LONDON (AP) – For all of us, death is the end. For forensic scientists, it’s also a beginning.
An exhibition at London’s Wellcome Collection journeys through the afterlife of violent death, from crime scene to mortuary, laboratory and courtroom.
It’s a world we think we know from movies and TV dramas. But curator Lucy Shanahan said Tuesday that the exhibition’s aim is to show the “real lives and personal narratives at the heart of forensics.”
The Wellcome’s mission is to explore the ways in which art, medicine and science overlap, and the exhibition mixes real-life – and real-death – artifacts with artworks inspired by related themes.
It tracks key developments in forensic science, including the first police crime lab established in Lyon, France in 1910 by Edmond Locard, who developed the key principle that “every contact leaves a trace.” Later breakthroughs include fingerprint identification and DNA analysis.