Biomedicine on Display

A quick quote from Isabelle Stengers interesting book Cosmopolitics I (published in the series Posthumanities), which I feel sums up some of what we try to do at the Museion when we integrate aesthetics, politics, science communication and material culture:

“The sciences, as they are taught, that is, as they are presented once their results are unlinked from the practice of science “as it is practiced,” do not have a meaning that is appreciably different from a religious engine of war, poiting out the path to salvation, condemning sin and idolatry.”

This idea of science as ‘a religious engine of war’ is crucial in understanding some of the denialism and science-scepticism that exists all around us – people are getting weary and wary with the ever-changing landscape of scientific ‘facts’. Showing science as embodied and material practice – science in the making – is, I think, one way of re-linking science as it is taught to science as it is practiced, and thereby hopefully deepening the understanding of what science is/can be.

Who would have thought that the torrential rain during the dramatic storms seen in Copenhagen this weekend would have had such devastating consequences? The collection stores here at Medical Museion bore the brunt of it. In some places the water rose to 90 cm.  Dedicated members of the team arrived on Saturday and worked in the evening while the rooms were pumped. On Sunday, many others arrived to plough through the black gooey sludge and salvage more precious boxes.

On Monday, we were organized into groups, some carrying heavy boxes filled with flood damaged artefacts that still remained in the basements. Water was still leaking out of the soaking walls and the humidity did not help the situation. Others have been removing bones from sodden boxes, attempting to dry them a little and repack them temporarily in safer conditions before they will be packed more permanently. Paper, medical photos and other precious documentation was carefully peeled apart and placed between conservation papers and put under weights.  The smell is terrible and the actual cleaning of the damaged rooms will be a whole new and different problem. One floor has completely split open and cracks have appeared on the walls of these beautiful old buildings.

Everyone is working to salvage what he or she can. There is great sadness, determination and a sense of camaraderie.

It’s nice, of course, to read ‘Three Unknown Places in Copenhagen Worth Exploring’ in today’s issue of denmark.net:

Tired of the Little Mermaid and Tivoli Gardens? Here are three of Copenhagen’s less known tourist attractions … [the Sondermarken park, Cisternerne: Museum of Modern Glass Art  and] … Medicinsk-Historisk Museum.

I assume denmark.net means Medical Museion, which has been our officially recognised name for over six years now. Implementing a new institutional identity is really an uphill struggle. Shall we throw in the towel? Noops! Museions of the world, unite!

Monday morning when the conservator arrived at the Medical Museion, and went down to the basement to continue her work on some damaged bones from the collection, she found herself standing in water up to her ankles.

Like in many other parts of Zealand the heavy rains on Saturday had unexpected and unpleasant consequences for the Medical Museion. By far the largest part of the medical machines, historic books on health and hospital curios of the Medical Museion collection is kept in store rooms and basements around the buildings, out of the public eye. There simply isn’t enough room on the exhibitions.

The flood alert sounded around the Medical Museion. Hundred year old black and white photographs looked like autumn leaves, as they lay spread out on tables to dry. Books where put in drying cabinets, or pressed under lead weights.

The rooms of the museum turned, one after the other, into hospital wards for the drowned books and objects. The water was swept back into the drains with brooms. Meanwhile scientific research and museum planning continued on the top floors.

Perhaps this experience of the vulnerability of the medical objects will provide new ideas for the research into our own biodegradable materiality in the upcoming conference about healthy ageing. When it comes to aging doctors and medical scientist are, in a way, conservators working with the fabric of the human body.

For more pictures of the drowned objects visit: http://www.flickr.com/photos/53284874@N02/

Large bladder stone, encased in silver and carried by the patient (1652). Medical Museion, public exhibition.

Oslo-based medical photographer Øystein Horgmo (The Sterile Eye) made an incognito visit to Medical Museion two weekends ago — and has now written a very nice travel report + slide show, which includes some of the best photos of our artefacts on display that we’ve ever seen in the public domain.

