Travelling Apothecary Rolls into Town
Wellcome Collection’s Travelling Apothecary Event At London Design Festival Tackles

Modern Day Ailments Through Design

A Selection Of The Travelling Apothecary Stalls:

• Need a healthy dose of jealousy to spice up your love life?
  Product designer Bjorn Franke will offer a service to those who don’t have the time or energy for an affair, to inspire jealousy in their partners. A specially designed tool-kit will be used to make marks on people and clothes that simulate the evidence of an affair. From carpet burns, bondage marks, love bites, scratches and bruises through to props such as perfume, lipstick and hair, “doctors” and “nurses” will be on hand to apply the jealousy-inspiring evidence.
  
  
• Let the Virgin Maria help protect your data
  Luis Esiava has developed a lucky charm, USB Maria, which promises to protect data and end computer crashes. “Oh Maria Keep My Data Safe” is a USB ‘virgin’ that protects your computer by warding off unpredictable and mysterious events that may affect data.
  
  
  
• Shake hands with the Electric Lady and be cured of IKEAmania
  Is your life blighted by the shame of IKEAmania? Do you crave cheap chairs? Seek solace in simple sofas? Or dream of bookcases called Billy? Crispin Jones offers you the opportunity for a fresh start. His patented failsafe diagnostic machine, the Electric Lady cure, will shock you into forgetting your vile desires quickly and permanently.
  
  
• Make junk mail work for you
  Email now dominates our lives to such an extent that the only post most of us receive is bills and junk mail. Communications design agency Thomas Matthews will be offering visitors a solution to this modern affliction by turning junk mail into environmentally friendly envelopes. Pens, paper and playful stickers will prompt visitors to write a thank you note, a politically charged memo, an indignant complaint or a slushy love letter.
  
  
• Reverse damage done to your technology frazzled brain
  Alexandre Bettler will be selling his specially concocted herbal drink which promises to cure Network Addiction and restore damage to brain cells caused by microwaves from mobile phones, computers, radios and other necessities of modern life. The tonic is available in different colours and quantities depending upon your level of addiction.
  
  
• Salve you recycling conscience with the one and only PigDog
  Daniel Charny has developed a cure for Litter Guilt. Modern pressure to recycle is almost intolerable. To counteract the growing pile of plastic in the hallway, Daniel offers visitors to his stall the opportunity to invest in the ultimate recycling mascot, the golden pigdog, made from a reconditioned milk bottle, with the profits going to an environmental charity. Visitors will also be offered the opportunity to make their own pigdog out of pre-cut containers.
  
  
• Home makeovers are the work of the Devil!
  Let the Reverend William Warren and his amazing Prints of Whales band revive your shallow decorating desires! They will be entertaining you throughout the day with their special brand of traditional bluegrass music. In between songs, Rev. Warren will be preaching against the evil ways of such false gods as design magazine stylists and home make over shows. As an alternative to these empty and meaningless gestures, Rev. Warren will recommend one of his own products – Shelves For Life – designed to last a lifetime and later when your time has come, the shelves can be reassembled as a coffin.
  
  
• Happily Ever After's DIRTY SECRET vaccination
  Is your celebrity obsession becoming unmanageable? Do you find yourself glued to 'Heat' magazine when you only popped out for a pint of milk? Stop it now! Come along to HEA's health centre and get yourself vaccinated – after a short, sharp shock and some intensive art therapy they'll supply you with a charm to ward of the effects of celebrityitis forever.
  
  

• Dr Lohmann and Professor Grundmann’s Sweet Tooth Extraction
  Are you addicted to sweets and can't control the cravings? German specialists Dr. Julia Lohmann and Professor Gero Grundmann have found the root cause of your affliction. They will cure you instantly, non-invasively and painlessly, using the latest technological breakthrough from their secluded laboratory in the Harz Mountains.
  

Lisa Jamieson, Events Manager, said: “Many of the developments and innovations designed to make our life easier can be the very ones that increase our stress levels and decrease our sense of wellbeing. The Travelling Apothecary event is a light hearted, design led, way of engaging people about modern notions of wellbeing, illness and cure. It is an innovative and experimental way to engage the public with medicine and health”.

Clare Matterson, Wellcome Trust, Project Director, Wellcome Collection, said: “We are proud to be part of London Design Festival and provide young designers with the opportunity to consider medicine and health in the context of their work by demonstrating creative solutions to 21st century ills. We look forward to hosting similarly creative and engaging public events in Wellcome Collection when it opens in June 2007.”

The Travelling Apothecary was inspired by the early history of the sale of medicines and the Wellcome Trust’s founder, Sir Henry Wellcome. Sir Henry, born in Wisconsin in 1853, started to earn his fortune as a travelling medical salesman promoting medical developments such as the compressed pill or tablet.

