New exhibition: The Coming of Age
26 March – 29 November 2026
Press preview: 25 March 2025, 10:00 – 13:00
Opening at Wellcome Collection in March 2026, 'The Coming of Age' is the first major museum exhibition to explore 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.
More than 120 artworks and objects are featured in the exhibition, from Sebald Beham’s medieval woodcut depicting elders rejuvenated by the mythical fountain of youth (1536) to 1930s adverts for Kellogg’s All-Bran cereal that claim to keep consumers young. Contemporary works range from Deborah Roberts’ 'King Me' (2019) – from a series that highlights the societal challenges that Black children face as they strive to build their identity – to Robert Mapplethorpe’s portrait of a playful and defiant 70-year-old Louise Bourgeois ahead of her first major museum retrospective.
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.”
'The Coming of Age' opens with a 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 later downgraded to the silver-nickel alloy version awarded today.
Artists featured in the exhibition highlight the realities of ageing and also challenge assumptions about life’s stages. Flo Brooks’ paintings of badges featuring 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) brings together poetry, performance and music video to explore the importance of intergenerational connections in a technological society. The work 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.
The exhibition also features attempts through history to slow or stop the ageing process with treatments, from a 17th-century ‘syrup of long life’ jar to the products promoted today by founder of the Blueprint longevity brand, Bryan Johnson. Symbolic objects also point to both the possibility of immortality and acceptance of mortality. Examples include Japanese netsuke – decorative kimono toggles – carved with cultural stories and symbols of longevity, such as gods of long life and an ‘immortality’ fungus, as well as Charles Darwin’s skull-topped walking stick and Sam Taylor-Johnson’s 'Still Life' (2001) time-lapse film of ripening and decaying fruit.
A Wellcome Collection partnership with Magic Me, a Tower Hamlets-based arts charity, brought together an intergenerational group of children, aged 9 and 10, and older adults, aged 50 to 80, to explore age and ageism in birthday cards. The resulting artwork, 'It's on the Cards', questions common birthday card tropes, such as jokes about decline, and offers joyful and positive alternatives.
'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. The anthology features new writing by Travis Alabanza, Pragya Agarwal, Sharon Blackie, Venki Ramakrishnan, Angela Saini, Vicky Spratt and others, from cutting-edge science on why we age, to the ancient myths of Britain’s ‘older giantesses’, to the cultural, social and psychological significance of ageing.
Notes to editors
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Visitor Information
- ‘The Coming of Age’ runs from 26 March – 29 November 2026.
- Admission is free.
- Opening hours: Tuesday to Sunday 10:00 to 18:00, Thursdays from 10:00 to 20:00, closed Mondays.
- Address: Wellcome Collection, 183 Euston Road, NW1 2BE.
Accessibility
- Step-free access is available to all floors of the building.
- Large-print guides and magnifiers are available in our galleries.
- Ear defenders, tinted glasses, tinted visors and weighted lap pads are available on request.
- All exhibition texts are accessible in screen readable formats via QR codes.
- A visual story is available to help you plan and prepare ahead of visiting.
- Accessible tours to our displays and exhibitions are available and bookable online.
About Wellcome Collection
Wellcome Collection is a free museum and library. We believe everyone’s experience of health matters. Through our collections, exhibitions and events, in books and online, we explore the past, present and future of health.
You can find us near Euston station in London and at wellcomecollection.org. Our exhibitions and events are always free. You can use our library and view items from our collections free of charge too – you may just need to book in advance.
Wellcome Collection opened in 2007. We care for many thousands of items relating to health, medicine and human experience, including rare books, artworks, films and videos, personal archives, and objects. We’re part of Wellcome, a charitable foundation supporting science to help build a healthier future for everyone.