London museum and library the Wellcome Collection, explores the intersection of science, medicine and art, hosting regular temporary exhibitions. “Milk” (2023) examined the history, politics and cultural role of the life-giving liquid, while “The Cult of Beauty” (2023-24) explored changing notions of pulchritude and the lengths people go to in their pursuit of it. Hong Kong contemporary artist Ling Pui-sze, whose work features abstract depictions of organic forms, explains how recent insights promoted by visits to the Wellcome Collection have changed her life.
I first went to the Wellcome Collection in July or August last year. There was a term break (from an artist-in-residence programme at Robinson College, Cambridge University), so I had time to travel around. It was my first time in London.
I had heard about the Wellcome Collection and planned to visit. In Hong Kong, there are not many collaborative art and science projects; I heard the Wellcome Collection had art-science exhibitions, so I was looking forward to it, but it was more than I expected. The first time I went the museum was closed; only the library was open.
It houses a lot of works related to science and the reading areas are really nice. But I needed to go a second time and the first show I visited was “Milk”. I didn’t know what kind of artworks they would find that talked about milk; I thought it might only be some paintings or sculptures about the subject, but there were illustrations, designs.