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31 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.

  • 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

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

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

Daria Martin on ‘Sensorium Tests’ and ‘At the Threshold’

| Daria Martin
  • 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.

  • 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

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.

  • 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.

  • Article
  • Article

Can isolation lead to manipulation?

| Charlie WilliamsSarah MarksDaniel Pick

Military-funded researchers wanted to know if isolation techniques could facilitate brainwashing. One neuroscientist suggested that it might improve our own control over our minds.

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  • 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.

  • Article
  • Article

An animated almanac for the modern world

| Thomas Coleman

Discover why Thomas Coleman wanted to make a medieval folding almanac relevant to the modern world and see the film for yourself.

  • 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

The eye of darshan

| Adrian Plau

The Hindu concept of darshan means “divine revelation”, but it’s also about the multilayered ways in which we see the world around us. Adrian Plau explains how one image in a Panjabi manuscript relates to darshan, and why it’s so striking.

  • Article
  • Article

Silent threat

| Vanessa PetersonMichael Salu

As Vanessa Peterson recovered from a frighteningly serious illness, she wondered whether it was linked to air quality. For many communities, she found, pollution is a political issue.

  • Article
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Conflicted and confused about lithium

| Laura Grace SimpkinsMatjaž Krivic

Covid-19 left Laura Grace Simpkins out of work and living back with her parents. She now had time to restart her research into her medication, but was she mad to continue?

  • Article
  • Article

Louis Wain’s cryptic cats

| Bryony Benge-Abbott

Once famous for his quirky cat illustrations, today Louis Wain is often portrayed as a ‘psychotic’ artist whose illness can be mapped out through his drawings. Here Bryony Benge-Abbott takes a more rounded view.

  • Article
  • Article

Building a dream in the garden suburbs

| Emily Sargent

In the late 19th century a ‘garden suburb’ promised a retreat from London’s dirt and crowds. See how this new concept was developed to appeal to the health concerns of the literary classes.

  • Article
  • Article

John Walter on ‘Alien Sex Club’

| John Walter

I’m a painter, but I make worlds.

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  • Article

Illuminated manuscripts, illuminating medicines

| Cheryl Porter

From rare bugs to exorbitantly priced plant parts, find out more about the artistic and medical uses of pigments from the past.

  • Article
  • Article

How electromagnetic therapy inspired me

| Sarah James

Poet Sarah James explores how repetitive transcranial magnetic stimulation treated her depression and influenced her art.

  • Article
  • Article

How do advertisers get inside our heads?

| Charlie WilliamsSarah MarksDaniel Pick

Vance Packard exposed techniques of mass manipulation developed by 1950s advertisers that are still at work today in the age of big data.

  • Article
  • Article

Can our minds be taken hostage?

| Charlie WilliamsSarah MarksDaniel Pick

It’s not unusual for captives to end up feeling strong bonds with their captors. But is it a matter of submission or survival?