Jason and the Adventure of 254

21 March 2024 – 12 January 2025

Now on

Free
Exhibition

Photograph of a colourful exhibition space with three individuals exploring a large sculpture of a pair of boots with callipers. The sculpture is covered in colourful patterns and towers above their heads. On the wall in the background is a bright yellow mural containing drawings and text.

An emotional and whimsical expression of the joys of being human, fun for the whole family, and has something powerful to say about how society perceives disability.
Metro

Artist Jason Wilsher-Mills presents a major solo exhibition, ‘Jason and the Adventure of 254’, his largest and most personal commission to date. It is a joyful exploration of the body, drawing on the artist’s experience of becoming disabled as a child.

Reimagining the gallery space as a hospital ward, Wilsher-Mills’ installation of sculptures, illustrations and interactive dioramas challenges cultural and societal perceptions surrounding disability, medicine and the human body.

The exhibition is inspired by 1980s TV, as well as anatomical drawings in Wellcome Collection, and uses a kaleidoscope of colours with a touch of magic realism. It is a celebration of family and creativity expressed through Wilsher-Mills’ characteristic tongue-in-cheek humour.

Everyone is invited to explore ‘Jason and the Adventure of 254’. There are interactive push-button lights, and you can touch everything in the exhibition. To keep you and the artworks safe, please touch them gently and do not climb on the sculptures.

You can also watch a short tour of the exhibition narrated by Wilsher-Mills. In the video, the artist talks about his influences and shares the story behind some of his key works.

Exhibition highlights

Photograph of a large sculpture in an exhibition space. The sculpture is a large person covered in colourful painted patterns, lying on a hospital bed. Two gallery visitors to the side of the bed are activating the button which sets off a light show covering the surface of the sculpture. — 1 of 11
This installation transports us back in time to Pinderfields Hospital, Wakefield on 1 August 1980 at 2.54pm, when 11-year-old Jason witnessed his parents being told of the autoimmune condition that paralysed him from the neck down. This figure represents Jason’s memory of what was happening to his body, his feet swollen to massive proportions to symbolise pain, and light signals depicting the neurological pathways from his brain to his body gone awry.

Photo of the sculpture 'Seb Coe' by Jason Willsher Mills. The sculpture of of an athlete running in a race but instead of a head the figuure has a tv set showing the other runners in the race. — 2 of 11
Jason can pinpoint the exact time of his diagnosis to 2.54pm, as it coincided with Sebastian Coe winning the 1500-metre race in the 1980 Moscow Olympics, which was being shown on the ward’s ever-present TV. 254 also happened to be Coe’s racing number. Here Seb Coe’s head has morphed into a TV, and he is pointing at the ‘Figure in the Bed’. The athlete is surrounded by toy soldiers and viruses, and is urging them to attack the figure.

Photograph of an oversized green toy soldier sculpture wielding a molecular representation of a virus. Behind the soldier a large shadow of the virus is cast on the wall. — 3 of 11
Jason’s doctor explained his autoimmune condition as an army of soldiers living inside him that were attacking rather than defending him. Oversized toy soldiers wield viruses instead of guns and deliver them to the ‘Figure in the Bed’. Inflatable viruses are suspended in the air and cast ominous shadows in the space.

Detail from a larger sculpture showing a cut away section of the sculpted body's leg, and a small green toy soldier marching up the cut away. — 4 of 11
The ‘Figure in the Bed’s cutaway sections are inspired by Wellcome Collection’s historic anatomical drawings and reveal what is happening inside Jason’s body. The red wires, lights and colour scheme also reference the board game ‘Operation!’.

Photograph of a colourful exhibition space with a large sculpture of a pair of boots with callipers. The sculpture is covered in colourful patterns. Behind the sculpture are 2 arcade style booths showing a multi-layered dioramas. — 6 of 11
Calliper boots were one of the many painful adaptive technologies that Jason was given to wear during his childhood. Though they were intended to support his weight and train his ankles, he found them pointless and burdensome. He has since reclaimed them as a symbol of pride and identity by reimagining them as boots that he would choose to wear. They are emblazoned with the Union Jack flag – a nod to Coe representing Britain and an outward manifestation of Wilsher-Mills’ inner mod.

