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‘Tenderness and Rage’ exhibition at Wellcome Collection

Welcome to this exhibition named ‘Tenderness and Rage’.

This stop explains access information for the exhibition. 

You can also see an introduction to the exhibition nearby.

When you enter the exhibition, there will be four stops explaining key artworks.

At each artwork, there will be a screen with the BSL symbol and signing. 

There is also a QR code. Using your phone, you will see three options: 

When you watch the BSL on your phone, you can adjust the speed.

Click on the settings cog, then click on ‘playback speed’.

You can then make the video faster or slower. 

This stop has different guides that you can pick up:

• Large-print guide with exhibition texts.

• Visual story that provides information about the exhibition using images, symbols and short written explanations. You can take this guide with you through the exhibition, or read it online before you visit.

• Sensory map that provides information about sound, strong visuals and sensitive content. You can prepare for what you want to see, and what you want to avoid. 

On your phone, turn on the WiFi and connect to ‘Wellcome Guest’.

Tick the T&Cs box and press ‘connect’. 

If you need a seat, the exhibition has seating throughout. 

Need help? You can ask staff wearing a black Wellcome Collection t-shirt.

They will be more than happy to answer questions and help you. 

Introduction to access resources

Hello and welcome to this introduction to ‘Tenderness and Rage’. 

My name is Adam Rose, the curator of the exhibition.

‘Tenderness and Rage’ explores histories of HIV, protest and care, from the AIDS epidemic in the UK in the 1980s and 90s to contemporary experiences of HIV in the Global South. Through photography, film and archival material, the exhibition examines how activist groups and volunteer-led organisations have supported and campaigned for the dignity and human rights of people living with HIV. 

In the following stops, you will hear the voices and perspectives of activists talking about their connections to four key works in the exhibition. 

This is combined with a visual description of the artworks and is followed by basic navigation information. 

Members of staff wearing black Wellcome Collection tops are in the gallery at all times. Please do let them know if you need any assistance.

The first room, which focuses on the UK, has three audio stops. 

The second room, looking at the wider global experience, has one stop.

Two short speech-based films are accessible through headphones: ‘Dancing whilst diagnosed’ and ‘Emmanuel’. 

Inside the exhibition, in front of each stop, there is a white square tile on the floor with raised blisters, like the ones used at traffic crossings. 

At each stop, you can access the audio guide either by using the round earcones that are attached by cables to freestanding boxes or the wall, or by scanning the QR code next to the artwork with your phone. 

The QR codes are printed on circular discs, the size of a saucer, with a title and number in white lettering.

Here, at the access pick-up station, you will find a screen with a British Sign Language (BSL) introduction, and boxes with various printed guides:

• A light pink A4-sized large-print guide includes enlarged versions of all the exhibition texts, a floor map, as well as a list of all the digital guide stops. It has a symbol of an eye with a line through the middle on the cover. 

• You will also find a black A4-sized visual story booklet. This provides pre-visit information about the exhibition, using images, symbols and short written explanations. This has a symbol of a book on the cover. 

• There is also a dark blue, A4-sized paper map of sensory elements in the exhibition, such as bright lights or sound. This has symbols with a hand and an ear on the cover. 

For stop two, please go through the heavy glass entrance doors and follow the wall to the right. If you wish to pick up a folding seat, you will find them just to the left of the exhibition entrance.  

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ACT UP London protests. Black and white photographs: © Gordon Rainsford Archive, Bishopsgate Institute. ‘Tenderness and Rage’ exhibition at Wellcome Collection. Gallery Photo: Benjamin Gilbert. © Wellcome Collection

It was set up because people were dying from AIDS-related complications.

So many people were dying and yet the government wasn’t doing anything. 

ACT UP organised and protested because they wanted the HIV pandemic to end.

Plus, they wanted to see the end of injustices and inequalities. 

The spread of HIV was getting worse, and ACT UP wanted to stop this. 

You know how protestors do a ‘lie-in’, with people lying down as a form of protest?

ACT UP decided to protest with a ‘die-in’ instead.

Protestors would lie on the floor to represent people who had been killed by AIDS.

The two black-and-white photographs you see here are an example of a die-in.

They’re from the 1990s and the photographer is Gordon Rainsford. 

The colour photograph was taken by Ben Gilbert.

He took the picture in 2025, showing an ACT UP die-in at Trafalgar Square in central London.

ACT UP used to be a big movement, before decreasing in size.

Activist Dan Glass was one person who helped with this. 

“For World AIDS Day 2025 we staged a Living Act of Resistance.

