All About London: Wellcome Collection - This December: 'Tis the season of Joy and Tranquillity

Friday 26 November 2021

Wellcome Collection - This December: 'Tis the season of Joy and Tranquillity

A free museum and library exploring health and human experience

Photograph of a dark exhibition gallery space showing 4 separate large free-standing walls on which photographic prints of large forest scenes are displayed, filling the entire walls. The prints show tall tree trunks, green leaf canopy cover and ground level ferns. The ceiling of the gallery space is in complete darkness. The floor of the space is a textured brown carpet. Each print of the forest seems to almost glow in the space.

Until 9 Jan 2022

Free | Exhibition | Part of On Happiness season

Escape the holiday frenzy and seek respite in our Tranquillity exhibition, featuring Chrystel Lebas' installation Regarding Forests. Monumental photographs of forests are accompanied by a soundscape of noises of birds, monkeys, wind and rivers, complemented by a scent of petrichor evoking the smell of a forest floor after it has rained. Translating the sublime power of these ancient forests to the gallery, Lebas’s installation creates a sense of awe, and reminds us of our reliance on the natural world.

Wellcome Collection will close to the public from 18:00 on Wednesday 22 December and re-open to visitors at 10:00 on Tuesday 4 January 2022.

Book your free ticket now

Events & exhibitions

Four abstract bodies in yellow, orange, pink and blue are arched to form a rainbow in front of a yellow background. The figures are paper cut outs.

Hello Happiness podcast: Joy

The Wellcome Collection podcast

Free | Online | Available on iTunes, Spotify and all podcast platforms

In this new episode in the series Hello Happiness, Bidisha explores joy, from the psychology of our earliest laughs to the pleasures of comedy and food. Featuring historian of emotions Thomas Dixon, comedian Daliso Chaponda, developmental psychologist Caspar Addyman, musician Sola, performance artist Travis Alabanza and Kemi Akinola, the founder of Be Enriched.

A photo of a dark-skinned black woman in her mid-30’s. Her eyes look directly at us. Her mid-length dreadlocked hair is tied back from her face. She wears a bright, sunflower yellow suit jacket. Her eyebrows are tinted bright yellow and her eyes are highlighted with red which blushes at the outer corners of her eyes and tops of her cheeks.

Viscera

Thu 2 Dec 2021–Sun 20 Feb 2022

Free | Installation | Creative captions | Audio description

In the Forum we're screening a new artist film by Bhebhe&Davies that explores how we conceal, perform and harness our emotions. Choreography, sound and text interrogate the slippery nature of how we express our feelings, with a particular focus on rage and its limits. The film is shaped by activist, anti-racist and feminist writing, gestures drawn from competitive sports, and visceral human experiences.

CYP x CALLY meet Wellcome Collection

Video | Online

Listen to an intimate conversation led by Alain ‘Fusion’ Clapham with Isoa Tupua, Armani Malone and Antonette Bowen. Two of the young participants from Copenhagen Youth Project met at Wellcome Collection to discuss their first impressions of the installation, and the space they’re in: they live nearby, but never thought before to come into the building.

Gift a Wellcome Collection book this Christmas

Books

Browse our books to find the perfect Christmas gift for the non-fiction lover in your life - from the must-read feminist manifesto by Eimear McBride, to Kate Mosse's inspiring account of caring; Dr Gavin Francis on the frontlines of the Covid crisis, to a bestselling guide to the science of contagion by Adam Kucharski.

Archive engraving from 1792 showing a lady and a woman of lower rank duelling with pistols. They are facing each other, pistols drawn and pointing at each other. Their other arm and hand are raised. They are both wearing long full skirts and hats. Under the drawing is the title, 'The Petticoat Duellists'. The engraving is placed just above a grey concrete textured background such that a small shadow is cast.

Duelling doctors

Article | Online

Although doctors and surgeons are usually associated with healing and the ethics of the Hippocratic Oath, the history of duelling, especially with pistols, provides fascinating instances of their involvement in organised combat. Whether it involved aiding in the organisation of a duel or pulling the trigger as a combatant, medical professionals were deeply entangled in the story of this ritualised form of violence.

Engraved illustration of a figure standing atop a plinth in the countryside, holding a bunch of grapes, surrounded by reveling dancers.

The grape cure

In pictures | Online

When we bring someone in hospital a bunch of grapes, we don't expect them to work a miraculous cure. But several times in history, wondrous healing powers have been attributed to the humble grape. Follow the history from ancient Greece, to early modern treatises on why we should drink wine instead of water, to early 20th-century luxury health resorts where nothing but grapes were served.

Discover more online

Stories

Black and white photographic portrait of a close-up of a man's face. He is holding up a smartphone close to his eyes such that it obscures his nose and mouth. His eyes are directed towards the phone's screen. His fingers are visible holding the phone on either side and the camera lenses of the phone appear in the bottom right corner of the image. The man's face and hands are spot lit in a small circle of light. He is standing against a black background which means he is surrounded by darkness.

A history of assistive vision

Serial

When Alex Lee discovered that an inherited condition was causing sight loss, his life changed profoundly. He also began to explore the array of different assistive technologies available to help blind and visually impaired people read, communicate and find their way around. In this six-part series, Alex dives into the history of assistive technology, from long before computers to the latest AI.

View all Stories

Beyond Wellcome

Image of a painting of Purple flowers with Green leaves by artist, Rudi Patterson.

RUDI PATTERSON: (re)Visions in Colour

Exhibition | Black Cultural Archives | Thu 18 Nov 2021-Sat 26 Feb 2022 | Thu-Sat 11.30-17.00

Black Cultural Archives present an exhibition of works for sale by former supporter and friend of BCA, Rudi Patterson in conjunction with the Rudi Patterson Estate. The exhibition features paintings, ceramics, and oral history excerpts from Patterson’s archive (held at BCA), including newly digitised material — providing further insight into the life and work of this extraordinary self-taught artist.

Section of the first page of the handwritten manuscript / autobiography of George King

Fighting Talk: One Boy's Journey from Abandonment to Trafalgar

Exhibition | Foundling Museum | Until Sun 27 Feb 2022

| £10.50 (Concessions £8.25)

The Battle of Trafalgar, it might sound familiar. What won’t is the voice of eighteenth-century foundling and sailor George King, whose first-hand account is being shared for the first time.