Photograph of a colourful yellow wallpaper mural covering an entire gallery wall. The mural contains text and drawings. This section show a multi-handed character pointing in all directions. The text beside it is titled 'December'. — 7 of 11
This 30-metre-long wallpaper charts the year that Jason spent in Pinderfields Hospital. Popular culture became the main way he kept track of time while he was in hospital. Imagery inspired by TV shows like ‘Batman’ and ‘Doctor Who’, and his favourite comic, The Beano, evoke a sense of 1970s nostalgia. He uses these influences to create a range of alter egos, such as Super Hands, whose images chart events of personal significance and his metamorphosis from boy to man.

Photograph of a gallery visitor activating a large button on the front of an arcade style gaming machine. They are looking into a large glass fronted diorama, inside which is a multi-layered theatre style scene containing colourful drawings of characters and scenery.The backlit title of the diorama appears at the top of the booth and says 'Painting with my mouth'. — 8 of 11
Dioramas, reminiscent of the penny-arcade machines Wilsher-Mills remembers from family holidays to the seaside, light up when a button is pressed. They act as windows into the artist’s mind, illuminating some of his most formative experiences. ‘Painting With My Mouth’ acknowledges the pivotal role of Jason’s hospital education, without which he claims he would not have become an artist.

Diptych of two exhibition exhibits. The exhibits resemble an arcade machine with a large button on the front and a large glass fronted diorama, inside which are multi-layered theatre style scenes containing colourful drawings of characters and scenery. The exhibit on the left has the backlit title, 'Mum the Mermaid' and on he right, 'The Inseminoids'. — 9 of 11
Family features strongly in the dioramas. They are rich in symbolism, denoting stages of transition such as puberty. ‘Mum as a Mermaid’ illustrates Wilsher-Mills’ memory of his mother swimming in the North Sea at night-time, lit up by jellyfish. ‘Uncle Dennis and the Inseminoids’ is an imaginary rendering of a 1981 sci-fi horror film that his uncle Dennis told him about during a hospital visit, where images from the film combine with memories of his treatment.

Photograph of two gallery visitors leafing through an artist's sketchbook resting on a table. On the half turned page, a sketch of a large colourful anatomical heart can be seen. — 10 of 11
This drawing is just one of 400 that Wilsher-Mills made in preparation for this exhibition. The sketchbooks on display are available to browse through and show the development of the artwork from his initial ideas to the refining of the individual details. Many of the sketches are inspired by anatomical drawings from Wellcome Collection, which triggered memories of his own hospitalisation as a child.

A series of large-scale, colourful artworks by Jason Wilsher-Mills on display in the Atrium at Wellcome Collection. Part of a staircase can be seen on the left and part of a welcome desk on the right. There is a thick, tactile black line on the floor, which can be followed to reach each of the artworks. — 11 of 11
On display in our ground-floor Atrium, which is just inside the entrance to Wellcome Collection on level 0, is a selection of artworks from Jason Wilsher-Mills’ ongoing series ‘Jason and his Argonauts’. It reflects conversations between Wilsher-Mills and disabled people from community and youth groups he has worked with. Some of the portraits highlight the cultural and economic barriers that disabled people encounter, while others focus on people’s dreams and ambitions, creating an alternative story of disability through joyful activism.

Exhibition access content

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Galleries open Tuesday–Sunday, Opening times

Gallery 2, level 1

Step-free access is available to all floors of the building

Large-print guides, transcripts and magnifiers are available in the gallery

For more information, please visit our Accessibility page. If you have any queries about accessibility, please email us at access@wellcomecollection.org or call 0 2 0. 7 6 1 1. 2 2 2 2

Jason and the Adventure of 254

Exhibition highlights

Exhibition access content

Digital exhibition guide

Visual story

Visit us

Jason and the Adventure of 254

Exhibition highlights

Exhibition access content

Digital exhibition guide

Visual story

Visit us

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