“We held a minute’s silence, then lay on cold, damp ground with cardboard gravestones, roses and candles – marking millions lost to AIDS-related deaths and condemning government complicity in preventable loss.

“Above us, birds cut a V through the sky, rotating leaders, sharing responsibility.

“A lesson in survival. Nature knows how to organise far better than Westminster does. 

“Lying there, grief and rage intertwined.

“Public mourning is political: it insists that our lovers, friends and family should still be here, kissing, arguing, creating and dancing.” 

Under a cold winter sky, protestors chanted:

“We mourn the dead. We fight like hell for the living.” 

Artist and AIDS activist David Wojnarowicz said in 1989:

“I’m carrying this rage like a blood-filled egg.” 

Forty years later, we’re still incubating it. 

It’s forty years into the AIDS crisis and people are still dying.

The government is doing nothing: stalling and stigmatising. 

Healthcare used to be publicly and widely available, and yet now more and more healthcare is being privatised. If you want good care, you have to pay for it. 

Thought die-ins were finished? A thing of the past?

You’re wrong. They’re still happening today. 

Die-ins are still needed so we remember our history.

Turning memory and mourning into action. 

We won’t accept institutional bigotry. 

Activist Dan Glass on ACT UP Die-In

Hi, I’m Dan Glass and I’m an HIV-positive activist.

In 1989, AIDS Coalition to Unleash Power, ACT UP London Chapter, formed during the rising AIDS-related deaths and government inaction.

Today, ACT UP London is a diverse, non-partisan group, united in anger and committed to direct action to end the HIV pandemic, along with the broader inequalities and injustices that perpetuate it.

For World AIDS Day on 1 December 2025, we staged a Living Act of Resistance. 

We held a minute’s silence, then lay on the cold, damp paving stones of Trafalgar Square to mark the millions lost to AIDS-related deaths and to condemn government complicity in preventable loss. 

We chanted: “We mourn the dead, we fight like hell for the living.” 

Resistance felt both intimate and collective.

Ben Gilbert’s colour photograph shows about 30 of us lying on our backs, fanned out around a statue on a large traffic island at the top of Whitehall.  This statue is of Charles I on horseback.  He looks down towards the Houses of Parliament, just visible in the distance.

The base of the monument is draped in a red banner. 

We’re holding handmade cardboard gravestones over our bodies. 

The inscription on one reads: ‘Silence Equals Death’. 

Some have brought red roses and candles. 

Three people are standing facing us. One holds a cardboard gravestone that reads ‘For a Friend’. 

Another holds a list of names with the heading: ‘Never Forgotten’. 

I remember that above us, birds cut a V through the sky, rotating leaders, sharing responsibility. 

Nature knows how to organise far better than Westminster does. 

Public mourning is political: it insists that our lovers, friends and family should still be here, kissing, arguing, creating, dancing. 

Lying there, grief and rage are intertwined.

As the artist and activist David Wojnarowicz wrote, “I’m carrying this rage like a blood-filled egg.” 

Forty years later, we’re still incubating it.  Forty years on, people are still dying while governments stall, stigmatise and privatise care. At the same time, global inequities in access to testing, medications, housing and mental health care persist.

HIV is not just a medical issue, it is political, economic, gendered and racialised. 

ACT UP London exists because Silence Still Equals Death and Action Still Equals Life.

Continue to your left, passing a display case, to read Stop 03 on the wall opposite the exhibition’s entrance.

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The Ward, 1993. © Gideon Mendel. ‘Tenderness and Rage’ exhibition at Wellcome Collection. Gallery Photo: Benjamin Gilbert. © Wellcome Collection

These photos were taken in 1993 by photographer Gideon Mendel.

They were taken in London, at Middlesex Hospital, on the Broderip and Charles Bell wards – the UK’s first dedicated AIDS wards.  

Mendel took the photos to document the experiences of patients. 

The photographic series is called ‘The Ward’. It focused on four men with HIV: John, Ian, André and Steven.

At the time, there was no effective HIV treatment – like the ART medication. 

So, shortly after these photographs were taken, the four men died. 

But we can see the captured moments of intimacy between patients, family, friends, loved ones and hospital staff. 

These wards pioneered a new model of care, focusing on what HIV patients wanted. Their wellbeing was number one. 

‘Patient-activists’ took an active role in their own care, working directly with doctors, nurses and other staff to advocate for dignity and agency in their treatment. 

Staff didn’t just look after their patients’ medical needs. They looked after their personal and social needs too. They wanted the wards to have a warm, homely atmosphere.

