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Two visitors look at sculptures of three women on large wooden pillars surrounded by apples; the central figure's body has been opened up and her insides are visible.

Wellcome CollectionEuston

The Coming of Age

Last chance26 March 2026 – 29 November 2026Free

Over 150 artworks and objects explore how experiences of ageing across all life stages are shaped by environment, culture and society, and what greater longevity means.

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On nowAll of November 2026

Since 1963, Japan has given every citizen who turns 100 a silver sake cup. In the first year it handed out 153. By 2014 it was over 29,000, and the government switched to a cheaper nickel substitute. Some of those cups are in this show, and they set up its main question: what is a 100-year life worth once it becomes ordinary?

About 150 artworks and objects run along a dimly lit, zigzagging path in Gallery 1. They cover teenagers as well as old age, from European prints of people supposedly aged 172 to Paula Rego, Darwin's walking stick and a life-expectancy calculator. At the entrance a board asks "Is age really just a number?" and you answer on a card.

The Times gave it four stars and called it "an exhibition that gives you hope about getting old". The Museums Journal found it heartening, with one complaint: the AI artworks by niceaunties sit awkwardly in an otherwise very human show. It's free.

Editor's pick

Over 150 artworks and objects on how environment, culture and society shape ageing at every stage of life. Entry is free.

Look for

  • Darwin's walking stick

    His cane, with a skull on it, stands beside Daphne Wright's sculpture Zimmer, which is about the tension between support and frailty.

  • William Utermohlen's self-portraits

    Painted after his Alzheimer's diagnosis in 1995, they show his perception and sense of space changing as the illness progressed.

  • Serena Korda's Crones

    Figures modelled on West Country women aged 44 to 76, surrounded by scattered apples, that treat menopause as a transformation rather than a loss.

  • The Pepper robot

    A care robot trialled by the Japanese government and dropped in 2021 for lack of demand, displayed switched off and alone.

  • Unclaimed

    An interactive lost property office in which every object carries a story from someone over 70 in Camden.

Good for

  • Cheap Culture
  • Nerding Out

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