Medicine Now

We took advantage of a strike day to take friends to the Wellcome Collection,

in particular the Medicine Now gallery.

Medicine Now explores ideas about science from the perspective of

scientists, doctors and patients.

My perspective on medicine could only come from a patient perspective,
but I had in my care, four budding scientists.

It's a gallery with a hands-on trolley...

...and staff to set you tasks.

Like building a skeleton.

How well do you know your bones?

"Meet Fiona & Steve"

Yep, they look anatomically correct.

It's not all science.

Some exhibits are art, responses to the human body, like

Palindrome by William Cobbing 2003. 

It takes a while for the penny to drop,

to work out why it doesn't quite look right.

"Oh yeah!"

 Next, internal organs,

getting them in the right places.

It was the liver that surprised me.

"I never knew the liver was so huge",

you can't tell from this photo.

"You can actually remove 90% of the liver and it will still function."

"Imagine losing your big toe.

Do you think you could balance?"

We practise lifting our big toes off the ground and trying to balance.

It's not easy. We need our big toes, they're important.

"Even in ancient Egypt they made prosthetic big toes."

"Out of what?"

"Leather and paper mainly, apparently they were comfortable."

Then we were introduced to a shrunken head.

A replica!

We still weren't that keen to touch it,

especially after hearing how they're made.

"Made for ceremonial purposes, the skull is removed, the head shrinks and it would stink."

"When finished with, they are discarded."

If you can't bear the sight of internal organs,

look away now.

At 70 years old, she donated her body, sliced for research and teaching.

I am intrigued as to what happened to her neck.

All her fluids have been replaced with plastic,

so unlike the shrunken head, I hope she doesn't smell.

Now you can see how big the liver is.

The Wellcome Collection encourage you to get involved.

Pick a word or two from the front of the card,

draw or write about them,

then add the card to the feedback wall.

I promise you, 'Unicorn' was on the front of the card.

I'm going to truly try and follow this advice from an insightful ten year old.

Top advice for a healthy life.

Even at a distance, if you don't get the chance to visit,

you can still get involved, via social media.

Curious Conversations is a participatory project.

Each week the Wellcome Collection poses a new question on Twitter and facebook.

Inspired by the answers they receive, Rob Bidder creates a new drawing.

Have a look at the Curious Questions page on their website here.

Such a great way of getting involved. #CuriousConversations

There are some inspiring answers.

A good day out, back to school tomorrow

with a little more insight into the human body.

The Wellcome Collection's opening hours vary,

check out their website here.

Free admission.

Update

The Wellcome Collection have just been in touch to explain the 'unicorn'.

If you'd like to read why 'unicorn' is on the front of the cards above and is the most popular word picked by visitors.

Click on & read this "The Power of Unicorns"

HMS Belfast a War Ship

 I have looked at Life on Board HMS Belfast in a previous post, here.

Food, laundry, spare-time, sleep and shopping.

But HMS Belfast is a war ship,

commissioned in 1939,

at the beginning of the second World War.

My kids have studied the second world war,

in both primary and secondary school.

Would this ship connect to the history they had learnt at school?

What would our kids make of war?

What did war at sea look like?

There are guns.

These guns, if fired, would hit Scratchwood motorway services,

the southernmost services on the M1, 14 miles away.

Deep below deck,

shells are stored, ready to be sent to the gun turrets.

 Each 6" shell weighs as much as two small children.

We could demonstrate that weight, sometimes it's useful having twins.

Steering the ship was done from a safe position, below deck,

but you still had to wear your anti-flash gloves and hoods

to protect you in the event of fire.

War is strategic, it involves planning,

team work where every man had a specific job.

We worked together to locate aircraft parts,

studying the map, plotting journeys and moving ships and helicopters into position.

 Ooops!

We did it!

 It was important to take orders rather than 'selfies'.

If you didn't follow orders, and you misbehaved,

you could end up in the punishment cells

being shouted at and having to unwind rope.

Having been caught drunk on duty,

this guy is too busy throwing up into a bucket to unwind any more rope.

The top misdemeanours were being drunk, absent without leave and fighting. 

For some reason the punishment cells appealed,

we fought to try out the wooden pillow.

 Now moored on the Thames by the City of London

HMS Belfast doesn't look so big.

It is though.
It's two football pitches long and nine decks high,
they can all be explored, many are below the waterline.

All those different greys.

That's called dazzle paint, designed to confuse the enemy when it is spotted at sea.

It does a pretty good camouflage job in the City too.

As for war,

secondary school history has given them some context for the life of HMS Belfast,

the Second World War and later conflicts.

