The First Annual Morbid Anatomy Saint Florian Gowanus Pageant

The First Annual Morbid Anatomy Saint Florian Gowanus Pageant Call for Works

Sunday, August 16th

Call for works now ended. You can see full lineup and details here and below. Tickets can be found here.

Thanks, and hope to see you there!

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TALKS:
--E. P. Bell (graduate student, Rutgers University) tracing the roots of this lost ritual and how it was discovered
--Forensic Pathologist Jay Stahl-Herz, MD on the post-mortem challenges presented by bodies found in water
--Ksenya Malina on processional banners used by members of lay confraternity orders in medieval and Renaissance Italy
--AMNH's Erin Chapman with "A Short Illustrated Bestiary of the Gowanus"
--Lady Ayea on the complexities involved in finding the right patron saint for sideshow performers with sword swallowing demonstration
--Urban explorer Will Ellis (Abandoned NYC) about The Batcave, a famous Gowanus abandoned space
--Professor Amy Herzog: TBA

FILMS
--Short films curated by Imagine Science Films at the intersections of art, science and the grotesque
--Jonah Patrick King's film "the Dowsers," which follows a New Age activist cult who worship water in a world where it has been privatized
--Guilherme Marcondes' film Caveirão, an urban fable about ghost in abandoned outskirts of Sao Paulo
--Nicole Antebi's film Riparianism, an animated film which re-imagines a national anthem around the "most" polluted waterways in this country

MUSIC
--Comedian and musician Jessica Delfino with a stirring rendition of "Ghosts of Oysters Past"
--Song by Kim Boekbinder

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Original Call for Works:

We are seeking short pieces--talks, performances, screenings, spectacles--for Gowanus Canal and Saint-themed event taking place on Sunday August 16th to benefit the Morbid Anatomy Museum.

Details follow below. If you are interested, please email your proposal or area of interest to laetitia [at] morbidanatomymuseum.org or joanna [at] morbidanatomymuseum.org.

On Sunday, August 16th, please join us for what we hope will be the first annual pageant honoring Saint Florian, patron saint of flooding and firemen. Gowanus residents are keenly aware that our livelihoods rely on the Gowanus Canal not overflowing its banks. By creating a new ritual to honor and assuage Saint Florian, we can both draw attention to this predicament and develop new rituals to serve as a basis for a new community, all with a sense of whimsy and spectacle.

The pageant will begin with a procession in which we will carry a papier mâché effigy of The Saint along with (we hope) a band from the museum to the Royal Palms Shuffleboard Court on Union Street (about a 10 minute walk). A few words will be said about the ritual, and our new genesis myth for the Gowanus will be articulated.

At the Shuffleboard Court, a fictional graduate student will present a short illustrated lecture tracing the pageant back to a its also fictional 19th century Gowanus roots. Following will be a Gowanus-themed variety show with a number of short presentations and performances, and a party where guests are invited to come in costumes inspired by ideas of the Gowanus.

This is a call for short works for the party. Pieces should run 5-20 minutes of length, and respond (in at least a vague way) the idea of the Gowanus Canal or the procession itself. The monstrous, the mutated, the polluted, the toxic, the abject, aquatic life, industrial throughways, lost causes, mob deaths, gonorrhea, gentrification, ritual, religion, folklore, martyrdom, the spectacular… the list goes on. Works could be talks, performances, screenings, spectacles, projections, and more. The venue has a projector, and we will be given a small stage. We also need help with sets, props and costumes for the procession, so if you are interested in that, let us know!

Amsterdam Anatomy Weekend with Morbid Anatomy and The Incredible Vrolik Museum, May 10 and 11th

The Vrolik Museum--Amsterdam’s incredible anatomical museum, of which many photos above--and Brooklyn’s Morbid Anatomy Museum are proud to be teaming up to present Amsterdam Anatomy Weekend on May 10th and 11th, 2014 at the Museum Vrolik.

The weekend will feature a special program of lectures, workshops, demonstrations and exclusive museum and backstage tours showcasing The Vrolik's phenomenal and historical collection of osteology, teratology, natural history and curiosities. British Wax modeller and sculptor Eleanor Crook--artist in residence at Gordon’s Museum at Guy’s Hospital in London--will lead two workshops in which students will create---and leave with—their own dermatological wax model, or "moulage."

Other activities will include exclusive back stage tours of the Vrolik’s astouding storage rooms (2nd image down); lectures about amazing 17th century anatomical collections such as those of the “Artist of Death” Frederik Ruysch; demonstrations of wet specimen restoration and skeleton mounting and reconstruction; and special museum tours focusing on congenital malformations and historical highlights. There will also be a reception in the museum at which copies of The Morbid Anatomy Anthology will be available for sale and signing.

The Amsterdam Weekend of Anatomy is part of the Netherlands Month of Anatomy organized by the Museum Boerhaave in Leiden, the University Museum of Utrecht, and the Museum Vrolik in Amsterdam with the Morbid Anatomy Museum of Brooklyn, New York.

Full details below, and more here; hope very much to see you there!

The Amsterdam Weekend of Anatomy
The Vrolik--Amsterdam’s anatomical museum--and Brooklyn’s Morbid Anatomy Museum are proud to present a weekend devoted to anatomy over the weekend of May 10th and 11th, 2014. To celebrate, the Vrolik will be open to the public with a special program of lectures, workshops, demonstrations and exclusive museum and backstage tours showcasing its phenomenal and historical collection of osteology, teratology, natural history and curiosities.

Highlights include a workshop in wax modeling with sculptor Eleanor Crook in which students will create---and leave with—their own anatomical or dermatological wax model; demonstrations of liquid anatomical specimen restoration and skeleton mounting and reconstruction; a museum tour focusing on teratology, the specimens of congenital malformations in the Vrolik collection, and historical highlights of the collection; lectures about amazing 17th century anatomical collections such as those of “Artist of Death” Frederik Ruysch; and back stage tours of the Vrolik’s storage rooms.

Moulage/Wax Modelling Workshop
During the weekend of anatomy, British Wax modeller and sculptor Eleanor Crook will give two workshops. Crook has created anatomical and pathological waxes for several medical and science museums in Britain (e.g. the Science Museum and the Hunterian Museum), and is artist in residence at Gordon’s Museum at Guy’s Hospital, London. She has led many workshops in wax modelling, but this is her first in the Netherlands. For anyone familiar with the famous anatomical and pathological waxes in Vienna, Paris or Bologna, and who would like to experience the art of wax modelling for him or herself, this workshop offers a unique opportunity. All materials and tools are provided for this workshop, and each student will leave with their own beautiful wax model. Please note: Application for this workshop is separate from the rest of the program. See program and prices for separate charge.

