Seize the Day and attend Wellcome Collection’s late event
26 October 2012
If you knew you were going to die tomorrow, what would you choose to do today? How would you like to be remembered after you die? And what would you like to achieve before you go? Ponder these questions while enjoying stimulating talks, enchanting stories from around the world and activities throughout the galleries.
Enjoy a drink while listening to a Dixieland jazz band, then decorate a coffin, pick up some dance steps in our special 'last dance' class and design your ideal fantasy funeral.
The evening will include:
- activities in the galleries from The Natural Death Centre
- New Orleans jazz funeral tunes from the Silk Street Jazz band
- stories of God, the devil and death from the Crick Crack Club
- tea dance classes from former ballet dancer and teacher Glen Snowden
- ‘Immortal Dream’, a theatrical encounter from Contemporary Vintage.
There will also be a range of speakers:
- Joanna Ebenstein, founder of the Morbid Anatomy blog and library, on facing up to death through art
- David Spiegelhalter, Winton Professor for the Public Understanding of Risk, University of Cambridge, on the statistics of death
- Frank Swain, author of 'How to Make a Zombie: The real life (and death) science of reanimation and mind control' (out next spring).
Join us to embrace the inevitability of death and celebrate while we still can with Seize the Day at Wellcome Collection from 19.00 to 23.00 on Friday 2 November. Entry is free. Drop in any time. Talks will be ticketed, and tickets will be available on the night from 19.00.
Image: ‘Dance of Death’, Walter Sauer. Credit: Wellcome Images, courtesy of the Richard Harris Collection.
Contact
Lalage Smyth
Media Officer
T 020 7611 8726
E
l.smyth@wellcome.ac.uk
Tim Morley
Senior Media Officer
T 020 7611 8612
E
t.morley@wellcome.ac.uk
Notes for editors
'Death: A Self-Portrait, The Richard Harris Collection' runs from 15 November 2012 to 28 February 2013 at Wellcome Collection, 183 Euston Road, NW1 2BE. A full events programme will accompany the exhibition, along with a beautifully designed keepsake publication, featuring a selection of images from the Richard Harris Collection.
Read the press release about the exhibition.
Wellcome Collection is a free visitor destination for the incurably curious. Located at 183 Euston Road, London, Wellcome Collection explores the connections between medicine, life and art in the past, present and future. The building comprises three gallery spaces, a public events programme, the Wellcome Library, a café, a bookshop, conference facilities and a members' club.
Wellcome Collection is part of the Wellcome Trust, a global charitable foundation dedicated to achieving extraordinary improvements in human and animal health. It supports the brightest minds in biomedical research and the medical humanities. The Trust’s breadth of support includes public engagement, education and the application of research to improve health. It is independent of both political and commercial interests.
