Visual & Material Lab Lead Fiona Johnstone was recently invited to contribute to a study day on “Curating Public Health: Cross-Disciplinary Dialogues around the Royal Photographic Society’s Medical Group Collection” at the Victoria and Albert Museum. The day brought together an inspiring mix of curators, public health experts, medical humanities researchers, artists, and PhD researchers to explore a provocative question: can the arts and museum sector help address the public health crisis?
The centerpiece of the day was a private viewing of the Royal Photographic Society’s Medical Group archive—a rare collection of medical photographs not currently on public display. Seeing these historical images sparked profound discussions about how we visualize health and illness, both then and now. Participants examined the Medical Group of the Royal Photographic Society as a historical case study of embedding artist collectives within health practitioner communities; discussed current opportunities and challenges in deploying arts-based public health initiatives; and imagined future scenarios where art museums actively contribute to public health through new ways of presenting and understanding wellness and illness.
The day also included a guided tour of the V&A Photography Centre, where medical photographs were displayed within the broader history of photography—another reminder of how context shapes our understanding.
What emerged most strongly was the collective energy around reimagining public health’s future. The conversations reinforced that addressing health crises requires reconnecting with personal human experiences, not just datasets. The cultural sector has a powerful, perhaps essential, role to play in that transformation.