I’ve never had a chance to meet Øystein in real life — hope he will be back less incognito soonish!

I’ve just had my abstract for the Universeum meeting in Uppsala in mid-June accepted. I’m posting a somewhat expanded version of the abstract here as a contribution to our ongoing discussion about Medical Museion’s identity:

Medical Museion at the University of Copenhagen is currently in a process of changing its identity. Founded in 1906, the Medical-Historical Museum in Copenhagen was one of the many traditional medical collections/museums that emerged in Europe in the late 19th and early 20 centuries. In 2001, the museum changed name to Medical Museion to emphasise the close connection between museological and historical research, heritage production and exhibitions, but otherwise the institution kept its identity as a ‘museum’.

However, Medical Museion is currently reframing its identity, from merely a ‘museum’ to an institution for science communication. The point of departure for this identity shift is a growing dissatisfaction with the state of science communication. Traditional dissemination of science through mass media (either printed, electronic, or web 1.0-based) is no longer viable. Science communication needs to embrace the rapid emergence of the full spectrum of social web media (web 2.0), and many museums are adopting the practices of museum 2.0.

But social web media have a serious limitation — they can only operate with mediated texts and images and cannot convey the immediacy of our relation with the material aspects of science. This is exactly what historical artefacts can do. By emphasising the material aspects of science (its ‘thingness’), artefact collections can add a ‘presence’ dimension to science communication.

By reframing this particular university ‘museum’ into a science communication institution that explores the limits of both traditional mass media and new social web media, we are forced to focus, both practically and academically, on the notion of ‘materiality’. By doing so, we believe that we can further stimulate the search for a philosophical underpinning of the new identity.

I’m not sure this short abstract makes sense, but now it’s out for public response.

Museums are in a constant identity crisis, and so is ours. Ten years ago we were a typical medical-history museum, now we are thinking more about ourselves as a place for medical science communication. But we haven’t yet found a clear identity. Maybe we will never do, but the process of trying is nevertheless instructive.

So I’m perpetually browsing around the get ideas, and just found this one from the Académie des Inscriptions et Belles-Lettres’s website: “Ainsi, peut-on considérer à juste titre l’Académie des Inscriptions et Belles-Lettres tout à la fois comme un ‘conservatoire’ (c’est-à-dire un lieu où l’on ‘sauve’ et où l’on maintient vivante la mémoire humaine) mais aussi un ‘laboratoire’ (c’est-à-dire un lieu vivant et foisonnant où s’élabore la recherche sur l’homme, ses sociétés et ses cultures.). In translation:

Thus, one can justifiably consider the ‘Académie des Inscriptions et Belles-Lettres’ both as a ‘conservatory’ (a place where human memory is ‘saved’ and kept alive) and as a ‘laboratory’ (a place that is alive and flourishing where research on human societies and cultures is taking place).

Sure, our museum is a place where human medical memory is ‘saved’ and kept alive for future generations. But ‘Medical conservatory’. Hmm? Gives associations to a school of music, doesn’t it? Or a greenhouse!

‘Medical laboratory’ gives completely wrong associations (we don’t do wet science). What about ‘Medical memory laboratory’? But that smacks too much ‘Learning lab’, a 1990s concept for didactic experimentation sites. ‘Medical conservatory’ emits better vibrations. After all, medical culture is a kind of greenhouse for medical memories.

And again — no! ‘Medical conservatory’ seems to be a fairly established term in the US for a school for medical training (synonym for medical school?).

An online-version of Adam’s, Camilla’s and my essay ”Between meaning culture and presence effects: contemporary biomedical objects as a challenge to museums” is now available on the website of Studies in History and Philosophy of Science.

