The Coming of Age

Opening at Wellcome Collection on March-26, The Coming of Age is a major exhibition exploring experiences and perceptions of ageing, from adolescence to older age, through different perspectives from art, science and popular culture.

Globally people are living longer—one in ten children in the UK can expect to live beyond 100—yet many face health and social inequalities throughout life that impact older age. The exhibition asks how societies can adapt to ensure everyone ages better.

The Coming of Age opens with a solid-silver sake cup, an example of those presented to Japanese centenarians between 1963 and 2014. Due to the cost associated with an unprecedented increase in Japanese people reaching 100, the material used to make the cup was downgraded to the cheaper silver-nickel alloy version awarded today.

More than 120 artworks and objects are featured, from Sebald Beham’s medieval woodcut depicting elders rejuvenated by the mythical fountain of youth (1536) and 1930s adverts for Kellogg’s All-Bran cereal that claim to keep consumers young, to contemporary works that highlight the realities of ageing and challenge assumptions about life’s stages.

Flo Brooks’ paintings of badges feature slogans, such as I’m having a mid-teen crisis (2018) and New TEENAGER Here Comes Trouble (2018) use humour to reflect on queer identity and family dynamics and Serena Korda’s Wild Apples (2024) positions menopause as a time of powerful transformation. Self-portraits by Paula Rego, made after falling at 81, and William Utermohlen, while living with dementia, convey how art can empower a sense of self as we age. Rory Pilgrim's film Software Garden (2018) opens with poet and disability advocate Carol R Kallend reflecting on the value of care and her desire for a robotic companion after national cuts in disability support.

Pioneering research and art collaborations spotlight how experiences of age are shaped, from the Wellcome Trust-funded, Bradford-based health research project, Age of Wonder—one of the world’s largest studies of adolescence—to Uncertain Futures (2019-2024) led by Suzanne Lacy with Manchester Art Gallery and 100 women from diverse communities across Manchester. The latter combines art, research and activism to highlight inequalities faced by women over 50 in work and unpaid care, and to campaign for societal change.

Shamita Sharmacharja, Wellcome Collection Curator, said, “At Wellcome Collection, we believe everyone’s experience of health matters. The Coming of Age explores what ageing means for us throughout our lives, and how our experience of age is shaped by our environment, culture and society. By bringing together objects across time and artistic disciplines, we ask what changes are needed for us all to age better.”

Attempts through history to slow or stop the ageing process with treatments, from the 17th-century “syrup of long life” to products promoted today by founder of the Blueprint longevity brand, Bryan Johnson. Symbolic objects pointing to the possibility of immortality and acceptance of mortality, include Japanese netsuke—decorative kimono toggles; Charles Darwin’s skull-topped walking stick; and Sam Taylor-Johnson’s Still Life (2001) time-lapse film of ripening and decaying fruit.

The Coming of Age is accompanied by a book of the same name published by Wellcome Collection. Twelve leading writers reflect on how we are shaped by each stage of our lives and present a positive and radical vision of a future where we all age better.