What expectations do we create or reinforce around what it means to have a healthy body or a healthy mind? Traditionally, medical museums have tended to prioritise the ‘medical gaze’, discussing bodies in terms of diagnosis. This approach can feel overly reductive of complex identities and risks pathologising those who are represented in our displays.
Our speakers from medical museums across Europe will be using their own knowledge gained from their displays and exhibitions to explore and tackle questions regarding expectations, perspectives and inclusivity. Ultimately, we want to explore whose bodies we represent in our displays.
Facilitator
Session speakers
Project Curator
London
United Kingdom
Clare was Project Curator for the redevelopment of ‘Medicine Now’ at Wellcome Collection, revolutionising the planning, design and content of a modern medical museum. She joined Wellcome from Tate Britain, where she curated the 2017 exhibition ‘Queer British Art: 1861-1967’, the first exhibition worldwide to be dedicated to queer British art.
Associate Professor & Curator
Medical Museion & Novo Nordisk Foundation Center for Basic Metabolic Research, University of Copenhagen
Copenhagen
Denmark
Louise is an Associate Professor working between research at the University of Copenhagen, and practice at the Medical Museion. She will bring her expertise in theories of public engagement, methods for co-curation with artists and scientists, and understanding of how biomedical science affects people's perceptions of themselves.
Director
Leiden
Netherlands
Amito is Director of Rijksmuseum Boerhaave in Leiden, Netherlands National Museum of the History of Science and Medicine. He will bring his experience of challenging audience perceptions through medical collections.
Curator of the History of Medicine
Oslo
Norway
Phil is Curator of the History of Medicine at Norsk Teknisk Museum, and has years of experience working at leading Science Centres around the world, reflecting our contemporary understandings of sex, gender, disability, diagnosis, knowledge and power in the process.