During his lifetime, Sir Henry collected over one million objects linked to human health and wellbeing through the ages. Wellcome Collection will combine objects from Sir Henry’s collection together with modern exhibits and artwork in a contemporary and experimental way to challenge and inspire visitors to consider issues of science, health and human identity through the ages. It is the first venue of its kind in the country and forms a significant cultural landmark for London and the UK. Wellcome Collection is targeted at all those over 14 years and entry will be free.

Kallaway: www.kallaway.co.uk (Public Relations, Wellcome Collection)

Anna Cusden 020 7221 7883 anna.cusden@kallaway.co.uk

Will Kallaway 020 7221 7883 will.kallaway@kallaway.co.uk

Wellcome Collection Website: www.wellcomecollection.org.uk.
Full public information on Wellcome Collection and the Travelling Apothecary event.

About Wellcome Collection (www.wellcomecollection.org.uk)

Sir Henry Wellcome (1853 - 1936), founder of the Wellcome Trust, was a pharmacist, entrepreneur, philanthropist and collector. His passionate interest in medicine and its history, as well as ethnography and anthropology, led him to gather more than a million objects from across the globe. In 1932 the Wellcome Building at 183 Euston Road was built to his specification and housed the majority of his collections.

Wellcome Collection is a £30m transformation of this building into a major new visitor destination, the first of its kind in the UK. Wellcome Collection, opening summer 2007, explores the connections between medicine, life and art using a contemporary and experimental approach. Audiences from all backgrounds and interests will be inspired to consider afresh issues of wellbeing and human identity.

Wellcome Collection will comprise three galleries of permanent and temporary exhibitions totalling 1350m2, a flexible events space, the Wellcome Library, conference facilities, a café, bookshop and members’ club. The building will also house the Wellcome Trust Centre for the History of Medicine (part of University College London). There will be two permanent exhibitions: ‘Medicine Man’, originally held at the British Museum, will showcase a mix of 900 fascinating objects from Sir Henry’s original collection. ‘Medicine Now’ will look at contemporary medical topics through the eyes of scientists, artists and popular culture, illustrating developments in aspects of these topics in the era after Sir Henry’s death. The largest gallery (650m2) will host temporary exhibitions and shows, presenting newly commissioned works and thematic exhibitions built around topics of medical, cultural and ethical significance.

Exhibits range from the bizarre to the beautiful, the ancient to the futuristic. Examples include a used guillotine blade; Napoleon’s toothbrush; 19th century amputation saws, (with extra wide gaps between teeth to prevent clogging) and a 14th Century Peruvian mummy. Contemporary works include a DNA sequencing robot, a sculpture exploring HIV by Mark Quinn and shocking 2m high sculpture of obesity by John Isaacs to name a few. All are linked to wellbeing or identity and combine to form a new approach to engaging the public in medical science and human health.

A lively programme of public events will expand on exhibition themes, bringing together experts from the worlds of arts, science and medicine to explore the current issues and ancient mysteries of human wellbeing

183 Euston Road is the site of the Wellcome Trust’s former headquarters. Hopkins Architects is managing the building’s transformation.

Pricing and target age range
Wellcome Collection will be free to enter. Most events will be free, although Wellcome Collection reserves the right to charge. Wellcome Collection is principally aimed at adults and young people over 14 years old. Resources for children will be available.

Wellcome Library (http://library.wellcome.ac.uk)

The Wellcome Library is one of the world’s major resources for the study of medical history. Over 600,000 books and journals, an extensive range of manuscripts, archives, films, and more than 100,000 pictures are available for study. The Wellcome Library will be housed in Wellcome Collection. It is currently in a temporary location at 210 Euston Road London, NW1 2BE.

Past exhibitions (www.wellcome.ac.uk/pastexhibitions)

During the past decade the Wellcome Trust has organised more than 20 exhibitions covering a vast range of biomedical topics, from jellyfish to autism, metamorphosis to pain. In 2003, Medicine Man at the British Museum (a showcase of roughly 700 objects from Henry Wellcome’s original collection of more than one million) attracted approximately 200,000 visits. Between 2002 and 2005 the Trust presented a series of five major exhibitions at the Science Museum, culminating with Future Face in late 2004 which attracted 120,000 visits. The Trust also hosted numerous exhibitions in its TwoTen Gallery and funded major projects such as the Wellcome Trust Gallery (home to the Living and Dying exhibition) at the British Museum.

Wellcome Trust (www.wellcome.ac.uk)

The Wellcome Trust, an independent charity, is one of the world's leading biomedical research charities and is the UK's largest non-governmental source of funds for biomedical research. The Wellcome Trust has an asset base of over £11bn, spends over £400 million a year and funds 3,500 researchers in 44 countries. The Wellcome Trust’s mission is to foster and promote research with the aim of improving human and animal health. Wellcome Trust funding has supported a number of major successes including:

• Sequencing of the human genome
  
• Development of the antimalarial drug artemisinin
  
• Pioneering cognitive behavioural therapies for psychological disorders
  
• Establishing the UK Biobank
  
• Building the Wellcome Wing at the Science Museum.

The Wellcome Trust’s registered charity number is 210183.

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