See the photograph with the two men on the hospital bed?

Jane Bruton, a former nurse and Ward Sister on these wards, says:

“This image of John and his partner epitomises everything we were trying to do in encouraging patients, partners, and family to be themselves. 

“As a student nurse, I learned about individualised patient care but never saw it in practice on the wards. But on the AIDS wards we had the chance to make this a reality, compelled by the determination of gay and HIV activists who were fighting against stigma and for the right to high-quality compassionate care.

“This was a radical departure from the norm where ‘doctor knows best’, visiting was restricted and showing emotion was considered unprofessional. As a student, I was reprimanded just for sitting on a patient’s bed to comfort them. 

“We tore up the old rule book, flattened the hierarchy between doctor, nurse and patient and established an approach to care based on choice, honesty, human rights and safety.

“Of course, working with patients with AIDS was tough.

“We had many deaths and attended a lot of funerals.

“We dealt with difficult and tragic situations and shed many tears, but there were tears of laughter too.”

“For me, touch symbolises the ward. Some patients were deprived of human contact and love. So we welcomed patients with a hug, a kiss, a handshake… just as they should be in ordinary life. It also showed we were not frightened.”

Former ward sister Jane Bruton on ‘The Ward’ by Gideon Mendel

I was a ward sister on the Broderip and Charles Bell Wards at Middlesex Hospital. They were amongst the first dedicated AIDS wards in the UK. 

This black-and-white image of John and his partner epitomises everything we were trying to do in encouraging patients, partners and their families to be themselves. 

On the left-hand side of the photograph there’s a hospital bed, with its curtain pushed back so that it’s open to the corridor on the right-hand side. In the distance, a nurse is heading towards us.

Two white men in their late twenties are reclining on the bed, heads leaning together in conversation.  They’re both in white t-shirts, one wearing shorts, the other jeans, their legs stretched out in front of them, comfortably leaning against each other in the narrow space.  Above the bed, half a dozen cards are stuck to the wall, some decorated with hearts and the word LOVE, L - O - V - E.

As a student nurse, I learned about the concept of individualised patient care but never saw it in practice. 

On the AIDS wards, we had the chance to make this a reality, compelled by the determination of gay and HIV activists who were fighting against stigma and for the right to high-quality, compassionate care. 

We discarded the old rules. We flattened the hierarchies between doctors, nurses and patients. And we established a model of care based on choice, honesty, human rights and safety. 

This was a radical shift from norms where ‘doctor knows best’, and where emotions were seen as unprofessional. In fact, as a student nurse, I was reprimanded for sitting on a patient’s bed just to comfort them.

Of course, working with patients with AIDS was tough. We dealt with difficult and tragic situations, many deaths, and attended a lot of funerals. We shed many tears but there were tears of laughter too. 

We were so well supported by the gay community, the volunteers and the activists. The community put on fabulous cabarets and parties for everyone to come to, including the porters. We supported patients to go out for coffees or special events like the theatre, to help to normalise their lives.

For me, touch, shown so clearly in this photograph, was at the heart of these wards.

While some patients were deprived of human contact and love, we welcomed them with hugs, kisses and handshakes, as you do in everyday life. It showed we weren't frightened. And it showed that we cared.

The power of this one image is that it expresses what has taken me so much longer to explain in words. 

And I have to say that my time on this ward was the greatest privilege in my life.

To get to the next stop, turn your back on the Gideon Mendel photographs and head diagonally towards the right-hand wall. 

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Tenderness and Rage. Memory Store, Angelina Namiba. Courtesy of Angelina Namiba. Gallery Photo: Benjamin Gilbert. © Wellcome Collection

It was developed as part of the memory-box project, started in South Africa. 

The project started because HIV-positive parents wanted to tell their children:

They wanted to create a memory box to keep the family history, and plan for the future. 

It would be a memory box for children, so that when their mum was gone, they could remember her. 

This box was made by Angelina Namiba to give to her daughter.

Angelina was first diagnosed with HIV in 1992.

At the time, there was no HIV treatment available and those with HIV were often expected to die within six months. 

Angelina chose items she felt were important and easily identifiable.

She didn’t want items that needed explanation, as when she died, she wouldn’t be around to discuss them. 

All of the included items hold an important meaning. 

You can see three ‘Positively Women’ magazines from 1999.

Angelina was pregnant with her daughter and wrote in a week-by-week ‘Pregnancy Journey’ diary. 

At the time, it was rare to openly talk about this.

