Health & Art

This day we had visited the Wellcome Collection. This is a collection of literature and art that connects to the theme of health. The Wellcome collection looks and health holistically. It is about anything and everything in the world because everything connects to health. Whether this is physical health or mental health. It was opened in 2007. It was inspired by Henry Wellcome and built four years before his death. Sir Wellcome was a pharmacist who believed in the connections between health and everything being very strong and as important as medicine.

I have always believed in a holistic way of teaching and learning. I am glad to have come to this gallery. I had no idea something like this would be around. It is just not a gallery about health it explores so many different subjects on life. When I walked in and saw everything I thought it all was strange and looked weird but that is the point of the collection. I love to make connections with anything and everything affects everything else in your life. I have believed that if you would like something to improve in your life it is good to look and different things in your life that you could try to improve on more. I believe that the Wellcome Collection has made me feel like I am not alone in this thinking and I know that there are others who share this same belief.

One exhibition that we had taken a look at together as a class was the Bedlam Exhibition. The exhibition is named Bedlam: Asylum and Beyond. I thought this was funny because I thought maybe it was a play on words. That it was a pun for Bath Body and Beyond. I am not sure if this is popular in the U.K. but it is a store in the U.S. and the name of the exhibition had just made me think of the store. Bedlam which was its nickname was originally named Bethlehem was built in the 13-century. It was located at what now is Liverpool station for 400 years after relocating in1676 to Moorfields. Its purpose was to originally help the sick to get well again. The mentally ill were put in the hospital. A lot of the patients were alone and poor. Torture and neglect were used to try to cure people of what they were going through or experiencing.

There was one piece that had stood out to me in the whole building that I had really loved. It was a piece by the artist Chris Drury. He is an environmental artist. His theme of his projects has to do with using nature as the material. It is named Rockie Karakoram (Chrisdrury.co.uk). It looks like mountains with a transparent orange sun but it is actually echocardiograms. They are used to look at the structure of the heart and test for any heart ailments. He has other similar works like Rockie Karakoram. I have found his website and blog and enjoy looking at his other projects like in Antarctica.

I had enjoyed his painting because it was beautiful but also because it had reminded me of when I had gone Scotland a week before I had come to the Wellcome Collection. One of the first things that I had done was the hike up King Arthur’s Seat. This is quite a huge amount in Edinburgh. I was very close to the top just around 25 meters but I had slipped and lost my balance. The people that I had gone with took a different path than me so I'm there dangling on the side of this huge mound holding on to grass. If I had let go I would had slid down some rock beds that would have caused me to go faster and further down the mound. It took me a while but I slowly made it to a path below me. The feeling had my heart racing the whole time and I am glad that I am saved. That is the piece of art means something to me