Touch, feel, smell, cut, drill or taste 'Flesh'
Materials Library presents 'Flesh' at Wellcome Collection
Friday 9 November 18.30–22.00
1 November 2007
A unique event for the curious - where you can touch, feel, smell, cut, drill and even taste flesh - is coming to London's latest cultural venue, Wellcome Collection, for one night only on Friday 9 November.
A plastic surgeon, a body building champion, a wax-effigy maker, a surgical nurse, a material scientist and a life-drawing tutor will all be at hand to explore flesh in all its forms as presented in ten specially created interactive tables.
Try your hand at life drawing, investigate the preserving table with everything from mummification to plastination, and experiment with different tools and materials. This alternative Friday night late event will enable participants to explore flesh in all its forms and its connections with the exhibits of 'Medicine Man' and 'Medicine Now' in Wellcome Collection.
'Flesh' has been put together by the world-renowned Materials Library - a team consisting of an engineer, an artist and a designer who are based at King's College London. The Library is a physical archive of more than 800 materials and is growing every month, specialising in new and advanced prototype materials collected from research labs all round the world. The idea of the Library reflects one of the main themes of Wellcome Collection - to provide an intellectual and sensual intersection between the arts and sciences.
Clare Matterson, Director of Medicine, Society and History at the Wellcome Trust, comments: "This event will provide a series of thought-provoking encounters with something familiar to us all - flesh. Audiences should be prepared to be intrigued, surprised and even unsettled by these interactive stations distributed in the relaxed, informal setting of Wellcome Collections' galleries."
Zoe Laughlin of Materials Library says: "How often do we consider flesh as a material, with properties and behaviours that make it truly wondrous stuff? This event is a celebration of the material: flesh in all its glorious forms, from bacon and biceps to figs and fat."
Join Eleanor Crook - wax effigy maker - who will be demonstrating how she gets skin-like surfaces on wax; discussing the different waxes that are available; revealing tools and pigments; and demonstrating how to punch in the hairs.
Plastic surgeon Mr Brian Morgan FRCS, Fellow of the Royal College of Surgeons, and surgical nurse Rachel Wilson will be taking skin suturing sessions using needles, thread and hog's hair.
Admire the physical attributes of Troy Brown, British Body Building Champion 2007, as he flexes his muscles Schwarzenegger-style and reveals what protein shakes he consumes regularly.
Taste cold and cured meats such as smoked ham, Parma ham and pastrami alongside Gunter Von Hargen's plastinated body slice at a table with University College London Hospital biomedical scientist Clare Shugg.
'Flesh' is a special 'all-building spectacle' event that uses all the spaces within Wellcome Collection in a creative, unusual and inspiring way. Visitors will be able to drop-in throughout the evening for the event itself, as well as have the chance to browse the bookshop and sit and relax in the café.
Mike Findlay
Media Officer
Wellcome Trust
T +44 (0)20 7611 8612
E
m.findlay@wellcome.ac.uk
Wellcome Collection
Since opening to the public on 21 June this year,
Wellcome Collection has attracted 70 000 visitors through its doors. Wellcome Collection, the Wellcome Trust's former headquarters on London's Euston Road, has been redesigned by Hopkins Architects to become a new £30 million venue. Free to all, Wellcome Collection explores the connections between medicine, life and art in the past, present and future. Wellcome Collection houses over 12 000 exhibits across three galleries and uses contemporary and experimental techniques to challenge and inspire visitors to consider issues of science, health and human identity through the ages. Wellcome Collection also includes a 'Forum' for public events, the world famous Wellcome Library, a members' club, a conference centre, café and bookshop. The building also houses the Wellcome Trust Centre for the History of Medicine at UCL.
The Wellcome Trust is the largest charity in the UK. It funds innovative biomedical research, in the UK and internationally, spending around £500 million each year to support the brightest scientists with the best ideas. The Wellcome Trust supports public debate about biomedical research and its impact on health and wellbeing.
The Materials Library
Materials Library is a group that explores the beauty, strangeness and science of matter. Comprising materials scientist Mark Miodownik, artist Zoe Laughlin and designer Martin Conreen, the group also runs a physical archive that specialises in new and advanced materials collected from research labs all around the world. It is a collection of some of the most extraordinary materials on Earth, such as: a chunk of aerogel from NASA, which, at 99.8 per cent air, is the world's lightest solid and is used to collect space dust; a tile of aluminium nitride that conducts the heat from one's hand efficiently enough to cut ice like butter; and a vial of a totally inert fluorocarbon liquid into which one can place any electronic equipment while continuing to operate it, without any ill-effects. These materials are gathered together not only for scientific interest, but also for their ability to fire the imagination and advance conceptualisation.
Materials Library has worked on numerous projects at Tate Modern, ranging from talks, events, performed exhibits and a podcast that explored art and science.
Find out more and download the podcast