I learnt a lot from the older two.

For our primary school children, HMS Belfast was appreciated more for being a ship,

what it did and how it worked.

It is perhaps difficult to comprehend the realities of war for the crew on HMS Belfast,

at sea, in action.

I'll leave you with words from archive footage, heard in the Gun Turret Experience,

spoken by former crew who had fired those guns.

Food for thought.

"...we wanted to get the ships, not the crew..."

At that point, I gulped.

HMS Belfast is open everyday.

Occasionally there are still veterans on board to meet and hear their stories.

Details on their website, here.

I recommend the children's audio tour. It was the one we used for our family,

aged eleven to adult.

Form Through Colour

Ever walked around an exhibition

working out which piece you would take home if you were allowed?

Well in Form Through Colour at Somerset House

those daydreams can become a reality.

Price on application.

Christopher Farr with over twenty-five years of experience in rug design

has created rugs, based on the paintings, prints and textile studies of Anni Albers,

Josef Albers and Gary Hume.

They are for sale.

Anni and Josef Albers worked at the Bauhaus, Germany, in the 1920s and 30s.

Along with Farr's contemporary rugs,

you can see plans, ideas and documents from their life and work.

Anni was very much influenced by textiles from Latin America.

She visited over fourteen times to learn fom,

"my great teachers, the weavers of ancient Peru".

Josef taught drawing and colour.

His colour course 'Interaction of Colour', exploring, learning and teaching about colour

was published and used world-wide.

It wasn't so long ago that most art books were published in black and white.

Christopher Farr has worked with Gary Hume to

create huge rugs based on his life-size paintings of hospital doors. 

Like Anni and Josef Alber's work, these rugs explore colour and shape.

The shapes geometric, but his use of colour is more subtle. 

Colour can be affected, not only by dye, but also by different rug making techniques.

There is weaving...

...and there is knotting.

These are knotted by hand!

You do wonder why all these rugs are on the walls.

But it does reflect the wishes of Anni, who made "pictoral weavings",

with no practical purpose.

Ah, a rug I could use.

Then there's the obligatory museum selfie.

This sort of took itself.

Standing in front of Hume's, Green Door, 1988,

we found ourselves framed by the gallery doors.

Subtle colour changes, non-geometric shapes.

Form Through Colour is on at Somerset House, East Wing, until 31st August 2014.

Details on their website, here.

Admission free.

Rugs, price on application.

Return of the Rudeboy

Planning to go to the Return of the Rudeboy exhibition at Somerset House,

this was the first time I had ever worried about

what I was going to wear to see an exhibition about

"style, swagger and significance."

It didn't take long for me to reject the idea that I was never going to match, let alone compete with the Rudeboys, so I might as well go as myself, dressed in what I usually wear.

But I did have that haircut,

the one on the far right.
Quite a few years ago.

Return of the Rudeboy is not a retrospective, looking back at the Rudeboys of the 80s,

but contemporary photos of Rudeboy style today. 

With its roots in Reggae,

photos in vintage suitcases are reminders of the journey and cultural heritage of the Rudeboy, from the West Indies.

These guys know how to dress.

From top...

...to toe.

If you visit feeling less than your best, in need of a bit of grooming,

this barber's shop will be open at selected times for

a bit of a trim or perhaps a new style.

That's what I call participatory.

Top visitor engagement.

How we respond to exhibitions can be very personal.

Things capturing our imagination.

For me, it was the textures I saw.

In the fabrics...

...and colours,

...and close ups.

An exhibition about Rudeboy style would of course, have to include music.

Every person photographed was asked to put together a playlist to be played in the exhibition.

It's not all photography...

 ...or men.

The lovely Pauline Black.

On My Radio!

Return of the Rudeboy celebrates the now, but referenced the 80s.

It took me back to Ska and 2 Tone. Wish I still had the badges.

I came home and made my own playlist,

my music from the early 80s.

I had all these tracks on 7" vinyl,

and if I didn't,

I spent Thursday nights with a tape-recorder held against the TV speaker,

the pause button pressed, ready to be released, telling my brothers to "shut-up", waiting for the exact moment when the Top of the Pops presenter stopped talking and the music started.

That's how playlists were made in the old days.

If you're interested...

Too Much Too Young -The Specials

Tears of a Clown - The Beat

Mirror in the Bathroom - The Beat

On My Radio - Selecter

Ghost Town - The Specials

Lip Up Fatty - Bad Manners

One Step Beyond - Madness

Return of the Rudeboy is on at Somerset House until 25 August

Free admission

Details on the website, here.