A recent post on the Museum Mutterings blog highlights some interesting interpretative work which has taken place in the Wellcome Collection’s Medicine Man Gallery.
The gallery presents a global history of the study of health and medicine, examining religious and ritual healing alongside scientific developments. The interventions, part of the museum’s decolonisation work, are by artists, writers and curators and aim to amplify the stories and voices which have not been told sufficiently (or at all) before. These include a Nigerian amulet made from animal horn and a human jaw bone, and the ‘Black Madonna’ painting owned by Wellcome himself and explored in this article by the Wellcome Collection’s Daniela Vasco.
As the Wellcome Collection’s website states:
Colonial power shaped how the collection was put together and understood. You can experience a series of interventions in the exhibition in which artists and writers respond to an exhibit of their choice. Addressing the collection’s colonial legacies, their responses will highlight human stories that previous histories of health and medicine have hidden or ignored.
Religious material from various cultures and faiths around the world rightly feature as part of this process.
The Museum Mutterings post includes more examples and images of the interventions so please do head across there for a look.
Main image: copyright The Wellcome Collection
Religion & Collections 