Yes, that's right, we won the battle and took Boney's tooth brush hostage, and its on display in the Wellcome Collection, among all manner of other similarly fascinating items, forceps, a mummy, teeth, masturbation prevention devices, medical teaching tools, masks. You name it. My personal favourites were the shrunken head (how did it get so small?!) and the snuff box made out of the entire head of a ram.
Its not all gore (although a lot of it is) there is some art which literally made my jaw drop. A photograph of the all inclusive nervous system amazed me, as well as a map of the world made from mosquitos stiched together. There are some utterly stunning photographs from the actual collection, and some highly unusual paintings. The sheer quanity of artefacts is impressive in its self, apparently Henry Wellcome collected enough torture chairs to fill an entire room of the science museum. The display of glass bottles-the sorts of which were quite clearly ordinary back then, and just arent used today-made me realise that even the most everyday of objects are infact highly developped. Nothing just comes into this world, and nothing is truly ordinary until we take it for granted, nothing stays put, development happens... Just go and see it before i over indulge in meaningless musings.
The identity exhibition is great too. I walked out thinking who the hell am I?! And does it even matter? Cause, i really dont know. I live in london, and I am trying to change my perspectives on that at the moment. All sorts of questions of androgyny, sexuality, race, occupation and sociology are thrown up, and getting inside the little boxes and momentarily being involved in the life and identity of someone different is exciting. "give yourself a mark out of ten" is the final question on the survey. Isnt that hard?
I ventured to the cafe on the quest for the perfect coffee. Alas it was only meagre, its noisy in there and the milk was a bit burnt, but it came in a satisfying mug, and i felt fulfilled sitting in the window by a woman with clogs on and every apple device under the sun watching her editting her photographs and taking some notes in my moleskin. I think coffee and cafes are better in Cambridge and Croatia, and I should stop wasting money on finding good ones in london.
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