Demonstration of Skeleton Mounting
In this demonstration, skeleton articulator Lucas Boer will put together a complete animal skeleton from its separate bones, explain the structure and function of these bones, and point out the differences in bone structure in the main groups of vertebrates. Visitors will also be invited to touch the animal bones and skulls.

Wet Specimen Restoration
In this demonstration, anatomical technician and specimen conservator Inge Dijkman will show the ways in which the Vrolik’s century-old collection of wet specimens are maintained and restored. Viewers will see the anatomical specimens removed from their jars, learn about the kind of liquids used for preservation, and witness all the steps needed for the care, upkeep and restoration of these incredible specimens.

Special Tours and Lectures
A series of special lectures and tours will focus on historical and medical aspects of some of the most famous and enigmatic Dutch anatomical collections, such as those of 17th century Frederik Ruysch, referred to as “Artist of Death” by his biographer Luuc Kooijmans. Experts in the history of the Vrolik collection and in the field of congenital malformations will give special tours showing the historical highlights of the collection, and the origin of the congenital malformations in the collection. There will also be exclusive backstage tours of the Museum Vrolik’s storage rooms and of the hospitals collection of dermatological wax models, neither of which are generally accessible to the public.

Program

Saturday May 10th
10:00 - 12:00     Lectures by Luuc Kooijmans (about the anatomist Frederik Ruysch); Frank Ijpma (about the surviving Ruysch specimens); Marieke Hendriksen (about beaded babies and decoration in anatomy) Joanna Ebenstein (about the persisting impact of Frederik Ruysch and about her new Morbid Anatomy Museum; and Eleanor Crook (about the art of wax modeling and its history).
12:00 - 13:00     Lunch
13:00 - 17:00     Workshops and demonstrations (wax models, mounting skeletons, liquid specimen restoration); historical highlights of Museum Vrolik-tour
From 17:00     Drinks in Museum Vrolik; sale and signing of The Morbid Anatomy Anthology

Sunday May 11th
10:00 - 12:00     Thematic city tour/ possibly visits to old anatomy tower in Waag on Nieuwmarkt
13:00 - 17:00     Workshops (Wax modeling) and museum tours (congenital malformations and historical highlights); backstage tour to wax models of dermatology and to the Museum Vrolik storage rooms.

Prices

• Workshop medical wax modelling (Eleanor Crook): 65 euro per workshop (4 hrs)
• Two day program (excl. workshop medical wax modelling): 25 euros
• Program Saturday 10th of may (excl. workshop medical wax modelling): 15 euros
• Program Sunday 11th of may (excl. workshop medical wax modelling): 15 euros
• Lunch on Saturday: 7 euros
• NB: lunch on Sunday is not provided due to the traveling between the city center and Academic Medical Center.

To sign up:
Please email museumvrolik@amc.uva.nl.  Please do not forget to select which part of the program you want to participate in.

Location
Academic Medical Center: Museum Vrolik (ground floor, building section J) and lecture room and dissection rooms of anatomy, second floor, building section L)

Month of Anatomy
The Amsterdam Weekend of Anatomy is part of the Netherlands Month of Anatomy organized by the Museum Boerhaave in Leiden, the University Museum of Utrecht, and the Museum Vrolik in Amsterdam with the Morbid Anatomy Museum of Brooklyn, New York. There will be three special weekends of lectures, tours and workshops concerning anatomy in May. Museum Vrolik is the first (10th and 11th of May); on the 24th and 25th of may a weekend of anatomy is organized by the University Museum of Utrecht and finally on 31st of may and the 1st of July Museum Boerhaave closes the month of anatomy. See for details about the activities of the other museums.

Photos of the museum overviews are by Paul Bomers; the other pictures are by Hans van den Bogaard, from the wonderful book Forces of Form.

Basel's Fasnacht Carnival and The Dance of Death: Guest Post by Jordan Marzuki

Morbid Anatomy reader Jordan Marzuki just sent in a fascinating guest post about Basel's Fasnacht Carnival and its relationship to death and pre-Christian rituals; he has also made a rather wonderful video of the parade which you can view above or by clicking here.

"Fasnacht" carnival takes its name from the start of the fasting season of lent. But this, the most important event in the life of Basel, Switzerland, is also fixed by Christian holy days. Carnival is always held six weeks before Easter, a week later than the Fas(t)nacht widely celebrated throughout neighboring German-speaking Catholic areas. The city of Basel is also associated with the "Totentanz" or dance of the death. That reminded people that whether rich or poor, and no matter one's station in life, everyone has to die.

Locals describe the event as the the three most beautiful days of the year. Up to 12,000 carnival participants march around the city in groups according to in their themed costumes and masks. Most of themes are associated with the topic of death – which is revering to the Basler Totentanz.

The Basler Fasnacht is now a part of the cultural identity of the city of Basel, and is often depicted as ancient tradition. Although the officially organized Carnival has only existed since 1920, it draws on traditions tracing back to pre-Christian times, and is connected with the spirits of the night, which are personified by masks. The masks represent a kind of struggle with the negative powers. With the end of winter, these spirits are driven away, the "expulsion of the winter," and the victory of spring.

Merry Christmas with Jean Paul Gaultier Virgins (Madonna) Series, The Brooklyn Museum

I am not usually a big fan of haute couture, but Jean Paul Gaultier's Virgins (or Madonnas) collection, now on view at The Brooklyn Museum, is one of the best things I have ever seen. These lavishly elegant and painstakingly crafted gowns are embellished with sacred and bleeding hearts, or open in the suggestion of portable altars, or are encrusted with anatomical silver ex voto. Each is topped by a halo-inspired tiara/headdresses made from such materials as feathers, shells, and/or jewels; many of the models sport stylized Madonna Dolorosa-inspried tears. The installation is also a delightful spectacle in and of itself, with the blank white heads of the mannequins uncannily brought to life by video projections of the faces of the models, who blink and shift their aloof gazes towards and away from you, fantasies of the Virgin Mary brought to life.

If you are based in the New York area, I cannot more highly recommend making a pilgrimage to see these incredibly artful pieces, on view at The Brooklyn Museum in the exhibition "The Fashion World of Jean Paul Gaultier: From the Sidewalk to the Catwalk" through February 23, 2014. You can find out more by clicking here.

Thanks so much to my friend Shannon Taggart for making sure I saw this incredible exhibition. 

Images sourced from Art at Heart, Visual Therapy, Relics on Adams Street, and Pretty Cripple.

