Wellcome Collection Announces Temporary Exhibition: The Heart

Wellcome Collection opening in June

Leonardo da Vinci Drawings, Andy Warhol Prints, Live Heart Surgery, Sacred Heart Imagery Never Before Seen In Europe, Egyptian Book of the Dead, Foundling Cards, Life-Sized Venal Anatomy Tables

- The Heart book announced; writers include Jonathan Miller -

The Heart, an exhibition exploring the medical and cultural significance of the body's most precious organ, featuring exhibits from the Egyptian Book of the Dead, Leonardo da Vinci and Andy Warhol, through to live heart surgery, will be the first major exhibition in the new £30m Wellcome Collection, opening 21 June. [ADD] Wellcome Collection (www.wellcomecollection.org), is at 183 Euston Rd, London, NW1 2BE. Entrance will be free.

Press previews and opening press conference will be announced soon.

Wellcome Collection, a major new public venue from the Wellcome Trust, will explore the relationships between medicine, life and art through permanent and temporary exhibitions and events, to provide radical insights into the human condition. Entry will be free.

Wellcome Collection is the first venue of its kind in the country and forms a significant cultural landmark for London and the UK. The nine-storey building will house at least 1500 exhibits in temporary and permanent exhibitions across three galleries totalling 1350 m2: Medicine Man, Medicine Now and a temporary exhibition space, which will host The Heart. The world-famous Wellcome Library, also housed in Wellcome Collection, opens on 16 April - ahead of the three galleries.

The Heart brings together contemporary and historic artefacts from across the world to form an exhibition that traces the history of our medical understanding of the heart and examines its extraordinary symbolic and cultural significance.

The exhibition follows the development of man's understanding of the heart: the theories of the Greek surgeon Galen; dissection drawings of the heart by Leonardo da Vinci; mid-17th-century anatomical tables from Padua onto which entire human venous and arterial systems have been varnished; the work of William Harvey, the physician who in 1620 published his discoveries of how the heart pumps blood around the body; through to a modern perfusion machine that can take over the function of the heart and lungs during heart surgery; and recent films that deal with the ethical and personal dilemmas faced in the age of heart transplantation.

Leading heart surgeon Francis Wells will perform an open-heart operation at Papworth Hospital, video-linked to a public audience in Wellcome Collection's auditorium, as part of the launch events programme.

The powerful cultural symbolism of the heart is illustrated through a range of ancient and contemporary artefacts, such as: the ancient Egyptian Book of the Dead, which shows the heart being weighed against the 'feather of truth' in order to determine the deceased's suitability for the afterlife; Aztec sacrificial knives and an offertory vessel used for offering up the heart of a sacrificial victim to replenish the power of the sun; and a rich selection of Christian Sacred Heart imagery, including paintings from Mexico never before seen in Europe and 19th-century hearts playing cards cut in half, so that one half could accompany an orphan given up to a Foundling Hospital while the child's mother retained the other half so that she might be able to reclaim her child in later life.

The Heart also looks at the stories of individuals such as Thomas Hardy and David Livingstone, whose hearts were removed from their bodies after death in order to be buried in a place of particular emotional significance.

Visitors will be able to compare the scale and capacity of the human heart with the hearts of other animals. A 1.75-metre-high sperm whale's heart is displayed for comparison with those of other animals - from an elephant to a hummingbird. The whale's heart beats as slowly as 10 times a minute while the hummingbird's can achieve an extraordinary 1200 beats a minute when hovering.

The Heart has been curated by James Peto and Emily Jo Sargent.

The Heart book
To coincide with this pioneering exhibition, the Wellcome Trust and Yale University Press are publishing The Heart, a richly illustrated 250-page hardback book of nine essays exploring the medical and cultural importance of the heart. Writers include Jonathan Miller, Louisa Young, and Mark Bracewell. The Heart will be available nationwide from May 2007 and sold at Wellcome Collection when it opens.

The Heart is one of three exhibitions in Wellcome Collection:

	Medicine Man will showcase a mix of 900 fascinating objects collected by Wellcome Trust founder Sir Henry Wellcome. The exhibition is a new version of the hugely successful Medicine Man show originally presented at the British Museum in 2003, attended by over 200,000 people.
	Medicine Now will examine contemporary medical topics through the eyes of scientists, artists and popular culture, illustrating developments in aspects of these areas in the era after Sir Henry's death.
	Temporary exhibitions: the largest gallery (650 m2) will host temporary shows - opening with The Heart - presenting newly commissioned works and thematic exhibitions built around topics of medical, cultural and ethical significance.

Wellcome Library
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 public study.

Clare Matterson, Director, Wellcome Collection said: "The Heart is a ground-breaking exhibition and dramatically highlights Wellcome Collection's aims to bring together medicine, art and life in way that provides unparalleled insights into the human condition.

"Sir Henry Wellcome, the Trust's founder, understood the complexity and social relevance of medical knowledge and Wellcome Collection builds on his vision, linking the medical research funded by the Trust to the broader social and cultural interests of the public."

James Peto, Curator, The Heart, said: "As well as being at the centre of all things anatomical the heart has always been key to the question of the relationship between body and soul. Today, forty years after the first heart transplant, our understanding of where human character, and indeed life itself, is located has shifted firmly from the heart to the brain. Yet we remain reluctant to let go of the belief that the role of the heart is somehow of much greater significance than that of a bio-mechanical pump. Drawing on material from everyday life and from the history of art as much as the history of science, the exhibition is an opportunity to try to understand the heart's anatomical and its symbolic power."

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Wellcome Collection: www.wellcomecollection.org
Wellcome Collection Marketing Team
Rachel Collins 020 7611 8289 r.collins@wellcome.ac.uk

Public Information
Wellcome Collection Public Information line: 020 7611 2222

About Wellcome Collection
Wellcome Collection (www.wellcomecollection.org)
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 June 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 1350 m2, a flexible events space, the Wellcome Library, a Conference Centre, a café, a bookshop and a 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 (650 m2) will host temporary exhibitions and shows, presenting newly commissioned works and thematic exhibitions built around topics of medical, cultural and ethical significance. 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 is 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.

The Wellcome Trust
The Wellcome Trust is the largest charity in the UK and the second largest medical research charity in the world. 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.

Wellcome Trust funding has supported a number of major successes, including:

• sequencing the human genome
• establishing the UK Biobank
• development of the antimalarial drug Artemisinin
• pioneering cognitive behavioural therapies for psychological disorders
• building the Wellcome Wing at the Science Museum.

The Wellcome Trust is a charity registered in England, no. 210183.

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