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The freedom to provoke

Jamie Hale talks to performer and director Emma Selwyn about the joy of creating work that celebrates, rather than suppresses, autistic behaviours.

Giving shape to sound

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.

Audrey in the world

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.

Titans in the landscape

Doctor in the house

A house is not always a home – sometimes it’s impermanent, impersonal. But other aspects of the itinerant life can be the source of a sense of home.

Seeking the hoarder in literature

As she strives to deepen her understanding of hoarding, Georgie Evans turns to books. But depictions of hoards and hoarders are few and often sparse, except in one surprising place.

A wheelchair in the world

Five years ago, Jan Grue, author of ‘I Live a Life Like Yours’, became a father. A wheelchair user since age eight, Grue explores how parenthood helped him reimagine his relationship with his wheelchair.

Cracks that let the light in

Rai Waddingham lives with voices other people cannot hear. Here she describes how she has come to accept, understand and calm her voices, and to acknowledge her strength.

A bad atmosphere in the Balkans

The citizens of Belgrade, one of the most polluted cities in Europe, are finally pushing back against the polluters, whose activities they’ve been encouraged to accept.

Disability in the post-pandemic world

Disabled people have suffered more than most during Covid-19, but there is still a chance to build a kinder society. Dolly Sen explores whether we will come together, or allow more brutal disparities to develop in the worsening recession.

In search of the ‘nature cure’

Under the competing pressures of modern life, many of us succumb to mental ill health. Samantha Walton explores why so-called ‘nature cures’ don’t help, and how the living world can actually help us.

Revelations of blindness in the Middle Ages

Medieval texts, from Islamic medical treatises to Christian books of miracles, reveal surprisingly varied and complex experiences of blindness. But when medieval scholar Jude Seal experienced visual impairment themselves, they gained an even deeper understanding of the lives they were studying.

Natural eating in Jamaica and the Caribbean

Riaz Phillips is passionate about the Jamaican food he grew up with and plant-based Caribbean food he came to later, like roti, baiganee and vegan stews and curries. Here he explores the origins and surging popularity of these natural ‘health foods’.

Confession as therapy in the Middle Ages

The line between confession and counselling has been blurred for centuries.

Self-obsessing in the age of selfies

The tiny, joyful spark of a social media ‘like’ can lead to a damaging obsession. Find out how far people will go when their phone addiction gets the upper hand.

Sniffing glue and Scientology in the DrugScope archive

Academics on hallucinogenics, kids sniffing glue, and Scientologists recruiting drug users keen to kick the habit. Delve into Wellcome’s recently acquired DrugScope archive.

Going viral in the online anti-vaccine wars

‘Anti-vaxxers’ are taking their message online using powerful images as well as words. But is the pro campaigners’ response any better?

Graphic battles in pharmacy

James Morison’s campaign against the medical establishment inspired a wave of caricatures mocking his quack medicine.

Behind the scenes: Drawing the Bombay plague

Ranjit Kandalgaonkar discusses his commission for 'Ayurvedic Man: Encounters with Indian medicine'.

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

The exhibition's curator shares her secrets.

The healing power of the physic garden

Having experienced the healing power of plants and gardens, Iona Glen goes in search of present-day “physic gardens” and their origins in history.

Reversing the psychiatric gaze

Nineteenth-century psychiatrists were keen to categorise their patients’ illnesses reductively – by their physical appearance. But we can see a far more complex picture of mental distress, revealed by those patients able to express their inner worlds in art.

The doctor who challenged the unicorn myth

Our era of fake news and medical misinformation is nothing new. Estelle Paranque relays the thrusts and parries of a 440-year-old row over a magical cure-all, the unicorn horn.

A history of twins in science

For thousands of years, twins have been a source of fascination in mythology, religion and the arts. Since the 19th century, they have also been the subject of scientific study and experimentation.

Mapping the body

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