Superhuman @ Wellcome Collection

By Sponsor Last edited 140 months ago
Superhuman @ Wellcome Collection

This is a sponsored post in partnership with Wellcome Collection.

Credit: Wellcome Library, London. Wellcome Images
Superhuman gallery shots: Westwood's Super Elevated ghillie shoes
Credit: Wellcome Library, London. Wellcome Images
Superhuman gallery shots
Credit: Science Museum, London. Wellcome Images
Lower limb prostheses, Roehampton, Englan
Credit: Wellcome Library, London. Wellcome Images
The human body as a factory
Credit: Wellcome Library, London. Wellcome Images
This world not his own! Credit:© and TM Marvel and Subs.
Francesca Steele, credit: Simon Keitch
Francesca Steele, credit: Simon Keitch

We already wear glasses and contact lenses to improve our vision. Some people enhance their bodies with cosmetic surgery, or adapt to injury with artificial limbs. What modifications, additions and enhancements might we make to ourselves in the future?

Wellcome Collection’s major summer exhibition, ‘Superhuman’, explores the history, present and future of methods to improve the body’s performance.

Coinciding with the London 2012 Olympic and Paralympic games, ‘Superhuman’ brings together over 100 artworks, artefacts, videos, photographs, comics and medical objects that record our seemingly limitless desire to be more than ourselves. From an ancient Egyptian prosthetic toe to the futuristic promises of nanotechnology and biotechnology, the exhibition takes a long view of physical and chemical enhancement and explores the science, myths and cultural reception of body extension.

‘Superhuman’ runs from 19 July to 16 October 2012 at Wellcome Collection, 183 Euston Road, NW1 2BE. Admission is free. An independent review will follow.

Last Updated 26 July 2012