... It developed as a close collaboration between the Trust, Museum and the European Dana Allianc... more ... It developed as a close collaboration between the Trust, Museum and the European Dana Alliance for the Brain, along with artists and scientists in the UK and abroad. ... Other (Artist), Lang, Gerhard. Other (Artist), O'Riley, Tim. Type of Research: Show/Exhibition. ...
In the last five to ten years, several science, technology, engineering and medicine (STEM) museu... more In the last five to ten years, several science, technology, engineering and medicine (STEM) museums have been experimenting with new forms of public engagement, aiming to be places for curiosity-driven investigation of the cultures of science via multiple perspectives, bringing artists, scientists, researchers, clinicians, members of the public and others together. Yet these diverse and rapidly evolving sites lack a clear definition of their family resemblances – something we argue is crucial for better understanding, advocating, and evaluating what they do. As a starting point for this definitional project we propose ‘the house’ as a metaphor and framing device for public engagement in STEM museums, grounded in experiences at Medical Museion in Denmark and Wellcome Collection in the UK. We further suggest that a Goldilocks principle – the notion of lying between two poles of a continuum in a ‘just right’ position – captures several key features of what it is about the idea of a hou...
The International Handbooks of Museum Studies, 2015
Curatorial practice is one of the most discussed but least analyzed subfields of museum practice.... more Curatorial practice is one of the most discussed but least analyzed subfields of museum practice. In this chapter, the author offers a broad survey of a multi-faceted topic based in part on a literature review, a specially convened seminar, and also his own experience making exhibitions at the Wellcome Collection in London. After reviewing a range of developments driving a change in the way curators work – expansion of the museum profession, new museum spaces and places, and different ways of thinking about collections and exhibitions, research and scholarship, media and audience – he argues that new forms, models, and approaches are appearing: broadly speaking a shift from caring to creating. In this “new curatorship” we see curators as political activists, artistic directors, and public investigators. However, sometimes the skills involved are the same as they have always been, for example the kind of “thinking out loud” found in the exhibition experiments of the new interdisciplinary cultural centers of which the Wellcome Collection is an example. In this particular form of new curatorship, the chapter concludes, a premium is placed on the idea of seeking and marshalling visual and material ideas in order finally, with an inspired flourish of showmanship, to just stand back and point. Keywords: anthropology; art; audience; collection; curator; curatorship; exhibition; gallery; media; museum; public investigators; research; science; space
... interesting contributions investigate automata as the seeming fusion of the opposition betwee... more ... interesting contributions investigate automata as the seeming fusion of the opposition between curiosity and utility (Alexander Marr's) and the inevitably convoluted and slippery terrain of occult versions of wonder and curiosity—both divine and diabolical (Peter Forshaw's). ...
This conversation between the founding and current directors of the multi-award-winning Medical M... more This conversation between the founding and current directors of the multi-award-winning Medical Museion at the University of Copenhagen was held online, COVID-19-style, in the spring of 2021. We have different backgrounds and instincts. One of us is an academic historian of science, who almost accidentally ended up also running a museum. The other has spent decades working in museums, and then found himself hired as a university professor. Here we discuss the evolution of Medical Museion over the last two decades—the Museion concept, the integration of research and curatorship, the interaction of art and science, the balance between historical contextualization and aesthetic “presence,” the Faustian pact with foundations, and so forth—plus some visions for its future development.
Throughout human history, the spread of disease has closed borders, restricted civic movement, an... more Throughout human history, the spread of disease has closed borders, restricted civic movement, and fueled fear of the unknown; yet at the same time, it has helped build cultural resilience. On 11 March 2020 the World Health Organization (WHO) classified COVID-19 as a pandemic. The novel zoonotic disease, first reported to the WHO in December 2019, was no longer restricted to Wuhan or to China, as the highly contagious coronavirus had spread to more than 60 countries. The public health message to citizens everywhere was to save lives by staying home; the economic fallout stemming from this sudden rupture of services and the impact on people’s well-being was mindboggling. Around the globe museums, galleries, and popular world heritage sites closed (Associated Press 2020). The Smithsonian Magazine reported that all 19 institutes, including the National Zoo and the National Museum of the American Indian (NMAI), would be closed to the public on 14 March (Daher 2020). On the same day, New...
This article considers a curiosity-driven approach to curating focused on material culture that v... more This article considers a curiosity-driven approach to curating focused on material culture that visitors encounter in physical spaces. Drawing on research into historical curiosity cabinets, it explores how a contemporary notion of curiosity has been put into practice in the new breed of culturally enlightened museums exploring interdisciplinary approaches to medicine, health, life, and art. Based on an inaugural professorial address at Copenhagen University, it reflects on exhibition projects there and at the Wellcome Collection in London. Museums are institutional machines that generate social understanding from material things. Their physical spaces influence how we learn, think, and feel in public; their material collections feed our comprehension, imagination, and emotions; and induce attentive behavior in curators and visitors.
