Miss Elaineous: MISS ELAINEOUS VISITS THE WELLCOME COLLECTION...

The Wellcome Collection was founded in 2007 and is in Euston, London. It explores "ideas about the connections between medicine, life and art" and aims to challenge how we all think and feel about health.
It was a long time ago when I visited, but time constraints and prioritising my MA course have meant that I've had to stick my blogging straight onto the back burner. It seems strange, given that it was bitterly cold last week, to think that we visited here during the halcyon days of the boiling hot summer that we had, peaking with the hottest day EVER on my birthday, at the end of July. Our trip to central London would have been a couple of days beforehand.
Let's start with a Vain Old Tart photo, and here's me posing on the twisty-turny stairs...

Smoke and Mirrors: The Psychology of Magic is, sadly, over now, having run from between April and September this year.

It consisted of three areas, named The Medium, Misdirection and Mentalism.

We start with The Medium, which is basically an exploration of how Victorians liked their supernatural. There is a Ouija board at the front of the cabinet and I was disappointed that I didn't get a good enough close-up photo to publish. I only have myself to blame for that.

Victorian mediums produced paraffin wax hands supposedly modelled around materialised "spirit hands". I just wished they'd included a section dedicated to Pepper's ghost, which is an illusion technique popularised in 1862 and used in amusement parks and museums. It consists of carefully placed and managed sheets of glass.

Carter the Great was just one of many performers to do a "spirit cabinet" act...

I took photos of these pictures purely because I liked them. They were posters advertising Maskelyne and Cook, who had an astonishing 31 year run at the Egyptian Hall in Piccadilly...

...And it was only after uploading them that I realised that that wasn't actually allowed. Oops! But what do they actually think I'm going to do? Blow them up and sell them on eBay as originals? I don't think so. People are too precious about these things.

This toolkit belonged to Eric Dingwall, who travelled the world investigating mediums for the Society of Psychical Research...

Doctored photographs...

Misdirection, and here's Harry Houdini's Chinese Water Torture Cell poster...

The robe belonged to Margery Crandon...

...She was a spiritualist who claimed to channel her dead brother, who left his fingerprints in wax (far right). She was challenged, when it was found that the prints belonged to her dentist!

Another "illegal" photo, dedicated to illusion...

Magic kits which would have been on sale to the public...

This gorilla head was worn by Derren Brown in his show Mind Reader.

Tommy Cooper was a clever magician who always made me laugh...

Tommy Cooper's fez...

Magic wands...

Paul Daniels used this box in his magic show, sawing his assistant (later to become his wife) Debbie McGee "in half".

Mentalism explored the artistry of Derren Brown, but some of these exhibits were more interactive than artistic.

Hexen 2039 by Suzanne Treister (2006).

We returned back to the entrance hall, where this body is just hanging around...😉

I took this photo just because I found the stairs impressive.

I found this exhibition incredibly moving, as it looks at what happens when the body becomes seriously ill, and really makes you think about what's important...

SuperDean asked me this question and (after an ill-thought-out answer or two) I answered that underemployment is one thing I'd really love to change...

There is a chill-out zone with lovely, large teddy bears...💗

There's nothing stopping you use these fellas (or should that be gals?) as chairs- or you can always give them a bear hug...😀

It's a very large gallery...

Jo Spence's record of her battle with cancer was really moving...

This section forced you to focus on what's important in life. For me, it's my health. Money can't buy any of us that. The best things in life are free.

Our final section was the fixed exhibition of Henry Wellcome's collection, called Medicine Man. Wellcome was a pharmaceutical entrepreneur.

Bottles...

These chairs include a birthing chair and a chair well-equipped with blades for performances by mediums. Nice...

Masks, including Samurai, Sri Lankan and also a death mask...

Operating instruments...

More. These give me the heebie-jeebies just looking at them...

Examining instruments. Looking at these isn't doing me much good, either...

False limbs...

Extremity casts...

I enjoyed looking at this picture, but details of all the artworks were contained in little booklets- which were all in use. I can find no reference to it on the web. Oh well, I now have an excuse to go back sorted...