Wellcome Collection

Animal Vegetable Mineral : Organising Nature, a Picture Album

We shape ourselves, and are shaped in return, by the walls that contain us. Buildings affect how we sleep, work, socialise and even breathe. They can isolate and endanger us but they can also heal us. We project our hopes and fears onto buildings, while they absorb our histories. In Living With Buildings, Iain Sinclair embarks on a series of expeditions - through London, Marseille, Mexico and the Outer Hebrides. He explores the relationship between sickness and structure, and between art, architecture, social planning and health, taking plenty of detours along the way. Walking is Sinclair's defensive magic against illness and, as he moves, he observes his surroundings: stacked tower blocks and behemoth estates; halogen-lit glasshouse offices and humming hospitals; the blackened hull of a Spitalfields church and the floating mass of Le Corbusier's radiant city. And he peels back layers of life. A father and his daughter, who has a rare syndrome, visit the estate where they once lived. Developers clink champagne glasses as residents are 'decanted' from their homes. A box sculpted from whalebone, thought to contain healing properties, is returned to its origins with unexpected consequences. Part investigation, part travelogue, Living With Buildings brings the spaces we inhabit to life as never before.

‘ The heart is similar to a lotus, facing downwards. On waking up, it blooms; on sleeping, it closes up. That is the resting place of the soul. It is the supreme location of the consciousness. ’ An exquisite treasury of illustrations and objects, Ayurvedic Man presents a visual history of some of the earliest medical systems and healing practices in the world – tracing Ayurveda and Indian medicine as they travelled from East to West, gaining, losing and regaining popularity over the centuries. The book features detailed anatomical drawings overlain with signs of the zodiac, beautiful illustrations of healing herbs and manuscripts that describe the stages of reincarnation, all drawn from Wellcome’s historical collection. It showcases some of the earliest attempts to understand our bodies, the natural world and the cosmos. These lavish illustrations also give an insight into the historical origins of contemporary ‘wellness’ trends, from turmeric to yoga, and how they emerged out of cultural encounters with traditional medicinal knowledge.

An unmissable, radical essay from Emma Dabiri, bestselling author of Don't Touch My Hair and What White People Can Do Next. What part of your beautiful self were you taught to hate? We spend a lot of time trying to improve our 'defects', according to society's ideals of beauty. But these ideals that are often reductive, tyrannical and commercially entangled, are imposed upon us by oppressive systems and further strengthened by our conditioned self-loathing. This book encourages unruliness, exploring the ways in which we can rebel against and subvert the current system. Offering alternative ways of seeing beauty, drawing on other cultures, worldviews, times, and places - to reconnect with our birthright and find the inherent joy in our disobedient bodies.