If you are facing the QR code, then in front of you is a dome-shaped space designed to provide a low-stimulation environment. It is an artwork called ‘The Space Within’. Its shape is inspired by natural forms and traditional African architecture from Zululand, Namibia and Cameroon. The dome is covered in green fabric with a soft undulating surface.
Above it hangs a textile banner, stretching a metre and a half tall and a metre wide. It has a symbol that resembles a line drawing of an abstract figure with a spiralling coil for a head, their arms raised to the sky. A circle in the top-right corner gives the impression of a moon.
The artist Rudy Loewe’s hope in creating this work is to counteract the feeling of being ‘stranded’ in central London, especially for disabled or neurodivergent people, for whom the city can be particularly overwhelming.
‘The Space Within’ offers the chance to rest, with the option to listen to meditative sound pieces made by the artist. The warm tones of the interior evoke red-light therapy, which studies suggest can help reduce anxiety.
You can enter this work by going through a low arched opening. There are members of Wellcome staff here to help you access the work and use the headphones.
Inside are grooved spaces where you can lie down if you want to. There are swathes of soft red fabric hanging between each individual groove, designed to enable you to rest next to but separate from fellow visitors, providing places for pause and for reflection.
On a freestanding label by the entrance to this space is a tactile symbol Loewe has made for you to touch. It has as its lower half a straight vertical line. At the top of that, it starts to swoop into four curved lines, out of which a wavy triangular shape emerges, filled with black dots and circles.
Next to the tactile symbol is a text by Rudy Loewe, which they will now read for you:
“You find yourself stranded within your own body. Overstimulated/untethered/out of spoons/in need of rest and lost at sea. This space comes as a raft in the chaos. A place to ground and gather yourself, an invitation to stillness.
“The tactile element for ‘The Space Within’ embodies what is being seeded within you when you open to stillness.”
This is the end of track 6. If you are facing the QR code, then the tactile path continues to your left towards the next artwork.