But Angelina wanted her daughter to know she was special.

And she wanted her daughter to grow up and read the diary and know that the pregnancy was a wonderful experience. 

Also included was a baby book with a photograph of her daughter being born during a caesarean-section operation, the umbilical cord still attached.

A piece of the cord is also in the book. 

“Looking back on the ‘Memory Store’, I can see how the memories I decided to include clearly demonstrated how important it was for me to be a mum.

“How the peer support I received so early on in my diagnosis enabled me to cope and realise my dream.

“It inspired me to become one of the founder members who set up the 4M Network of Mentor Mothers.

“A small charity that has gone on to train and support women living with HIV to support their peers through the pregnancy journey, and also for their own personal development.

“A reminder of just how vital one-to-one human support is and continues to be, for people living with HIV in all our diversities.”

Activist Angelina Namiba on ‘Memory Store’

Please note, this exhibit contains a human umbilical cord and a depiction of a surgery.

I was first diagnosed with HIV in 1992, at a time when we didn’t have effective medication, and many were given just six months to live after diagnosis.

Women living with HIV were encouraged to create Memory Boxes for our children, something to remember us by after we were gone.

Mine is at the back of the case. It’s a bright yellow cardboard box. A colourful contrast to the dark times we were living through.  

It has patterns of blue, black and red triangles at the front, resembling a woven textile and a label: ‘Memory Store’. It holds six pull-out drawers which include items important to me. 

First of all, a red handprint that my daughter made at nursery school, with a bright yellow frame. 

A printed baby book is opened to a page labelled ‘My First Photograph’ and I’ve added a photograph taken during the caesarean operation when she was born. I’m on the operating table, and a doctor in a blue surgical gown and mask is lifting my daughter up, still connected to me by the umbilical cord. 

A piece of that umbilical cord is attached to the opposite page, in a transparent bag, along with both our hospital identification wristbands.

Folded into two drawers are some of her baby clothes: her first swimsuit, first dress, first pair of white and blue trainers. I also included her first ballet shoes of pale pink leather. From a very early age, she went to tap, jazz, ballet and African dance classes.

I put three issues of ‘Positively Women’ magazine from 1999 into the box. There’s a line drawing of a woman holding a baby on the cover of one issue. 

The magazines contain my diary, published under the title ‘Pregnancy Journey’, a rare thing to talk about during this period.

Looking back on the ‘Memory Store’, I can see how the peer support I received early on in my diagnosis helped me to cope and realise my dream. 

It inspired me to co-found the 4M Network of Mentor Mothers. 4M stands for my health, my choice, my child, my life.

It’s a small charity that trains and supports women living with HIV, empowering them to mentor peers through pregnancy and also support their own personal development. 

It’s a reminder of just how vital one-to-one human support is for people living with HIV in all our diversities.

A few steps to your right is a wide doorway. 

Directly ahead is a freestanding display, including a colour photo of a South African couple embracing on a bed that echoes the black and white photo of John and his partner we heard about on the previous stop. Instead of going forward to this display, follow the wall of the room round to the left.

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Through Positive Eyes. © Through Positive Eyes, a project of Gideon Mendel and the UCLA Art and Global Health Center. ‘Tenderness and Rage’ exhibition at Wellcome Collection. Gallery Photo: Benjamin Gilbert. © Wellcome Collection

This is a photo-storytelling project called ‘Through Positive Eyes’.

Over 200 activists were involved from all over the world. 

It was created through a series of workshops with Gideon Mendel and the Art & Global Health Center at UCLA.

Participants were people with HIV who took photos to capture their experiences of what life is like with HIV. 

The participants came from all over the world: different locations, languages and subject matters – but their works show the isolation caused by discrimination and stigma.

We can see the importance of human intimacy and community, and the vital role of activism and creativity in advocating for HIV care. 

Many of the photos highlight the urgency of continued funding and HIV prevention and treatment, especially amongst global instability and cuts to international aid. 

Five stories were chosen for this exhibition. 

These photographs were taken in London in 2015. 

She now runs gardening classes for people living with HIV in London. 

“Receiving an HIV-positive diagnosis can make you feel deeply lonely.

“Gardening helps you to reconnect with other living creatures, to realise that you are not alone.

“It gives you a way into understanding the natural cycles of the world.

“If you are able to enjoy a flower, look at birds and insects, you may start feeling better. Growing plants from bulbs, seeds and cuttings give you hope. 

“The words ‘culture’ and ‘cultivate’ share a common root.

“If you learn to cultivate, you learn to look after yourself and others. 