All About London: Wellcome Collection - This November: What does it mean to be human, now? and exploring homesickness

Sunday 1 November 2020

Wellcome Collection - This November: What does it mean to be human, now? and exploring homesickness

A free museum and library exploring health and human experience

A photograph of two people and our Being Human gallery. In the foreground a person is walking up the stairs into the gallery. In the background, a man is looking at The Transparent Woman exhibit. Both are wearing masks and you can see the one-way system markings on the floor.

Our doors have reopened with a programme that asks: What does it mean to be human, now? Throughout history, pandemics have been powerful engines of change, exposing inequalities in the distribution of health and wealth. With in-building installations, digital content and events, join us as we explore how we can care for ourselves and for each other in the context of extraordinary cultural, social and political shifts.

Ana Botella

Head of Public Programmes

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What's on

Standardized Patient

Opening 10 Nov - 28 Feb 2021
(Part of What does is mean to be human, now?)

Free installation

What is the role of empathy in healthcare? This installation by US artist Kerry Tribe explores how simulated patients are used to train medical students. Actors perform as patients with different personal histories, preparing the students for the human connection that forms a critical part of any care relationship.

A photograph taken in a dark forest with the trees creating a lot of shadows.

The Den

Opening 10 Nov - 28 Feb 2021

(Part of What does it mean to be human, now?)

Free installation

Artist Sop explores alternative strategies for self-care during the Covid-19 pandemic through a series of meditative sound works. As someone forced to shield during the pandemic, they narrate the process of building a secret den in a cemetery. The den provides a space for respite: a structure of protection and safety.

Three people in the Being Human gallery interacting with the exhibit. They are all wearing masks and the person closest to the camera is plugging in their own headphones.

What to expect on your visit

Video

We're delighted that we can welcome you back into the building. Here in this short video, you can see some of the changes we've made to help everyone have a happy and safe visit. It's still free to visit the museum and library, you just need to choose a time and book a ticket before you arrive. For more information and to book your ticket, visit our website.

A photograph of novelist Elif Shafak taken among the greenery in a park.

How stories bring us together

(Part of Inside Our Books)

Book | Article

Ours is an age of contagious anxiety. In How to Stay Sane in an Age of Division, Booker Prize-nominated novelist and activist Elif Shafak makes an uplifting plea for conscious optimism. In this extract she considers how hard it is to be heard in our divided world, but how listening to each other can nurture empathy.

An etching of St James's Church from 1820. There is livestock in the foreground.

Euston's lost burial ground

(Part of Stories)

In pictures

St James’s Gardens, a former burial ground next to London’s Euston Station, closed in 2017 for work on the new HS2 rail line. Removing the tens of thousands of bodies buried on the site required the largest exhumation in British history. Discover some of the stories behind the now lost graveyard and the bodies it held.

Anatomy of Touch

(Part of The Touch Test)

Radio series

Touch is a crucial part of our lives. It’s also a sense that has taken on a new resonance during the pandemic, now that we haven’t hugged friends or family for more than half a year. In January we launched The Touch Test in collaboration with BBC Radio 4 to find out more about this under-investigated sense. Discover the findings in this results programme.

Discover more online

Stories

A collaged photograph of a scene. A young girl is crying in the foreground with a bag. She looks towards a beautiful landscape of trees, mountains and various wildlife.

The heart of homesickness

Series

Taking in epidemics of nostalgia in the 18th century, NASA scientists looking at homesick astronauts, and generations of homesickness in refugee camps, travel writer Gail Tolley considers why home – and leaving it – is a far more complex experience than is often understood.

A collaged photograph. A man shedding a tear looks off to the distance. There are dogs, flowers and birds collaged on his head.

The complex longing for home

Part 1

A collaged photograph with an explorer in the foreground shedding a tear. In the background there are mountains, trees and a crowd of doctors wearing white coats.

The hidden history of homesickness

Part 2

A collaged photograph of a man leaning against a bottle which reads 'Alcohol'. In the background there is a temple and pink blossom.

How homesickness inspires art

Part 3

View all stories

Beyond Wellcome

A black and white photograph of a DJ at an event.

The Beautiful Octopus Club Festival

Free | Online arts festival | Throughout November

Join Heart n Soul’s The Beautiful Octopus Club Festival. Featuring DJ club nights, live music, art, baking, radio and more!

A close-up image showing the heat map of a face. The word 'Health' is written on top.

Health (Documents of Contemporary Art)

Free | Whitechapel Gallery in association with Wellcome Collection

Thu 12 Nov, 17:00-18:00

Join an event celebrating the latest DoCA release, Health, edited by Bárbara Rodríguez Muñoz. Hear from artists about how health intersects with sexuality, ethnicity, gender, class and coloniality.