As the summer sunshine tempts us outdoors, have a look at this varied selection of Wellcome-supported events (both indoors and out!) and take your pick for July. We’ve got everything from theatre in the back of a moving ambulance, to talks about how the immune system can fight against cancer. Let your eyes peruse our listings and then get out and experience the events themselves.
Films and performances
The Man Whose Mind Exploded – Picture House cinemas – out 1st July
Robbed by anterograde amnesia of his capacity to create new memories, Drako Zarharzar lives almost entirely in the present. Adorning every surface in his flat are countless mementos and scribbled-on pieces of paper, from which he pieces together his daily existence. The film, funded by a People Award, will be screened in Picture House cinemas across the UK on 1st July, including Stratford London, Norwich, and Edinburgh.
The Kindness of Strangers – Southwark Playhouse – 1st-12th July
Every 15 seconds in the UK, someone dials 999. Elite teams of professionals are trained to deal with a huge spectrum of human trauma. Paramedics provide a 24-hour service as a first point of contact for the NHS. The Kindness of Strangers is a celebration of their stories. In a unique theatrical experience, The Kindness of Strangers puts audience members in the position of paramedics on their first day on the job. They will travel in the back of a moving ambulance around the city, making decisions about routes, methods of care and ultimately taking responsibility for a service that in these austere times is under immense pressure.
Talks
Breast Cancer Risk: Facts, Fictions, and the Future – UCL – 3rd July
From abortion to aerosols, and breastfeeding to broccoli, there are a bewildering number of claims about what can increase or decrease a person’s risk of breast cancer. A panel of experts will separate the fact and the fiction, and discuss how epigenetics might change the future of breast cancer. The event is organised by the Progress Education Trust. To reserve your free place, RSVP to sstarr@progress.org.uk.
AMD Day – Westminster – 5th July
This one-day event brings together charities, researchers, healthcare professionals and people with Age-Related Macular Degeneration (AMD) to interact and hear first-hand the progress being made in world-leading research into gene and stem cell therapies to treat different forms of macular degeneration and be able to discuss the future of research.
Packed Lunch: Immune to Cancer – Wellcome Collection, London – 23rd July, 1-2pm (speech to text)
Cancer and cancer treatment can weaken the immune system, but the immune system might also be a powerful tool in treating cancer. Immunobiologist Adrian Hayday will be in conversation about his latest research on a novel form of immune response in this new era of cancer therapies.
Exhibitions
Live Science – Science Museum – until 4th July
Can you find your way out of a virtual maze? You’ll be shown the route once, but then it’s up to you to make it out on your own! Help researchers from Sheffield University and the Institute of Education to find out how we navigate new spaces and retrace unfamiliar routes in a project where real scientists come into the Science Museum to carry out their research using Museum visitors as volunteers.
Dead Mother – Danielle Arnaud, Kennington – until 6th July
This exhibition, supported by a Small Arts Award, looks at the nature of the long-term effects of a mother’s death in adolescence. A series of film and photographic outcomes have been created based upon interviews with women at different stages in their lives who have a shared experience of their own mother’s death.
6th July 4pm – Anne Brodie will be in conversation with her sister GP Dr Catriona Brodie and Curator Dr Caterina Albano.
The Heart & Lung Repair Shop – Kings Mall, Hammersmith – 7th-20th July
This summer an empty retail unit in Hammersmith’s Kings Mall will be temporarily transformed into The Heart & Lung Repair Shop. Researchers from Imperial College London have collaborated with designers and artists, to create a visually captivating space with interactive multi-sensory experiences which showcase bioengineered organs, broken hearts that can heal themselves and amazing ways to stop cells from ageing.
Lunchtime Science Sessions – 7th-18th July, 1-2pm: short talks and demos from top scientists.
Singing for Breathing Workshops – 8th & 15th July, 11am-12pm: Improve your lung health with relaxation techniques and vocal exercises.
The Future of Heart and Lung Repair Debates – 10th & 17th July, 6-7.30pm:Some of the top scientists from the National Heart and Lung Institute discuss cutting edge treatments such as stem cell therapies and bioengineered organs.
An Idiosyncratic A to Z of the Human Condition – Wellcome Collection, London – until 12th October
From Acts of Faith to Zoonoses, we present An Idiosyncratic A to Z of the Human Condition. Using Henry Wellcome’s strange and wonderful collection of objects (from medical artefacts and paintings to photography and sculpture), we invite you to consider: what is the human condition?
Free exhibition that warmly invites visitor interaction – leave your own human traces in the gallery itself or in the virtual world: On Twitter or Instagram by tagging with #HumanCondition
Making Colour – National Gallery – until 7th September
From lapis lazuli and cobalt blue, to dazzling gold and silver – travel through the story of colour with the first exhibition of its kind in the UK. Learn about the surprising materials used to create pigments and the incredible journeys made by artists in their pursuit of new hues. The exhibition is supported by a People Award and is complemented by an interactive display that demonstrates how we perceive and register colour.
