Wellcome Collection
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| Address | 183 Euston Rd, London NW1 2BE, UK |
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| Hours | Closes soon: 6PM ⋅ Opens 10AM Tue |
| Phone | +44 20 7611 2222 |
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| ID | 697964 |
About Wellcome Collection
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Wellcome Collection closes 'racist, sexist and ableist' Medicine Man display
By Rachel RussellBBC News
A museum in London is closing one of its main exhibitions following concerns over " racist, sexist and ableist theories and language".
The Wellcome Collection says The Medicine Man display will end on Sunday after a 15-year run.
Founder Henry Wellcome , who died in 1936, collected More Than A Million objects to give an insight into global health and medicine.
The Museum has marked the closure as a " significant turning point".
Controversial objects include a 1916 painting titled " A Medical Missionary Attending to a Sick African" which depicts an African person kneeling in front of a white missionary.
The Museum " We can't change our past. But we can work towards a future where we give voice to the narratives and lived experiences of those who have been silenced, erased and ignored.
" We tried to do this with some of the pieces in Medicine Man using artist interventions. But the display still perpetuates a version of medical history that is based on racist, sexist and ableist theories and language. "
It added that exhibiting The Collection of paintings, books and anatomical models told a colonial story of A Man with " enormous wealth, power and privilege".
The Statement continued: " The result was A Collection that told a global story of health and medicine in which disabled people, Black People , Indigenous Peoples and people of colour were exoticised, marginalised and exploited - or even missed out altogether. "
The Wellcome Collection 's website says a new exhibition featuring health stories of people who have been previously marginalised or even erased from museums will be unveiled in The Coming years.
The Museum brought in a new director called Melanie Keen in 2019, according to The Guardian .
She Said at The Time she wanted to address who the objects in The Museum really belonged to and how they were acquired.
Ms Keen said: " It feels like an impossible place to be worrying about this material we hold without interrogating what it is, what narratives there are to be understood in a more profound way, and how The Material came to be in our collection. "
Source of news: bbc.com