Portrait of Ruth and James, by Siân Davey, 2020. Ruth wears a red top and skirt and black shoes. James stands with his arms around her shoulders wearing a black and white zip-up hooded top, white t-shirt, jeans and white trainers. They are against a yellow background. Ruth and her son James speak in the accompanying audio about the impact of sickle-cell disease on their family life, following James’s diagnosis as a baby. Each sitter was asked to chose three words to describe themselves. Ruth chose encourager, carer, and organiser. James chose son, warrior, and survivor.

One of a set of 33 prints commissioned for Medicine: The Wellcome Galleries from significant British photographer Siân Davey. Within one set of 21 for ‘Medicine and Bodies’, members of the participation project ‘When medicine defines what’s ‘normal’’ shaped the choice of sitters and style of portraits to encourage discussion around the themes of diagnosis and medical labelling, and their impact on lives and perceptions of normality. Versions of the portraits have been specially created for the 25-year life span of the Medicine galleries, either as life-size physical portraits, or as digital images to accompany audio discussions. These archival portrait prints of each work have been produced specially for the museum art collection by Davey.

Both sets of prints reflect the aspirations of the ‘When medicine defines what’s normal’ participants to show the varied personalities of sitters. Each person is represented with a variety of poses and expressions, some with props, and against background colours carefully chosen with the participants to work with the wider gallery palette. Some sitters chose to be photographed with family members, whose voices also appear in the oral histories. Some sitters appear with assistive technologies but are not defined by them. Davey’s portraits question what is a healthy or a ‘normal’ body, highlight how medicine shapes, impacts and intersects with the lives of individuals and perceptions of normality, and provoke reflection about the existing collections.