HI

A few people on here have asked whether this is any good or not; I would not want anyone to think I was making a LOOK AT ME I BEEN'A A ART SHOW thead.

It's brilliant; like, one of the best free things I've ever been to. The temporary collection (Madness & Modernity) is amazing and is only there for a couple more weeks; there's a model and video of a turn-of-the-century mental health facility that is immensely creepy, along with some tremendously uncomfortable 'pathological' portraits and 'patient art.' (I'm saving the other temp exhibit for next time)

And then upstairs is the permanent stuff; there's a room full of things which scared me. Artifical limbs and claws, erotic hand carved toys and sex aids, a dead person, a series of masks that reminded me of the Mysterious Cities of Gold, unpleasant pictures (a series of misshaped dwarves help a fat woman give birth). And then a room about modern medicine: an automated culture imager doing its thing in the middle of the room, a sculpture of a person made of fat, fake malaria drugs, a facial recognition tool that changes the shape of your face, and a wall of visitors' pictures on cards (my favourite: the phrase "I ate at McDonalds!!!" next to a picture of a multicoloured shit)

Go!