Making Nature
Various Artists
The Wellcome Collection
1 DECEMBER 2016 - 21 MAY 2017
Free
The Wellcome Collection opposite Euston station was a new gallery for me to try. Exploring the connections between medicine, life and art, in the past, present and future. The Wellcome Collection is a fascinating place which allows the curious to satiate their mind and discover new things.
This particular exhibition aims to explore what we think, feel and value about other species. It started with historical case studies of the 'unnatural' - what classes as human, what classes as animal and the anomalies within these two categories. It moved through the commercial sphere of taxidermy and zoos into the scientific, where animals are used as an aid to treat human disease and illness.
What particularly stood out to me in the exhibition was firstly, a film by Phillip Warnell, titled 'Ming of Harlem'. The film explores the concept of keeping a wild animal in the domestic sphere. It is based on New Yorker Antoine Yates, who, in 2003 had to go to an ER after he was mauled by his pet tiger. It turned out that he had been keeping the tiger, called Ming, for years in a high-rise apartment where no pets were allowed. He also had an alligator. The film shows the character Ming (now played by a different tiger) prowling around the apartment, understandably both confused and curious. It is fascinating to watch the domestic sphere invaded by such a wild animal, and we are left with a certain empathy for the Tiger, wishing for it to return to it's natural habitat.
Secondly, was a poster by Arnrid Banniza Johnston, advertising London zoo in 1930. It depicts a role reversal: members of the animal kingdom gawping at humankind enclosed in cages. I felt that this work and the Warnell film display the inequality of the animal kingdom, along with how we entrap and isolate animals from their natural way of life. Basically, it showed how crap and unethical humankind can be sometimes, and highlights the disjunction of justice when it comes to consequence and reaction. For example - original Ming/more recently the Gorilla Harambe both displayed violence towards humans, however, these dangerous consequences may never have occurred without our prior injustice towards them.
Finally, there was a room which showed the science of animals and how through developments and genetic modification we are using animals in a way to benefit us physically. Along one wall there were small scientific test tube samples of different animals, which we have in the past, used to our advantage. Amongst these was a African clawed frog - commonly used as a pregnancy test for women in the 1920's. Women would have to inject some of their urine into the female frogs hind leg, and if the female frog laid eggs within 24 hours the human woman would therefore have successfully conceived. I personally found this fascinating, along with a miniscule rat foetus whose cartilage and bone had been distinguished by a dye colouring one red and the other blue.
Overall, the exhibition did raise a lot of ethical questions and asked us to challenge our currently held views on the treatment of animals. I feel that the exhibition could have been more extensive and contained more works like the 3 above, as these were really the only memorable parts. Despite this, it's definitely worth a visit, and the Wellcome Collection has so much more to offer in itself if you find yourself caught short.
OVERALL RATING: ****
https://wellcomecollection.org/MakingNature
