Wellcome to The Heart

2007

An explanted heart; Francis Wells, 2006. A donor heart is prepared to be transplanted into the chest cavity of the recipient © Wellcome Collection 2007

Walking back from a meeting at the London Centre of Nanotechnology, I decided to pop into the Wellcome Collection current (and captivating) exhibition The Heart.  I was taken up by the MRI of a 12 year old heart pumping and the video of an open heart surgery.    

Human Genome Shelf and "I can not help the way I feel", 2003 by John Isaacs (British) © Wellcome Collection 2007

I wondered upstairs to the permanent collection.   A shelf full of thick books with our human genome made me chuckle, as did Dolly the Sheep pellets and fur.  Behind the headless blob of body, I came across Eat22, where the artist recorded everything she ate for a whole year…a whopping 1640 images.  I lost my appetite.   

Eat 22, Ellie Harrison, © Wellcome Collection 2007

Having been ravished by mosquitoes, I took a liking to a map made with (dead) mosquitoes.  An interesting work included a sensorial sculpture showing brain activity patterns in response to the senses. 

Detail from SENSE, 2001-03 by Annie Cattrell (Scottish), Annie Cattrell (Scottish), working with scientists: Drs Steve Smith, Morten Kringelback and Mark Lythgoe  © Wellcome Collection 2007