... It developed as a close collaboration between the Trust, Museum and the European Dana Allianc... more ... It developed as a close collaboration between the Trust, Museum and the European Dana Alliance for the Brain, along with artists and scientists in the UK and abroad. ... Other (Artist), Lang, Gerhard. Other (Artist), O'Riley, Tim. Type of Research: Show/Exhibition. ...
In the last five to ten years, several science, technology, engineering and medicine (STEM) museu... more In the last five to ten years, several science, technology, engineering and medicine (STEM) museums have been experimenting with new forms of public engagement, aiming to be places for curiosity-driven investigation of the cultures of science via multiple perspectives, bringing artists, scientists, researchers, clinicians, members of the public and others together. Yet these diverse and rapidly evolving sites lack a clear definition of their family resemblances – something we argue is crucial for better understanding, advocating, and evaluating what they do. As a starting point for this definitional project we propose ‘the house’ as a metaphor and framing device for public engagement in STEM museums, grounded in experiences at Medical Museion in Denmark and Wellcome Collection in the UK. We further suggest that a Goldilocks principle – the notion of lying between two poles of a continuum in a ‘just right’ position – captures several key features of what it is about the idea of a hou...
The International Handbooks of Museum Studies, 2015
Curatorial practice is one of the most discussed but least analyzed subfields of museum practice.... more Curatorial practice is one of the most discussed but least analyzed subfields of museum practice. In this chapter, the author offers a broad survey of a multi-faceted topic based in part on a literature review, a specially convened seminar, and also his own experience making exhibitions at the Wellcome Collection in London. After reviewing a range of developments driving a change in the way curators work – expansion of the museum profession, new museum spaces and places, and different ways of thinking about collections and exhibitions, research and scholarship, media and audience – he argues that new forms, models, and approaches are appearing: broadly speaking a shift from caring to creating. In this “new curatorship” we see curators as political activists, artistic directors, and public investigators. However, sometimes the skills involved are the same as they have always been, for example the kind of “thinking out loud” found in the exhibition experiments of the new interdisciplinary cultural centers of which the Wellcome Collection is an example. In this particular form of new curatorship, the chapter concludes, a premium is placed on the idea of seeking and marshalling visual and material ideas in order finally, with an inspired flourish of showmanship, to just stand back and point. Keywords: anthropology; art; audience; collection; curator; curatorship; exhibition; gallery; media; museum; public investigators; research; science; space
... interesting contributions investigate automata as the seeming fusion of the opposition betwee... more ... interesting contributions investigate automata as the seeming fusion of the opposition between curiosity and utility (Alexander Marr's) and the inevitably convoluted and slippery terrain of occult versions of wonder and curiosity—both divine and diabolical (Peter Forshaw's). ...
This conversation between the founding and current directors of the multi-award-winning Medical M... more This conversation between the founding and current directors of the multi-award-winning Medical Museion at the University of Copenhagen was held online, COVID-19-style, in the spring of 2021. We have different backgrounds and instincts. One of us is an academic historian of science, who almost accidentally ended up also running a museum. The other has spent decades working in museums, and then found himself hired as a university professor. Here we discuss the evolution of Medical Museion over the last two decades—the Museion concept, the integration of research and curatorship, the interaction of art and science, the balance between historical contextualization and aesthetic “presence,” the Faustian pact with foundations, and so forth—plus some visions for its future development.
Throughout human history, the spread of disease has closed borders, restricted civic movement, an... more Throughout human history, the spread of disease has closed borders, restricted civic movement, and fueled fear of the unknown; yet at the same time, it has helped build cultural resilience. On 11 March 2020 the World Health Organization (WHO) classified COVID-19 as a pandemic. The novel zoonotic disease, first reported to the WHO in December 2019, was no longer restricted to Wuhan or to China, as the highly contagious coronavirus had spread to more than 60 countries. The public health message to citizens everywhere was to save lives by staying home; the economic fallout stemming from this sudden rupture of services and the impact on people’s well-being was mindboggling. Around the globe museums, galleries, and popular world heritage sites closed (Associated Press 2020). The Smithsonian Magazine reported that all 19 institutes, including the National Zoo and the National Museum of the American Indian (NMAI), would be closed to the public on 14 March (Daher 2020). On the same day, New...
This article considers a curiosity-driven approach to curating focused on material culture that v... more This article considers a curiosity-driven approach to curating focused on material culture that visitors encounter in physical spaces. Drawing on research into historical curiosity cabinets, it explores how a contemporary notion of curiosity has been put into practice in the new breed of culturally enlightened museums exploring interdisciplinary approaches to medicine, health, life, and art. Based on an inaugural professorial address at Copenhagen University, it reflects on exhibition projects there and at the Wellcome Collection in London. Museums are institutional machines that generate social understanding from material things. Their physical spaces influence how we learn, think, and feel in public; their material collections feed our comprehension, imagination, and emotions; and induce attentive behavior in curators and visitors.
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