"Krampusfest": Guest Post for Morbid Anatomy by Al Ridenour of Art of Bleeding

Krampus Group in Munich. Photo: Al Ridenour.

Krampus Los Angeles Troupe. Photo: Phil Glau.

Postcard from Monte Beauchamp’s collection.

Following is a guest post about about friend of Morbid Anatomy Al Ridenour's attempts to revive the art of "Krampusfest" in his hometown of Sunny Los Angeles. Al is part of a group of medical art-themed provocateurs called Art of Bleeding; more on them here. Maybe we can persuade Al to stage Krampus fest here in NYC next year?

For more on Krampus and his history, click here; to find out about the Morbid Anatomy Krampus costume party (!) on December 14th, click here. To order Krampus holiday cards of your very own, click here.

As the Morbid Anatomy’s annual Krampus celebration approaches, I’ve been invited to share a bit about how we here in the relentlessly sunny city of Los Angeles are now also falling under the shadow of an ancient Alpine devil.

About a year ago, several friends and I resolved to create Krampus suits and stage California’s first Krampuslauf, (“Krampus run” though “shamble” might be more accurate). This  plan expanded into a frighteningly ambitious series of activities dubbed “Krampusfest.”

While perhaps the most overweening, we are not the first American Krampus troupe.  That credit goes to Philadelphia Krampuslauf, now in its third year. Groups in Portland, OR, Detroit, Athens, GA, Bloomington, IN, and New Orleans are also now part of this burgeoning movement.

Much of this began in 2004 when collector Monte Beauchamp began baiting us with his lovely series of books documenting the popular Krampus cards that circulated in earlier centuries. What pushed me over the edge, however, was the discovery of European videos that presented the Krampus not as a antiquated ephemera, but a tradition still very much alive and ready to chase you down the street. Pouring over online footage, I concluded that the scenes shot in the Gasteiner Valley near Salzburg seemed the most unrestrained and boisterous, so that is where I convinced my wife we needed to go.

Returning to my hotel giddy from my first night of live Krampus tussling, and with snow still wet in my hair, I opened the fateful email message announcing the creation of an LA Krampuslauf.  It came from Al Guerrero, a fellow organizer and co-conspirator of the Los Angeles lodge of The Cacophony Society, a national group dedicated to eccentric mischief which flustered journalists of the 1990s came to define as “culture jamming” and “flash mobs.”  We’d never sported horns or wielded switches, but had honed some guerilla theater fly-by-the-seat-of your pants spectacle-making skills.  Krampus didn’t seem like a big jump.

Each of our suits did end up consuming sizable investments of time and money.  Many of the costumes were sewn weft-by-weft, and the masks sculpted from scratch and topped by real animal horns. Right now there are about 15 of us, and we’re looking forward to meeting more recruits at our public Krampus run.

The troupe will also storm in on some less traditional indoor events, including our Krampus Ball and Krampus Rumpus, themed shows juxtaposing performances of traditional Schuhplattler dances and alpenhorn solos by a local Bavarian cultural group with acts like Santa Claus Nomi (the band Timur and The Dime Museum working with former Nomi composer Kristian Hoffman) as well as horned and pelt-wearing parody bands including The Kramps, Krampwerk, and Krammpstein.

And there is a group exhibition at Santa Monica’s Copro Gallery displaying Krampus-inspired artwork by a horde of artists including Chet Zar, Bob Dob, Luke Cheu, Travis Louie, and even Tim Burton. For this event, Krampus LA will contribute a performance and outdoor “Krampus Habitat” installation omplete with cages, screaming children and hellish photo-ops a-plenty.

One of our purposes in creating this crazy patchwork of events was to offer an unfamiliar public different ways to dip their toes into a new tradition. Not everyone can dedicate the resources to creating traditional costumes, but we’re hoping that some uncostumed attendees at this year’s events will be inspired to return to us next fall for workshops geared toward making traditional costumes.

Maintaining the core traditions under the camouflage of Californian kookery is important to us. Toward that end, we’re also reaching out to European groups, and have befriended a couple participants from different communities around Salzburg. Having previously planned trips to California, we met with each of them for informal Q and As. They were both surprised and initially perhaps a bit baffled at our enthusiasm and efforts toward creating costumes imitating their homegrown traditions. Usually things run differently.  For many Europeans the obliteration of local holiday customs by the ever-expanding presences of the American Santa Claus, (“Weihnachtsmann,” i.e., “Christmas Man” in German) is a hot-button issue, so amid all our chaotic street devilry, we hope our group and other American Krampus enthusiasts might be tipping the scales a bit toward a happier equilibrium.

Just in Time for the Holidays: Announcing the New Morbid Anatomy Museum Online Gift Shop!

Greetings, folks. Are you short of holiday gift ideas this year? Unsure where to get, say, Krampus-themed holiday cards? Or perhaps you are on the hunt for some large-scale, ready-to-frame color plates from a 19th century book on venereal and skin diseases, or tea cups based on microscopic images of the testicle, or memento mori rings, or funeral home anti-fainting kits, or photographs of Vodou ceremonies? Or maybe you might fancy some taxidermy, chocolate crow skulls, Masonic aprons, or Day of the Dead imports from our recent field trip to Mexico? Or perhaps--just perhaps!-- you require a handsome Morbid Anatomy tote bag or t shirt emblazoned with a distinctive fetal skeleton drawn from an 18th century book by Dutch "artist of death" Frederik Ruysch? 

If so, you are in luck, and here is why. It is because we have just launched The Morbid Anatomy Museum Gift Shop. And you can find all of these things--and many, many more!--on this gift shop by clicking here. 

And. Please note. This is only a first draft; we will be adding artists and objects weekly; click here to join our mailing list and be informed of updates. If you are interested in having your wares considered for sale on the site, please email info [at] morbidanatomymuseum.org.

Announcing the Morbid Anatomy Museum!

I am incredibly excited to announce the newest addition to the greater Morbid Anatomy Project: The Morbid Anatomy Museum!

This new Brooklyn, New York-based space will be an expansion (both physically and conceptually) of The Morbid Anatomy Library, which has been making artifacts, curiosities and books available to the public--as well as hosting classes, lectures, spectacles and field trips--since 2008. The Morbid Anatomy Museum will be a full fledged non-profit museum, complete with an exhibition space showcasing private collections and "things which fall between the cracks;" a research library; a webstore and physical gift shop making available the works of like-minded artists and makers around the world; a larger space for classrooms and lectures; and a bar/café.

