A museum has announced it has closed its free Medicine Man exhibit as it perpetuates “racist, sexist and ablest theories and language”.
The Wellcome Collection in London said the “problematic” display is ending after 15 years.
Founder Henry Wellcome collected more than a million pieces including books, paintings and objects in the 19th century with controversial objects such as the 1916 painting A Medical Missionary Attending to a Sick African.
It depicts an African person kneeling in front of a missionary.
The museum wrote on Twitter : “When our founder, Henry Wellcome started collecting in the 19th century, the aim then was to acquire vast numbers of objects that would enable a better understanding of the art and science of healing throughout the ages.
“This was problematic for a number of reasons. Who did these objects belong to? How were they acquired? What gave us the right to tell their stories?
“The result was a collection that told a global story of health and medicine in which disabled people, Black people, Indigenous peoples and people of colour were exoticised, marginalised and exploited – or even missed out altogether.
“We can’t change our past but we can work towards a future where we give voice to the narratives and lived experiences of those who have been silenced, erased and ignored.
“We tried to do this with some of the pieces in Medicine Man using artist interventions.
“But the display still perpetuates a version of medical history that is based on racist, sexist and ablest theories and language.”
The museum announced on Friday it would close the exhibition today “for good”.
It added: “This is why this Sunday on November 27, we will be closing Medicine Man for good. To those who have never visited, Medicine Man is a display made up of objects amassed by Henry Wellcome.
“The individual items within it show all the extraordinary ways in which people, through time and across cultures, have sought to understand the workings of the mind and body, to protect themselves and care for one another.
“By exhibiting these items together – the very fact that they’ve ended up in one place – the story we told was that of a man with enormous wealth, power and privilege.
“The stories we neglected to tell were those that we have historically marginalised or excluded.”
