On 1 August 1980 at 2.45pm at Pinderfields Hospital in Wakefield, West Yorkshire, Jason Wilsher-Mills watched his parents receive the diagnosis of his autoimmune condition from his hospital bed.
Wilsher-Mills, 11 years old at the time, was paralysed from the neck down and was told that he didn’t have many years to live. On television in the background, British athlete Sebastian Coe was winning the 1,500 metre men’s race at the Moscow Olympics.
Now an artist, Wilsher-Mills explores the experience of his diagnosis and the early days of his journey through disability in Jason and the Adventure of 254, a free immersive exhibition at the Wellcome Collection, London.
The exhibition, which runs until 12 January, delves into his memories of health and trauma through joyful creativity, magical realism and psychedelic patterns.
Via a series of “larger than life” sculptures, colourful dioramas and comic-like murals, the artist brings visitors inside the mind of his 11-year-old self.
Instead of reflecting on his year at the hospital as a time of loss, Wilsher-Mills highlights it as a moment of artistic growth and a pivotal point in his creative career.
From that point on, supported by his family and the education he received at the hospital, the artist set off on an imaginative journey that helped him navigate pain and illness while living in the ward.
Throughout the exhibition he reminisces on the important role that his hospitalisation had, and how it inspired and equipped him to become an artist.
Of course, trauma and pain are still very present in Wilsher-Mills’s work, but in his world, creativity provides a joyful way to process trauma, helping him make his disease feel less scary.
Wilsher-Mills says: “The work is like a form of time-travel, where you can still experience something you felt or thought as a child. For me the hospital is not just about trauma, if it is at all. It’s about the opportunity that was afforded to me through education and support from my family. The show is about childhood, family, but it’s also about how creativity works and where it comes from.”
Although the exhibition delves into difficult and traumatic events, it remains family friendly – so much so that it feels like it’s been put together by the artist’s 11-year-old self. The tone of the written texts speaks to a young audience, while the colour and texture of the sculptures evoke a child’s bedroom.
Walking through the exhibition space makes you feel almost like you personally know Wilsher-Mills, as if he is talking to a younger version of you, challenging you to think about your own memories of childhood and reassuring your inner child.
Battling illness
As you enter the exhibition space a large sculpture of a body lying in a hospital bed greets you from the centre of the room.
The body is surrounded by small green soldiers waving viruses as guns, which conveys the metaphor Wilsher-Mills’s doctor used to explain his autoimmune condition and the role of “soldier cells” in triggering the disease.
Open sections displaying anatomical drawings inspired by the Wellcome Collection’s materials transport the viewer inside the patient’s body. However, the sculpture evokes feeling rather than anatomical accuracy.
The feet are swollen to represent his excruciating pain and an interactive station allows visitors to switch on lightbulbs that symbolise hypersensitivity and faulty neurological pathways.
Opposite the hospital bed stands a figure of Sebastian Coe wearing a t-shirt with the numbers 254, but instead of his head we can see a large television, representing Wilsher-Mills’s love for pop culture.
Beside the main sculpture stand two monumental calliper boots decorated with psychedelic patterns to represent his fight with the adaptive technologies he used as a child to deal with the disease and how he reclaimed them as a fashion item.
Focus on: Access
Standing proud in Jason Wilsher-Mills’s installation are an enormous pair of vibrantly decorated fibre-glass calliper boots. Calliper boots are a type of orthopaedic device that the artist was forced to wear as a child, which he found pointless, ugly and stigmatising. He has since reappropriated them as a symbol of his disability activism by reimagining them as boots he would choose to wear.
Access is at the heart of Wilsher-Mills’s practice. All the artworks can be touched. Visitors can move oversize green toy soldiers toting germs, and press buttons lighting up dioramas representing the artist’s childhood memories.
Access and inclusion are central to our vision of a world where everyone’s experience of health matters. The exhibition builds on inclusive principles that have been in development since 2018, based on the philosophy that accessible design is good for everybody.
A tactile floor line leads visitors to 10 stops on the digital guide, available in audio and BSL. The stops, voiced by Wilsher-Mills and co-scripted with interpretation specialist VocalEyes and Deaf content producers, combine accessible description with artistic commentary. An easy-read Visual Story and filmed Visual Story accompany the exhibition.
Alongside the regular offer of relaxed openings, events and interpretation, we’ve produced an activity pack in response to the show’s popularity with families. Visitors can make 3D scenes inspired by their childhood memories and myth making.
Shamita Sharmacharja is a curator at Wellcome Collection
“I wanted to find a different way to express who I was through humour – which fits into the tradition in my family of making things light with humour,” he says.
A 30-metre wallpaper mural titled The 254 Wall of Facts explores the chronological events that took place in 1980, from Wilsher-Mills’s being admitted to hospital until his release, and his emotional reaction to each of them.
The wallpaper, written by the artist in the third person in the style of a pop annual, reads as a colourful juxtaposition of traumatic events with political facts on unemployment peppered with seemingly irrelevant facts such as the release of the videogame Pac-Man.
Through graphics inspired by The Beano comic, the mural explores Wilsher-Mills’s memories and gives the viewer a snapshot of the world through the eyes of an 11-year-old.
A trigger for creativity
“That event in 1980 is the epicentre of everything that happened in my life. I talk about him in the third person because it’s easier, less emotional for me. There’s no way of denying I had an unbelievably traumatic experience. But it was also liberating – the disability enabled me to access education and maybe I wouldn’t have had the opportunity otherwise.”
A series of nine dioramas scattered across the gallery space represent key formative moments of the artist’s life before and during hospitalisation. Using a form of magical realism, the dioramas illuminate paths into his mind.
While some delve into the difficulties of navigating puberty, others reminisce about playful family holidays, explaining his transformation into becoming an artist and his feelings about creativity.
For example, the Hippo Scare diorama, which reminisces of the artist’s first encounter with a hippo at the zoo, might initially seem scary, but in fact delves into the physical feeling of inspiration: “To me creativity is a physical thing, I really feel it in my tummy. The Hippo Scare diorama is my version of trying to describe what it feels like to be overwhelmed by that sense of being creative,” he says.
In the lobby of the first floor gallery, visitors can watch and listen to an interview with the artist and flip through his sketchbooks, inspired by the Wellcome’s anatomical illustrations.
The exhibition highlights the social model of disability, which states that people are impaired due to the barriers that society creates. This is reflected in how accessible the show is. As you enter, you’re invited to touch everything in the gallery. The sculptures, dioramas, Wilsher-Mills’s sketchbooks and even the floors and the walls have tactile cues.
The show is accompanied by a “10-stop highlights” tour scripted and narrated by the artist, which follows a tactile floor line. It is available with audio description and British Sign Language. There are also a series of relaxed openings for this show, as well as a digital exhibition guide and a visual story to help visitors plan and prepare beforehand.
A series of free in-person events is running alongside the exhibition until January 2025. These include in-gallery conversations with Wilsher-Mills and curator Shamita Sharmacharja as well as drop-in workshops.
The events and exhibition programme not only celebrate Wilsher-Mills’s work and creative journey but also provide an opportunity for the visitor to think about their own life journey and relationship with their creative self in an accessible, engaging and youthful way.
Judit Agui is a creative producer, writer and editor based in London
Project data
MDM Props; Kevin Harlow; Megaflatables and Displayways
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