Stay tuned for more information in the coming weeks and months, but for the time being you may notice some small changes—such as the Morbid Anatomy and Morbid Anatomy Library Facebook pages becoming consolidated into a single Morbid Anatomy Museum page; we should also have the webstore up and running very soon. We are very excited to share this new development with you all, and look forward to sharing a great deal more with you in the coming months. If you'd like to get on the new Morbid Anatomy mailing list and thus be apprised of new developments as they are announced, click here.

Also, if you are interested in letting us know about your own amazing collections, would like to sell your wares in our gift shop, or have ideas for future lectures or classes, you can, as always, email us at morbidanatomylibrary [at] gmail.com.

Image above: “Homo ex Humo” (‘Man from the Dust’), from a first edition copy of Physica Sacra, Johannes Jacob Scheuchzer, 1731, from The Morbid Anatomy Museum Collection.

The Feast Day of San Judas Tadeo ("San Juditas"), October 28th, Mexico City

While in Mexico City a few days ago, my friend Amy and I were lucky enough to witness the festivities surrounding the feast day of San Judas Tadeo (aka "San Juditas"), the patron saint of lost causes and, over the past few years, center of a new cult appealing to the disenfranchised, gang members, criminals, and the most vulnerable members of society. The makeup of St. Judas' devotees is startlingly reminiscent of that of the cult of Santa Muerte, or Saint Death, the popularity of which, as discussed by Andrew Chesnut in his book Devoted to Death: Santa Muerte, the Skeleton Saint, has grown much in recent years (more here). However, unlike Santa Muerte, who is basically the figure of death personified and sanctified, Saint Judas is a properly canonized saint, and thus this cult falls within the purview of legitimate church worship.

Kurt Hollander, author of the Several Ways to Die in Mexico City (more here), explained to us over tequila one evening in Mexico City that it his belief that the cult of San Judas was a calculated effort by the church to create a kind of within-the-establishment competitor to Santa Muerte. His popularity with certain fringe groups--particularly youth from the city's poorest barrios including chakas, or those of the narco sub culture--was cultivated by American priest Frederick Loos, whose expletive-filled, urban-themed sermons drew large crowds to Mexico City's Hipolito Church. His hope was to reach the tough and vulnerable youth of the barrios by speaking in their language, and by welcome them into the bosom of the church despite their open drug and criminal activities. To find out more about this inspiring man, I highly recommend watching a really amazing short New York Times video which you can see by clicking here.

The worship of Saint Judas Tadeo still takes place at Hipolito Church on the 28th of each month, with the largest celebration taking place on his feast day, October 28th. On October 27th, we witnessed hundreds if not thousands of people streaming into the city all through the day and night, many of them carrying statues of the green-clad, flame-tipped saint; one of the devotees explained to us that the size of the statue was commensurate to the sins needing pardon. There were so many people flooding the streets that cars could not drive on major boulevards, and fireworks went off all night long.

On the day of the festival, the area around the Hipolito Church was filled with statue-toting devotees, vendors of all thing San Judas, impromptu flower-bedecked processions, traditional dancing, mariachi bands, and makeshift shrines. Those lucky enough to make it into the church, we were told, would have their statues blessed, "recharging" their power until the next mass.

All photos above are my own, taken around Mexico City between October 25 and October 30th 2013; Click here to see many more.

Special thanks to Andrew Chesnut for answering my ignorant questions, and for pointing me to this article on Saint Jude by David G. Bromley and Elizabeth Phillips, which was one of the few helpful sources I could find in English, and which I highly recommend if you'd like to go deeper. Andrew has also been tweeting on this phenomenon of late, and his wife Fabiola took some wonderful photos documenting it; click here for more on that. 

London Day of the Dead for Hendricks Carnival of Knowledge, This Saturday, October 12, London

Wow; I SO wish I was still in London for this spectacular looking event featuring our good friend Dr. John Troyer and organized by the lovely Stephen Coates of The Real Tuesday Weld. Full details follow; you can find additional information here.

LONDON DAY OF THE DEAD
Saturday 12th October 2013
33 Fitzroy Square, London W1T 6EU

Can you legally bury someone in your garden in London?
Why have only a third of Londoners made a will?
Do you know what will happen to your Facebook account after you’ve updated your status for the very last time?

To answer these and many other curious questions about the past, present and future of death in the city we have programmed a London Day of the Dead for Hendricks Carnival of Knowledge. Join us to meet an undertaker, make a last will and testament, a death mask, a memorial offering or a ‘things I must do before I die’ list.

With workshops, a shrine, a series of fascinating speakers and experts London Death – and Life – will be vividly evoked.

1. LONDON: CITY OF BONE
1.00pm – 3.00pm
BUY TICKETS

Join Robert Stephenson and Jelena Bekvalac to explore what happened to some of the many Londoners before us.

Historian and esoteric London expert ROBERT STEPHENSON will take us on a dance macabre around the capital’s corporeal past and show how the city’s mighty and humble have often been brought to peculiar and poignant ends.

What happens to bones found during excavations for shiny new towers or rail routes? And what do they tell us about their previous owners? JELENA BEKVALAC, the Museum of London’s curator of osteology uncovers some of London’s skeletal remains.
Followed by conversation, questions and answers.

2. THE LONDON WAY OF DEATH 3.30pm – 5.30pm
BUY TICKETS

Join Matt Brown and Brian Parsons to explore ‘London Undone’

What do Blackfriars, Denmark Street, Regents Park and Colney Hatch have in common? Londonist editor MATT BROWN informs and surprises with strange and little known stories of how the capital has accidentally seen off large numbers of its inhabitants.

When death overtakes us, who will undertake us? And where in London will they take us? Writer BRIAN PARSONS provides a fascinating insight into the history and practice of London undertaking, showing how the city’s cultural character is reflected in its funerals and burial rituals.
Followed by conversation, questions and answers.

3. LONDON HEREAFTER
7.30pm – 9.30pm
BUY TICKETS

Join John Troyer and James Norris to explore the ‘City without us’ and reveal some surprising facts for Londoners.

The choices for the afterlife are increasing. DR JOHN TROYER of the Center for Death and Society gives a glimpse into new technologies of ‘disposal’ including sonic boom dispersion, green burial, freeze drying, and holographic graveyards.

What will happen to our online life when we’re gone? Is a ‘social’ presence possible in the hereafter? JAMES NORRIS founder of DeadSocial provides a ‘digital legacy tool’ enabling living Londoners to creatively cross into their real ‘Second Life’.

Followed by conversation, questions and answers.

