Films : The Phantom Museum – Random Forays into Sir Henry Wellcome’s Medical Collection : synopses
animate! synopsis
Sir Henry Wellcome (1853–1936) amassed one of the world’s largest museum collections, capturing human culture and history through medical eyes. The Phantom Museum uses animation to imaginatively ‘document’ this extraordinary assemblage and simultaneously reveal an extremely beautiful yet odd inner cosmos of things.
one sentence synopsis
The Phantom Museum provides a random foray and idiosyncratic journey through the bizarre private medical collection of Sir Henry Wellcome.
short synopsis
The Phantom Museum was supported by the Wellcome Trust for inclusion in their exhibition on Henry Wellcome’s unique collection, staged at the British Museum during June–November 2003. The website for this Medicine Man exhibition provides two streamed extracts from the film.
long synopsis
The Phantom Musem provides a random foray and idiosyncratic journey through the bizarre private medical collection of Sir Henry Wellcome and in particular that part kept by the Science Museum at Blythe House.
The film plays with an idea that all passionate museum visitors know to be true: that the objects become even more interesting after the last visitor has left the gallery.