Here’s the abstract of the paper:

The acquisition and display of material artefacts is the raison d’être of museums. But what constitutes a museum artefact? Contemporary medicine (biomedicine) is increasingly producing artefacts that do not fit the traditional museological understanding of what constitutes a material, tangible artefact. Museums today are therefore caught in a paradox. On the one hand, medical science and technologies are having an increasing pervasive impact on the way contemporary life is lived and understood and is therefore a central part of the contemporary world. On the other hand, the objects involved in medical diagnostics and therapies are becoming increasingly invisible and intangible and therefore seem to have no role to play as artefacts in a museum context. Consequently, museums are at risk of becoming alienated from an increasingly important part of contemporary society. This essay elaborates the paradox by employing Gumbrecht’s (2004) distinction between ‘presence’ and ‘meaning’.

Wish I could put the direct author’s link to the full version here, but Elsevier will most probably sue me if I do — so alas you will have to access it in a pay version (Science Direct) here or through your local university library (which most probably will give you access to Studies through one of their many subscription packages).

The printed version in Studies won’t be out until December or so.

In one of his last blog posts Thomas argued that university museums are basically elitist institutions. 

Thomas argues that the basic success criterion for museums is the popularity of their exhibitions and number of visitors where on the other side the success criterion for a university museum is the quality and originality of their research. Of course I can’t speak on behalf of all the museums out there but I could easily imagine that many museum professionals could be offended by that statement. Actually I’m quite certain that a lot of great research is done by curators who are not employed by a university museum.

Anyways, as to quality and originality I totally agree. That is a worthy goal but something still troubles me. Especially the following sentence:

In other words, in contrast to museums in general, which are institutions with a broad, popular appeal, ’university museums’ are basically elitist institutions.

What does that actually mean and what happened to the idea of research to the benefit of the people? Was that just a crazy idea that some students back in the sixties and seventies used as a slogan?

When I hear the word elitist it triggers some very unfortunate associations. Who is the elite? What notions of power are we operating with here?

At the Medical Museion we have some fantastic collections. Don’t we have a duty to open them up for the general public in a way that could be understood also by people who are not college educated? There is a democratic principle in this that I fear might be lost if we chose to communicate in a way that only the elite can understand.

Also I really don’t buy the following sentence:

Better provide original solutions to small but fundamental display problems than build big and popular exhibitions.

There is absolutely no reason why these two should be in opposition to each other. Let’s make innovative and popular exhibitions. Access to the medical cultural inheritance should be as democratic as possible and not just something that is withheld for the elite.

University of Copenhagen has several museums (among them Medical Museion). And our university isn’t alone. Many, if not most, universities around the world have their own museums, or at least historical collections. There are in fact so many of the kind that the international museum council (ICOM) has set up a subcommittee specifically for university museums and collections (UMAC).

What defines a ‘university museum’? The only criterion for membership in UMAC seems to be that the museum shall be part of a university organisation — contentwise it can be about almost anything related to the university. So from UMAC’s point of view, a ’university museum’ is primarily defined by ownership.

Fair enough, but otherwise, when thinking of ’university museums’ most people probably think in terms of content — i.e, ‘university museums’ are institutions that collect and display the history of the university. (In the same way that we think of an ‘army museum’ as one that collects and displays artefacts from the history of the armed forces, irrespective of whether it is owned by the army or by the city.) A ‘university museum’ has all kinds of stuff from good old university days, maybe even the university’s archive and image collection.

However, in our internal discussions here at Medical Museion I have often thought of ’university museum’ in a third sense, namely as a museum that functions as a university unit. And this in turn has everything to do with criteria for success.

The usual basic success criterion for museums is the popularity of their exhibitions and the number of visitors; the success criterion for university units on the other hand is the quality and originality of their research.

What distinguishes a ’university museum’ in this third sense is that its criterion for success lies closer to that of the university than that of the ordinary museum. It’s the quality and originality of its research, curatorship and exhibition work that defines it as a ’university museums’.

Of course, university museums want people (in large numbers) to see their exhibitions. But that aside, the basic criterion for success is whether their research and curatorial work contributes to new museological agendas or not. Better provide original solutions to small but fundamental display problems than build big and popular exhibitions.

In other words, in contrast to museums in general, which are institutions with a broad, popular appeal, ’university museums’ are basically elitist institutions.