DEATH MASKS WORKSHOP
1.00pm – 3.00pm
FREE
Craft mistresses KAREN SHAND and JOANNA WHELAN of Use it up – Wear it Out’ will bring their mobile workshop to guide you through the making of your own mask of death. With jewellery, haberdashery, trimmings and embellishments, they will guide particpants to create their own non-self image to wear, take home or to offer up on our Day Of The Dead Shrine.

LAST WORDS WORKSHOP
3.30pm – 5.30pm
FREE
Our Last Will and Testament is our final chance to address the world we are leaving behind us – but most people now living in London have not made one. Why? JAMES NORRIS of Dead Social will be on hand to answer these and other questions and show that not only is it possible to enjoy creating a legacy for the next life but that doing so will improve this one.

Participants will be guided through the process of making a will with a genuine Hendricks Last Will and Testament legal document.

MEET THE UNDERTAKER WORKSHOP
7.30pm – 9.30pm
FREE
Is it possible to be buried in central London? What would it cost?
What are the top ten London funerary songs? What are the strangest things that people put in the coffin with their loved ones? What happens to the parts of us that won’t burn? RICHARD PUTT of Levertons, undertakers to the Royal Family, Margaret Thatcher and many others will offer attendees the chance to ask all the questions they have always wanted to about “a day in the life of death for a London Undertaker.”
PLUS

DRESSES TO DIE FOR PRESENTATION
6.30pm – 7.00pm
FREE
Join style icon, DJ and fashion historian AMBER JANE BUTCHART in the basement cinema as she waltzes you through the Victorian Fetish for Funereal Fashion in a presentation on the gorgeous depths of sentimental sartorial style, and corporeal couture with a brief history of black.

LONDON UNDEAD
7.30pm – 8.30pm
FREE
Take to the cinema to join WILL FOWLER BFI curator as he explores, digs up and puts a stake through the heart of the Highgate Vampire legend with music, movie clips, stories and images of Highgate cemetery. Spooky and introspective this is a glorious venture into the macabre world of cult film, mondo and exploitation. No Garlic allowed.

LONDON DAY OF THE DEAD SHRINE – On the first floor landing.
Bring an offering for a dead loved Londoner, make a mask for a live one, or a ‘things I must do before I die’ list for yourself and offer them here at this specially made shrine by JESSICA BREWER.

The ANTIQUE BEAT BOUTIQUE will be present and patrolling. We will be releasing new and very curious gifts.

Image: Plague Of London, 1665. "Lord, have mercy on London." Sourced here.

This Saturday (Tomorrow): New York Academy of Medicine's Festival of Medical History and the Arts: Free and Open to the Public!

Very much hope to see you at tomorrow--Saturday October 5th's--NYAM Festival of Medical History and the Arts! To hear a wonderful interview about the event with co-curator Lawrence Weschler and participants Jane Gauntlett and Riva Lehrer on WNYC's Brian Leher show, click here. To find out more about this amazing, free (!!!) and open-to-the-public festival, click here.

Image: From Alexander Monro’s (1697–1767) celebrated Traité d’ostéologie … (or “Anatomy of Bones”). More information and images can be found on this recent guest post by Morbid Anatomy for NYAM's Books, Health and History blog.

Anthropomorphic Victorian Taxidermist Walter Potter Very Spectacularly in the News!

As readers of this blog will already know, I have something of "a thing" for Walter Potter, a self-taught Victorian taxidermist of no great expertise best remembered for his quirky tableaux peopled by tea-drinking kittens, arithmetic-doing rabbits, and cigar smoking squirrels. His collection was on view for nearly 150 years before being divided at auction ten years ago this month. The man and his collection have just been commemorated in Walter Potter's Curious World of Taxidermy, a new book by Dr. Pat Morris with Morbid Anatomy's Joanna Ebenstein and an introduction by legendary pop artist Sir Peter Blake.

The last few days has found Mr. Potter, to my great pleasure, very much in the news. Yesterday's Guardian ran an epic photo essay with brilliant captions (click here to view) while The Midnight Archive's Ronni Thomas had this piece published in yesterdays Huffington Post. It seems the world is finally ready for Potter!

If you are interested in a purchasing a copy of the book--which is cloth bound, 128 page, and contains over 100 full color images including those you see above--click here (for UK orders) or here (for those in the US); International buyers please email morbidanatomy [at] gmail.com.

We  have also just launched a website to go with the book, featuring a blog with guest posts by a variety of Potter enthusiasts; click here to check it out. If you would like to contribute a post, please email walterpottertaxidermy [at] gmail.com.

All above images are my own except for top image, by Alan Kolc.

New York Academy of Medicine Festival of Medical History and Arts on October 5th: Full Schedule and Tickets Now Available

The full schedule has just gone live for the October 5th New York Academy of Medicine Festival of Medical History and Arts, co-curated by Morbid Anatomy and Lawrence Weschler, former director of NYU Institute for the Humanities/Wonder Cabinet series and author of the amazing Mr. Wilson and his Cabinet of Wonders.

Full lineup follows; all talks are free and open to the public, with no registration needed; classes and after party do require tickets; follow the links for more. Hope very much to see you there!

New York Academy of Medicine Festival of Medical History and Arts
Curated by Morbid Anatomy and Lawrence Weschler
1216 Fifth Avenue at 103rd Street, New York, NY 10029 (Map)
Saturday, October 5
11 AM - 9 PM (including after-party)

SCHEDULE

Hosack Hall
Carl Schoonover and Michael Benson – A Cosmic/Neuronal Slapdown
11:00 AM – 12:00 PM
Neuroscientist Carl Schoonover (Portraits of the Mind) pits his laptop full of awe-inspiring electron-microscopic images of the brain against that of filmmaker/editor Michael Benson (Beyond, Far Out, and Planetfall), full as it is of stunning super-telescopic images of the solar system and the galaxies. (With musical accompaniment: the “Dueling Banjos” theme from Deliverance.)

Lawrence Wechsler and Bill Hayes – A Pair of Anatomy Lessons
12:00 PM – 1:00 PM
Art writer and curator Lawrence Weschler (Mr. Wilson and his Cabinet of Wonders) discourses on Rembrandt’s Anatomy Lesson and then engages essayist Bill Hayes in a conversation about the legendary anatomist Henry Gray (the subject of his book Gray’s Anatomy).

Dániel Margócsy – The Royal Treatment
2:00 PM – 3:00 PM
Starting out from a consideration of the exquisitely agonizing last hours of the French King Louis XIII (as evoked, at exquisite length, by Roberto Rossellini in his film The Taking of Power of Louis XIV), Hunter College historian Dániel Margócsy discusses what once passed for the height of medical care (bloodletting, stool analysis, leeches and the like) and compares it with our current practices.

