April 27 Wellcome, Gun, etc.

Annie (Sibley) Horsley put us onto the Wellcome Collection, part of a medical research foundation where their extensive historical collection is displayed in curated shows with artworks from all eras. We counted ourselves lucky to see sculptures of people with a days worth of aids medication incorporated into the wax, patterned piles of dust on the floor, videos of musical enactments of a ritualized brickwork keepers dance, and the like, along with Nazi anti-vermin posters (shocking – I can't even bear to type the subject), maps of London cholera outbreaks, and Lister's microscope and glass vials of his patient's urine samples.
A meander over to the British Library brought us through Gordon Square, central to the Bloomsbury Group's activities, home now to students, new leaves and flowers, and a videographer who must have been grateful for something moving at a slow walk (us) to enliven the scene.
Next park over we encountered this familiar figure, and the only generalized monument to conscientious objectors we have ever seen. 'To all those who have established and are maintaining the right to refuse to kill.' For those already dead, it was a sad state of affairs in the Crypt gallery, basement of a church, where their bodies and markers had been displaced by the works of 'emerging' artists. Jim thought the back-lit spires of movie film rather cool, but Gail didn't even notice them, keen on examining the theme of the day, a nice pile of dirt. On to the Library, we were amused by the obstinate modernity of the building next to the ornate Victorian St. Pancras Station and its own collection of ancient tombs. Gail was moved by Jane Austin's manuscript and writing desk, and Jim by this printing press reflected in the glass case of, you guessed it - dusty, books.
Back cross town after a lovely spell of sitting on a bench in Kennsington Park, we enjoyed our dinner at The Gun. Closing the day, Jim wallowed in the delight of breathing in a mote of Nelson's dust.