Verity Healthcare

A brand new exhibition at Verulamium Museum in St Albans explores Roman conceptions of well being and incapacity and the way it compares to trendy perceptions.

‘Mapping an Uneven Path’ opened throughout UK Incapacity Historical past Month (UKDHM), in December, and runs till 23 February 2025.

The exhibition is obtainable from Monday to Friday 10am to 4.30pm and Saturday 11am to three.30pm. Admission fees apply.

The exhibition displays on ‘livelihood and employment’, which is that this yr’s theme for UKDHM, and discovers what life journeys had been like for the residents and topics of the Roman Empire, throughout the shores of the Mediterranean to the hills of Verulamium on which modern-day St Albans is constructed.

The exhibition seeks to uncover what good well being and healthcare meant to historical ancestors, how they understood their our bodies and minds, and the cultural perceptions and experiences of circumstances recognised as disabilities at this time.

Mapping an Uneven Path is visitor curated by Kyle Lewis Jordan, a disabled archaeologist and curator who specialises within the research of incapacity and antiquity.

Kyle stated: “We will be nearly sure that there have been plenty of individuals with lived expertise of disablement in Roman occasions as a result of increased charge of accidents, warfare, and such like- individuals had been extra more likely to have been disabled.”

As a part of the exhibition, Kyle labored with a bunch of co-producers from the St Albans neighborhood who explored the Roman journey by way of the lens of various lived experiences. The group investigated objects from day by day life inside the museum’s collections to seek out connections with their very own lives as disabled individuals at this time. Their historic tales of incapacity are shared as quick movies, object interpretations, and audio narratives all through the exhibition.

Kyle continued: “We wished to work with native individuals with their very own lived expertise in at this time’s world, imagining what it might have been like in Roman occasions by offering historic context- the result’s an excellent concept of what our ancestors would have skilled.”

Guests are taken on an interactive and accessible journey by way of the museum encountering objects from the gathering, together with uncommon examples of medical instruments, a Roman coin that includes an Empress nursing two infants, and a Collyrium stamp that will have been used for treating eye infections.

A movie, ‘In Our Palms’, options co-producers dealing with Roman objects from the gathering, describing and reflecting on their makes use of.

Alongside the exhibition, the Verulamium Museum has created new accessibility choices together with tactile maps and pictures of objects, braille guides, ear defenders, easy-read guides, large-print guides, and audio descriptive guides in addition to fictional narratives of Roman characters delivered to life by the co-producers’ lived experiences and voiced by volunteers.

Tales from the exhibition are illustrated by well-known Classicist Illustrator Flora Kirk from Flaroh Illustrations, whose earlier works embrace Roman Baths exercise guide.

Kyle highlighted the significance of launching throughout UK Incapacity Historical past Month which ran from 14 November to twenty December, because the staff wished to attach guests to the on a regular basis experiences of disabled Romans.

Kyle added: “The theme this yr is livelihood and employment which connects with our exhibition because it’s speaking about day by day life and how disabled individuals, traditionally and presently, get on with their day.

“The co-producers did a superb job at imagining what their lives would have been like dwelling in Roman Verulamium.”

Catherine Newley, Viewers Improvement Supervisor at St Albans Museums, commented: “A part of our ‘Revisiting the Romans’ collection which is funded by the Arts Council, this participating and well timed exhibition brings to mild objects and experiences used and encountered by our Roman ancestors.

“It’s been notably pleasing to audit and develop our accessibility providing so extra individuals can get pleasure from and grow to be immersed on this and future exhibitions. We’d welcome suggestions from our guests as to what we’ve received proper and the way else we will make Verulamium Museum extra accessible sooner or later.

“We’re totally grateful to Kyle and all the co-producers for highlighting how disabled individuals in Roman Britain would have lived their lives and drawing comparisons with their very own lived experiences at this time.”

Lead Councillor for Heritage at St Albans Metropolis & District Council, Anthony Rowlands, commented: “This exhibition is as modern as it can be crucial.

“Our museum service’s experience offers the important historic context to allow guests to make use of their creativeness to narrate to the human experiences of being confronted with disablement in Roman occasions. Thereby, the exhibition illuminates the previous and concurrently makes us extra conscious of our current.”

Kyle concluded: “My hope is that guests will replicate on what well being and incapacity means not simply within the historical previous, however our personal lives at this time. The life paths we journey are lengthy, winding and at occasions difficult, however their well-worn steps are an impression of what makes us all human.”

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