Jane Gauntlett – What it Feels Like to Have an Epileptic Fit
3:15 PM – 4:00 PM
One day in 2005, Jane Gauntlett, a 25-year-old trainee theater producer from North London was brutally attacked while bicycling in broad daylight, robbed, and left for dead, with massive head injuries, in the gutter. She survived, recovered (albeit plagued by several grand mal seizures a week), and went on to develop a highly imaginative way of conveying the actual felt experience of such seizures (and other such medical episodes) to audiences throughout the world.

Oliver Sacks – The Guardian Spirits Behind Awakenings
4:00 PM – 5:30 PMFollowing the screening of a new 15 minute documentary which filmmaker Bill Morrison culled from a box of over five hours of archival super-8 reels which Sacks himself shot at the time of the uncanny awakening of his wardful of postencephalytically entranced patients back in 1969 (set to music by Philip Glass), Oliver Sacks himself will discuss those days with curator Weschler, focusing in particular on the benign influence of two powerful mentors who held sway over his life during that period, the Soviet neuropsychologist A. R. Luria and the English poet W. H. Auden.

Riva Lehrer – On Coming Upon Oneself at a Museum of Medical Oddities
5:30 PM – 6:30 PM
Chicago artist Riva Lehrer has little business even being alive and may well be one of the last survivors of her original cohort, babies born with spina bifida back in 1958. Though having had to navigate life in foreshortened, corkscrewed body, regularly subject to harrowing complications, she has flourished not only as a superb portraitist but also as a highly prized lecturer in anatomy at the School of the Art Institute of Chicago. Her talk will start out from the unsettling experience last year of coming upon a fetal specimen very like herself on display at the Mutter Museum in Philadelphia.

Room 21

Salvador Olguín – An 18th Century Mexican Biography of Death
11:00 AM – 11:30 AM
La Portentosa Vida de la Muerte (The Astounding Life of Death) is a rare, fantastically illustrated 18th century Mexican book in which author Joaquin Bolaños recounts, in an exuberant baroque style, the many adventures of Death, from her humble beginnings in the Garden of Eden, where she is said to have been born from Adam’s Sin and Eve’s Guilt, to her dramatic destruction on Judgment Day. The protagonist of the story is referred to as “The Empress of the Sepulchers,” and her deeds are recounted in a series of disjointed chapters. Banned by the Inquisition, the book and the engravings that illustrate it had a discernible influence on Mexico’s popular representations of death. This lecture will discuss this influential book, focusing on cultural attitudes towards death in Mexico from pre-Columbian times to the present day, touching on subjects such as Day of the Dead, rural Mexican post-mortem photography of the 1940s and ’50s, and the contemporary worshiping of Santa Muerte.

Elizabeth L. Bradley – The Pygmy and the Protoplasm: Eugenics Goes to the [Human] Zoo
11:30 AM – 12:00 PM
The World’s Fairs that captivated the imagination of turn-of-the-century America were notable not only for their significant inventions (the telephone, the Ferris Wheel, cotton candy), but for their lavish anthropological exhibitions, which included large ethnographic enclosures featuring “exotic” natives from around the globe, living in recreated habitats and performing traditional acts for the benefit of thousands of curious, mostly Anglo-Saxon spectators. These “human zoos”, descendants of the villages nègres of Victorian colonial expositions, offered ethnographers a rare opportunity to observe, measure, and analyze other races—and their conclusions lent inspiration and encouragement to practitioners of the new discipline of eugenics, which soon saw field researchers traveling to the freak shows at Coney Island, that ne plus ultra of human zoos.

Dániel Margócsy – The Anatomy of the Corpse: Ruysch, Descartes, and the Problem of Wax
12:00 PM – 12:30 PM
This talk surveys early modern efforts to correctly visualize the human body. It brings into conversation Descartes’ philosophical musings on the nature of representation with the vibrant anatomical culture of the contemporary Dutch Republic, where the French philosopher resided for much of his adult life. For example, the physician Frederik Ruysch, famous for his macabre tableaus, worked throughout his life to produce a method of representation that was immune to Cartesian skepticism over reliability of images. The talk examines in detail Ruysch’s working methods with engraved illustrations and anatomical preparations, and explains why Ruysch hoped that these imaging techniques might offer a faithful representation of human life.

Mark Dery – Gray Matter: The Obscure Pleasures of Medical Libraries
12:30 – 1:00 PM
Medical libraries such as the New York Academy of Medicine’s offer ready access to a motherlode of “invisible literature,” the SF novelist J. G. Ballard’s term for medical textbooks, scientific journals, technical manuals, and other gray matter. Although it comprises a veritable galaxy in the universe of print media, invisible literature is nowhere to be found in general-interest bookstores, and is never reviewed in mainstream book pages for the simple fact that no one, not even the specialists who are its intended audience, thinks of this stuff as literature in the literary sense of the word. But what if we did?

Carl Schoonover – Premodern Neuroscience: Antiquity to Cajal
1:00 PM – 1:30 PM
Our understanding of the brain depends in large part on the tools that were invented to look at it. Confronted with an undifferentiated mass of gray, students of the nervous system have had to get clever and probe it in ingenious ways. This talk will present whirlwind survey beginning with the earliest attempts to interact with this extraordinarily complex organ, up to the seminal technical innovations in the late 19th century that launched the modern field.

Amy Herzog – Momento Mori: Reflections on Death and the Art of the Tableau
2:00 PM – 2:30 PM
This talk surveys a spectrum of artistic and museological dioramas, waxworks, and post-mortem photographic practices, and the hermetic, frozen worlds each offer to the viewer. There is something profoundly fetishistic, and mildly necrophilic, at the heart of the diorama, an apparent desire to encapsulate and reanimate those items on display. This paradoxical tension between preservation and regeneration seems germane to the 19th-century imagination in general, the moment at which many of the visual practices Herzog will discuss came into being. And while the diorama in particular is driven by a certain pedagogical directive, this talk will suggest that their lessons are more ambiguous than their creators likely imagined, and offer uncanny insights into our contemporary condition.

Marie Dauenheimer – 18th and 19th Century Anatomical Models in European Collection
2:30 PM – 3:00 PM
This illustrated presentation will examine the art and history of the wax anatomical models of the “Museo Zoologico La Specola” in Florence, Italy. Over 2,000 wax models of human anatomy were created by the museum’s “Wax Modeling Workshop” from the mid 18th to early 19th century, and the products of their labor are considered by many to be the finest anatomical waxworks in the world. This presentation will address how and why these anatomical masterpieces were created, the artists and anatomists who created them, and the place of these collections in the history of anatomical art. The wax anatomical models of Bologna, which pre-date those of “La Specola,” and the dissectible papier-mâché anatomical models by Dr. Louis Auzoux will also be discussed.