Festivals
Latitude Festival – Suffolk – 17th-20th July
A series of debates will look at this year’s festival theme of Secrets & Lies through the lens of science and the human body and mind, discussing everything from smart drugs to the pathology of lying, guilty feelings and false memory.
Are You Who You Think You Are? – 18th July, 2-3pm: Professor Paul Dolan will lead an interactive session allowing you to focus in on your mistaken projections, desires and beliefs and understand what they are really about.
Giving the Right Signals – Just what is it you are trying to say? – 18th July, 4.30-6.30pm: What is the ‘truth’ about lying? Professor Sophie Scott, Forensic Psychologist Kerry Daynes and Tom Ziessen explore how we can differentiate truth from lies. There will also be a video booth in the Faraway Forest where you can answer a difficult question with a truth or a lie.
How Fit is Your Brain? – 19th July 11am-12pm: Professor Barbara Sahakian and Dr Robin Carhatt-Harris will discuss the effects of MDMA and psychotropic drugs on brain function.
Guilty? (Got No Rhythm) – 19th July 12.30-1.30pm: We all strive towards positive feelings, but negative feelings are far more inevitable and much less explored. Dr Roland Zahn, Dr Geoff Warburton and Professor Robin Choudhury present a cutting-edge picture of how such feelings and responses affect the brain.
Being Human: Exploring your sense of self – 19th July 2-3pm: travel deep in to your sense of self and gain a deeper understanding of the limits of being human with a panel presenting work on memory and hallucinations, how we change to suit our surroundings, and how to persuade the mind to accept an artificial limb.
Are You Putting Yourself At Risk or Taking an Interesting Chance? Putting numbers on uncertainty – 19th July 5-6pm: Riding without a helmet. Eating red meat. Recreational base-jumping.Professor David Spiegelhalter OBE shows us how to weigh up the amount of risk you’re prepared to take in each case, and gives you the facts and stats to make your own decisions.
Should You Follow Your Gut? – 20th July 12.30-1.30pm: Could there a second brain in your gut, a centre as important as the brain for influencing mood and behaviour? Dr Sandrine Thuret and Dr Morgaine Gaye discuss the truth about the effects that food has on your brain and body.
False Memory Archive – 20th July 1.45-3.15pm: Drawing upon fascinating research demonstrating our susceptibility to false memories, theFalse Memory Archive features contemporary artworks and a unique collection of vivid personal accounts of things that never really happened.
Guerrilla Science – 18th July 5-6pm: Zoe Cormier talks about taking science to the places you least expect, including building mazes in the Hell Field of Glastonbury, turning 14-storey office blocks into theatrical installations, and hosting life drawing classes in the bowels of Battersea Power Station.
Secrets & Freedom: Can we have both? – 19th July 12-1pm: Should we advocate for medical data sharing to improve care? Elizabeth Pisani joins Shami Chakrabarti, Rob Evans and Emma Carr in a panel discussion.
A Journey Round My Skull – 19th July 12.20-1.20pm: A tale of a passionate and painful love affair told by a neurosurgeon. Using wireless headphones, this show operates on the ears as well as the heart to dissect our most intimate relationships.
The Secret Life of Me and You – 19th July 3-4pm: part live performance, part art installation, this is a stunning scrapbook of storytelling inspired by Lowri Evans’experience of working with people with dementia, conversations with strangers and a long distance relationship that spanned the UK and Brazil.
Richard Wiseman – 18th July 10.20-11.20pm: Explore the truth about sleeping and dreaming and learn about Richard’s mass-participation experiments and the world’s largest archive of dream reports.
Coming up - Edinburgh International Book Festival – 9th-25th August
The Festival is hosting a series of events exploring the experience of inner voices from our own inner monologues, to the voices that a novelist creates, from those who believe the voice they hear is an epiphany, to those whose lives are dominated by multiple voices inside their consciousness.
Online
#Hooked on music
The #hookedonmusic game, exploring musical memory, has now launched. By playing, you will be exploring the science of songs and helping scientists unlock what makes music catchy. Armed with this knowledge, scientists can devise ‘smarter musical thumbnails’ to help people remember it and to form new memories for those listening to the song for the first time. Erinma Ochu, involved in the game’s development, is a Wellcome Trust Engagement Fellow.
Colliding Worlds
Hear about the extraordinary research of Martin Rees, Astronomer Royal, in the thought-provoking context of a conversation with curator and art critic Hans Ulrich Obrist.
Still on…
False Memory Archive – The Freud Museum, London – 11th June-3rd August
The exhibition based around personal accounts of things that never happened features new site-specific works made at the museum.
Carroll/Fletcher Space – 6th June-12th July: A parallel exhibition featuring a series of works developed by Hopwood in collaboration with experimental psychologists, members of the public and a cast of fictional characters.
Phytology exhibition – Bethnal Green Nature Reserve
Phytology is part physic garden, part natural laboratory and part pharmacy, and is a year-long collaboration with artists and botanists, exploring the medicinal properties of wild plants and weeds common to derelict urban environments.
Uluzuzulalia: The interactive children’s theatre performance continues:
20th July – ArtsDepot, London
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