basked in the marvellous and unearthly glow of the new electric illumination.

  • Article
  • Article

Native Americans through the 19th-century lens

| Allison C Meier

The stories behind Rinehart's photographs may not be as black and white as they first appear.

  • Article
  • Article

The birth of the public museum

| Elissavet Ntoulia

The first public museums evolved from wealthy collectors’ cabinets of curiosities and were quickly recognised as useful vehicles for culture.

  • Interview
  • Interview

Inside the minds of Teeth’s two curators, James Peto and Emily Scott-Dearing

| Gwendolyn Smith

James Peto and Emily Scott-Dearing talk visceral reactions, their interactions and object extractions.

  • Interview
  • Interview

Inside the mind of Living with Buildings curator, Emily Sargent

| Gwendolyn Smith

Curator Emily Sargent reveals why council estates and a Finnish TB sanatorium were chosen for the ‘Living with Buildings’ exhibition.

  • Article
  • Article

Paris Morgue and a public spectacle of death

| Taryn Cain

Known as the “only free theatre in Paris”, La Morgue was a popular place for the public to view cadavers on display.

  • Article
  • Article

The painter, the psychiatrist and a fashion for hysteria

| Natasha Ruiz-GómezKathleen Arundell

A dramatic painting brings a famous event in medical history alive. But it also tells a tale about the health preoccupations of the time.

  • Interview
  • Interview

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

| Gwendolyn SmithThomas S G Farnetti

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

  • Article
  • Article

The building as tool of healing

| Emily Sargent

When we’re ill, it’s not just medical care that helps to treat us. Architects have discovered that the right environment can play an important part too.

  • Article
  • Article

“Life and the universe change our plans”

| Lil SullivanThomas S G Farnetti

Artist Lil Sullivan returns to the printmaking workshop for the first time after her stroke, and uses broken and discarded everyday objects to create art.

  • Article
  • Article

The enduring myth of the mad genius

| Anna Faherty

There’s a fine line to tread between creativity and psychosis.

  • Article
  • Article

Hysteria

| Helen FosterEast Midlands Oral History ArchiveAsma Istwani

Mental health and emotional symptoms are common during menopause, but a long history of dismissing sufferers as 'hysterical women', at the mercy of their emotions has made it much harder to discuss these issues and to get support.

  • Article
  • Article

Performance art, frozen in time

| Elissavet NtouliaKathleen Arundell

For over a year, live performance art with an audience present has been largely impossible. But still images continue to allow artists in this sphere to inspire audiences at home.

  • Article
  • Article

Dynamo on the past, present and future of magic

| Kate WilkinsonThomas S G Farnetti

The magician takes a tour and shares stories of history and inspiration.