Samuel Strong Dunlap – Peale’s Museum or Peale’s Museum in Philadelphia
3:00 PM – 3:30 PM
From the beginning, Charles Willson Peale’s museum expressed a clear message of collection presentation arranged along the lines of the latest available scientific principles. Peale and his talented progeny were some of the last of the 18th century naturalists, when early professional scientists were just emerging. The very progressive educational and scientific approach of the Peales includes many interesting links with early evolutionist ideas and modern medicine.

Mike Sappol – Radiant modernity: An iconography of rays, beams, and waves, 1920-1960
3:30 PM – 4:00 PM
Between 1920 and 1960, as the technologies of industrial modernity proliferated, the public was gripped by a technomania for rays, beams, and waves. Electromagnetism, radioactivity, radio waves, X-rays, ultra-violet rays, infra-red rays, cosmic rays, gamma rays, brain waves–and all sorts of exotic, miraculous, and terrible rays soon to be discovered or invented–received effulgent representation in illustrated science-fiction, movies, comic books, and other entertainments. Popular science writer Fritz Kahn was among those enchanted with rays, beams, and waves, and eager to cater to his readers’ enchantment with the same. This talk will explore the use of such imagery in medical illustration of the time.

Colin Dickey – Cranioklepty: A Few Thefts of Some Famous Skulls
5:30 PM – 6:00 PM
Colin Dickey will tell the story of how the skulls of several famous musicians, artists, and writers were stolen in the early nineteenth century. Between 1790 and 1840, the skulls (or parts of thereof) of Mozart, Beethoven, Haydn, Goya, and others were stolen by a strange mix of phrenologists and other collectors; Dickey will discuss these stories and the motivations behind these thefts.

Michael Johns – Experimenting with Death: An Introduction to the Terror Management Theory
6:00 PM – 6:30 PM
Cultural anthropologist Ernest Becker suggested that the capacity to understand one’s mortality and the ways humans deal with this awareness could explain behaviors ranging from genocide to altruism. Terror Management Theory (TMT) was developed based on Becker’s work and provides a scientific framework for testing his idea about death as a core motivator of human behavior. Over the last 25 years researchers have conducted hundreds of studies to test hypothesis derived from TMT. These studies have examined how mortality salience influences behaviors ranging from aggression and stereotyping to creativity and sexuality. This lecture will introduce the theory and discuss experiments that have been conducted to test its tenets.

Daniel K. Smith – Anthropodermic Bibliopegy: Books Bound in Human Skin and the Stories Behind Them
6:30 PM – 7:00 PM
Due to their macabre nature, “anthropodermic bibliopegy”—or books bound in human skin—have been treated as curios and overlooked as objects of serious study. Most were created as examples or warnings, but some specific titles were sought out to be rebound in human leather by faddish collectors. Daniel K. Smith has examined, photographed and researched examples at Philadelphia’s Mütter Museum, The Grolier Club and The John Hay Library at Brown University, and found fascinating histories that illuminate worlds as diverse as grave-robbing, the King of Belgium, New England highwaymen, and 19th-century Parisian aristocracy.

ANATOMICAL WORKSHOPS (Registration Required)

Samuel Strong Dunlap – Dissection and Drawing Workshop With Real Anatomical Specimens
11:00 AM – 2:00 PM
Register Here.
Modern scientific dissection and illustrations commenced in the Renaissance. Basic anatomical dissection, illustration and knowledge are still fundamental in many fields such as evolutionary biology, surgery, quality medical schools, and forensic science.

In today’s workshop, we will dissect and draw a Didelphis virginiana–the North American opossum–a “living fossil” whose anatomy has remained virtually unchanged over the past 70 million years; this creature is considered to be a good model for a basal–i.e. early or original–mammal. Many comparative skeletal materials will be available for examination and illustration, and additional specimens may also be available. Gloves, scalpels and probes will be provided. Marie Dauenheimer, medical illustrator (and instructor of this afternoon’s carbon dust workshop), will assist with this workshop.

Lado Pochkhua – Dance of Death by Hans Holbein
11:00 AM – 3:00 PM
Register Here.
The “dance of death” or “danse macabre” was a “medieval allegorical concept of the all-conquering and equalizing power of death, expressed in the drama, poetry, music, and visual arts of western Europe, mainly in the late Middle Ages. It is a literary or pictorial representation of a procession or dance of both living and dead figures, the living arranged in order of their rank, from pope and emperor to child, clerk, and hermit, and the dead leading them to the grave.” (Encyclopedia Britannica). One of the best known expressions of this genre are a series of forty-two wood cuts by Hans Holbien published in 1538 under the title “Dance of Death.”

In this class, students will learn the techniques of woodcuts and linocuts by creating a copy of one of Hans Holbein’s prints from the Dance of Death series. The class will follow the entire process from beginning to end: drafting a copy of the image, either a fragment or whole; transfer of the image to a linoleum block; cutting the image; printing the image on paper. Students will leave class with their own finished Dance of Death linocut and the skills to produce their own pieces in the future.

Chris Muller – Comparative Anatomy: Animals and the Fundamentals of Drawing Weekend Workshop
3:30 PM – 6:30 PM
Register Here.
Using animal and human anatomy as a jumping off point, this course will look at the ground-level, first principles of drawing as representation. Focusing mainly on mammal anatomy, we’ll look at the basic shared forms between humans and other animals, how these forms dictate movement, and how to express those forms.

Marie Dauenheimer – Carbon Dust Drawing Workshop, Featuring Real Anatomical Specimens
4:00 PM – 7:00 PM
Register Here.
Carbon dust is a technique perfected by medical artist Max Brodel, at the Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine, in the late 19th century. This technique–which, until the digital age, was an essential component of medical illustration education–allows the artist to create luminous, textural, three-dimensional drawings by layering carbon dust on prepared paper.

Today’s one-day intensive workshop will teach students the use of this all but forgotten medium, and guide each student in the creation of a finished work based on real anatomical specimens supplied by the instructor. The workshop will also include an historical lecture placing carbon dust drawings in the context of the history of anatomical and medical art. The instructor will provide all materials necessary for this workshop, and will also share finished carbon dust drawings.

After Party (Registration Required)
7:00 PM – 9:00 PM
Register Here.
Festival of Medical History and the Arts After-Party with open bar, medical-inspired tunes by DJ Friese Undine, and cartoons from the NLM's collections spanning the silent era to the early 1960s curated by historian Michael Sappol.

