Living and Dying (Room 24)

The Wellcome Trust Gallery

People throughout the world deal with the tough realities of life in many different ways. The displays in Room 24 explore different approaches to our shared challenges as human beings, focussing on how diverse cultures seek to maintain health and well-being. The displays consider different approaches to averting illness, danger and trouble, and investigate people's reliance on relationships - with each other, the animal kingdom, spiritual powers spirits and the world around us.

Objects range from ancient gold artefacts and sculptures to a specially-commissioned art installation, Cradle to Grave by Pharmacopoeia.

Image captions (clockwise from top left):

Diablada dance mask AD 1985

Cradle to Grave by Pharmacopoeia (detail) AD 2003

Wooden henta board 19th century AD

Hohao (spirit board) late 19th/early 20th century