Nina Simon, best known for her awesome museum 2.0 blog, is visiting Medical Museion tomorrow to give a lunch seminar on her ideas on the participatory museum. Her visit fits very well into our current plans for engaging both the health sector and the public in re-organising the collections and permanent exhibitions — more about these plans in the next couple of weeks. If someone wants to attend, send Carsten a mail (holt@sund.ku.dk).

We’ve just finished the application (in Danish) for a major grant to develop and expand Medical Museion:

See it in greater resolution here:

Unfortunately, the foundations we are sending it to, don’t have the software to disentangle the Wordle-cloud, so we will have to send them a more conventional text version.

We will be back with further info when (or rather if) the application is succesful.

Except for a 2,5 ECTS credit course in medical science and technology studies, we don’t have any obligatory teaching here at Medical Museion.

But we attract several medical students who want to use their 5th/6th year elective essay (10 ECTS credits) to go deeper into the history of medicine and medical humanities.

Here’s Jesper discussing the history of lobotomy with a medical student under the PH-lamp in the staff lunch room (the best supervision venue in the whole museum):

Ever experienced being too overworked to come up with new and exciting ideas? Feeling you have nothing new to say? Three days of posting-silence is a symptom of the fact that our little group here at Medical Museion is in a pretty hectic ‘phase’ right now:

• We opened Design4Science less than two weeks ago after ten days of intense preparation work — it’s beautiful, but it took its toll.
• Some of us are teaching a 2,5 ects course in Medical Science and Technology Studies for students in the medical engineering programme (a joint programme between the Danish Technical University and University of Copenhagen).
• Several of us are very busy planning for the next exhibition — Split & Splice: Fragments from the Age of Biomedicine — which will open on 11 June. More about this later …
• We are also preparing an exhibition on the history and culture of protein research for the official opening of the new Center for Protein Research at the Faculty of Health Sciences in early September. More about this later …
• We are also finalizing a glossy prospectus about the future renovation and expansion of Medical Museion that shall be sent to a selected number of foundations shortly. More about this later …
• Some of us are also preparing the second phase of a grant application about visualization practices in contemporary health sciences; and one of us is preparing an application to the Research Council for Culture and Communication. More about this later …
• Most of us are involved in writing chapters for our planned anthology about biomedical curatorship — a very good British publisher has expressed great interest and we have to prepare the final manuscript. More about this later …
• We are writing project descriptions for a couple of new phd-scholarships within the frame of the University of Copenhagen Center for Healthy Ageing programme. More about this later …
• We are beginning to discuss how to make our research, teaching, cultural heritage and public outreach efforts work more smoothly together, for example by a more narrow intellectual focus. More about this later …
• And then there are all the daily things — like writing research papers; trying to postpone deadlines; responding to urgent calls from people who want us to take a look at their old medical stuff before they throw it out; balancing the budget; promoting the museum to the Danish media; planning for the 2010 exhibitions; etc., etc. More about all these things later …

It’s probably all these ’More about this later…’-things that drain the brain and press whatever new thoughts that temporarily enter your consciousness back into oblivion. That’s at least how I feel right now. Since I haven’t seen much from my co-bloggers’ keyboards recently, they probably feel the same.

I guess what I wanted to say is: Forget about everything you’ve heard about a university museum being a boring place to be! It’s definitely not — it’s an exhaustion machine.

Last week’s great news for us here at Medical Museion was that our International Advisory Board — which held its first meeting in late May (see earlier post here) — has completed its report to the Dean of the Faculty of Health Sciences, University of Copenhagen.

The report says, among other things, that “the results of the museum activities were evaluated as being highly qualified and promising for future work”. The board members further pointed out that Medical Museion has ”been able to create a highly profiled research environment” and they “praised and expressed their respect for MM’s internationally oriented research focus” (quoted from the faculty’s press release).

The Board also emphasised how important the museological research program is for the further development of the visions for Medical Museion. We couldn’t agree more — and are already looking forward to the next Advisory Board meeting, scheduled for June 2009.