More on all can be found here.

New York Academy of Medicine All-Day "Wonder Cabinet and Medical History Festival" Curated by Lawrence Weschler and Morbid Anatomy, Saturday, October 5, NYC

Did you know that there is a world-class medical library in New York City? And that it is located in a gorgeous historical building (see above)? And that its open to the public to boot? No? Well, don't feel too bad. Neither, it seems, do many people, beyond the dedicated readers--from scholars to artists--who make use of its resources. 

Please allow me, then, to introduce you to the very lovely and highly wonderful New York Academy of Medicine (NYAM). Founded in 1847 and located in Manhattan at Fifth Avenue and 103rd Street, this library--which I have had the happy opportunity to excavate at length--houses and makes available to the public a wide variety of historical treasures and curiosities.

My good friend Lisa O'Sullivan--formerly senior medical curator at The Science Museum in London--is the director of NYAM's Center for the History of Medicine and Public Health, which she is keen to develop into a space to nurture people operating at the intersections of medicine and the humanities. I am sure we can all agree, her conception will provide a welcome addition to the New York scene!

Lisa has invited Morbid Anatomy to explore and blog about NYAM's wonderful rare and historical materials here and on the Center's own Books, Health and History blog. She has also invited Morbid Anatomy to co-curate--along with Lawrence Weschler, former director of NYU Institute for the Humanities/Wonder Cabinet series and author of the amazing Mr. Wilson and his Cabinet of Wonders--a day of public programming for an open house which will place in just over a month, on Saturday, October 5.

This all day, open-to-the-public, mostly free (!) "Wonder Cabinet and Medical History Festival" will include lectures, workshops, demonstrations and, at the end of the day, a party featuring medical films from the National Library of Medicine, the music of DJ Friese Undine, and an open bar. Speakers and participants will include neurologist and author Oliver Sacks along with such Morbid Anatomy regulars as cultural critic Mark Dery, Portraits of the Mind author Carl Schoonover, the National Library of Medicine's Michael Sappol, media historian Amy Herzog, historian Daniel Margocsy, medical illustrator Marie Dauenheimer and Cranioklepty author Colin Dickey.

A series of 20-minute mini-lectures will explore such varied topics as 18th century wax anatomical models; "Anthropodermic bibliopegy," or books bound in human skin; Charles Wilson Peale and the first American museum (by an authentic Peale descendent!); Ruysch, Descartes and the Problem of Wax; Cranioklepty, or the thefts of famous skulls; An iconography of rays, beams, and waves in medical drawings from 1920-1960; death and the diorama; "Terror management theory"; and neuroscience from antiquity to Cajal.

Reprises of some of our most popular Morbid Anatomy Art Academy workshops will give you the opportunity to craft your own Hans Holbein-inspired Dance of Death linoleum cut; dissect and draw with real anatomical specimens; learn the principles of comparative anatomy with the aid of animal skeletons; and learn the antiquated carbon dust method of medical illustration.

Visitors will also have to chance to take in a medical wax moulage demonstration by wax artist Sigrid Sarda, an "anatomy performance" in which artist Kriota Willberg demonstrates the musculoskeletal system on a live model, and the crafting of a memento mori-themed linoleum cut. They will also have the chance to explore the fantastic inner spaces of this incredible and under-seen New York landmark.

You can find out more about the event by clicking here; stay tuned for more about both the event and the rich holdings of the NYAM in these weeks leading up to the event.

This is sure to be an amazing event; I hope very much to see you there!

Congress for Curious People, London Edition, August 29th to September 8th: Save the Date(s)!!!

In just a few weeks, Morbid Anatomy and our partners--Strange Attractor, UCL's Preserved! and The Coney Island Museum--will be launching the second annual London edition of the Congress for Curious Peoples. This year's Congress has the theme “Spectacular Cultures," and will present a variety of lectures, performances, open houses and tours at at a number of underseen curious venues around London with the aim of entertaining, delighting, amazing, educating and opening up discussion about the nature of spectacle and the spectacular.

The Congress will end in a two-day symposium on “Reclaiming Spectacle”, which will include panels of academics, museum professionals, rogue scholars and artists discussing the intricacies of collecting the spectacular, the politics of bodily display, non-human spectacles, religion and the occult. In conjunction with the events The Horse Hospital will host "Ethel Le Rossignol: A Goodly Company" an exhibition of stunningly beautiful channelled psychic artworks painted in the 1920s by the largely unknown medium and artist.
 
A few of our confirmed presenters thus far include:

• Bergit Arends, independent curator, London 
• Carla Connolly, curator of Barts Pathology Museum
• Chiara Ambrosio, Filmmaker and visual artist
• Richard Barnett, Wellcome Trust Engagement Fellow
• Dr Gavin Broad, senior curator, Hymenoptera, Natural History Museum 
• Brian Catling, artist, London
  Dr Tim Cockerill, artist and zoologist, London
• Eleanor Crook, sculptor and medical artist, London 
• Subhadra Das, Curator, UCL Teaching and Research Collections (Biomedical and Galton)
• Tessa Farmer, artist, London 
• Will Fowler, curator of artists’ moving images, BFI, National Archives
• Christina Harrington, director of Treadwell’s Bookshop
• Mervyn Heard, professional lanternist, London
• James Kennaway, Durham University
• Dr Matt Lodder, art historian, London 
• Ross MacFarlane, Research Officer, Wellcome Library, London 
• Dr. Bill MacLehose, senior lecturer in History of Science and Medicine, UCL 
• Anna Maerker, Senior Lecturer, History of Medicine, King's College London
• Eleanor Morgan, artist, London 
• Dr. Pat Morris, former lecturer in Zoology and mammal ecologist 
• Prof Dr Dietmar Rübel, art historian, Art Academy Dresden
• Shannon Taggart, Photographer/independent researcher
• Professor Vanessa Toulmin, Director of the National Fairground Archive, The University of Sheffield
• John Troyer, Deputy Director, Centre for Death and Society, University of Bath
• Simon Werrett, Lecturer, Science and Technology Studies, UCL
• The Real Tuesday Weld 

While a selection of confirmed venues include:

• Old Operating Theatre 
• St Bart’s Pathology Museum 
• Apiary Studios 
• Swedenborg Hall 
• Grant Museum 
• The Horse Hospital

Stay tuned, as very soon we hope to release a full programme, plus ticketing details. For all this and more as it becomes available, please keep checking back here, or visit the Congress website by clicking here. And hope to see you at one or more of these terrific events!