The Body

Only open since June, the Wellcome Collection is a lovely mix of exhibition spaces, library, bookshop, and café where the public is invited to "consider what it means to be human" under the motto "Medicine. Life. Art." An engaging multidisciplinary approach to bringing considerations of medicine and science to the public, the venue is well worth a visit. Their current temporary exhibit on the heart is fascinating, bringing together artistic representations of the heart, scientific samples and images, and discussions of where art and science meet. Their permanent collection is also interesting--for example, consider this book, with its tiny font and repetitive letters seeming like a nightmare of a reading assignment:In fact, it's part of an impressive bookcase containing an almost complete copy of the human genetic sequence.
Nearby are some sheep wool and droppings--not standard exhibition-space fare! Of course, they're not just from any sheep:
Robin Blackledge's Barber DNA had an interesting premise, drawing attention to the origin of the barbershop pole (originally a surgeon's sign of bloodied rags which would eventually become wrapped around their pole with help from the wind) and its resemblance to the DNA helix.
Completely fascinating, almost to the point of being unbelievable, was this display of a "plastinated body slice with a frontal cut."
With bodily fluids replaced with plastics, this image of the human body seems almost like a textbook drawing at first, but its colourful appearance is actually quite jarring once you think about what you're really looking at in that glass case! If all your wanderings through considerations of the human body have made you a bit hungry, the café is light and airy, with many tempting treats as well as an Antony Gormley figure keeping watch from the ceiling,

just in case you forget that you're in a building that's all about the human body!