‘The house’ as a framing device for public engagement in STEM museums

Authors

  • Louise Whiteley Medical Museion, University of Copenhagen
  • Anette Stenslund University of Copenhagen
  • Ken Arnold Medical Museion
  • Thomas Söderqvist University of Copenhagen

DOI:

https://doi.org/10.29311/mas.v15i2.833

Abstract

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 house that resonates with the approach to public engagement in these museums.


Key words: STEM museums, science communication, public engagement, house.

Author Biographies

Louise Whiteley, Medical Museion, University of Copenhagen

Louise Whiteley is Associate Professor in Medical Science Communication at Medical Museion, and combines research, teaching, and curation. Her main research interests concern how biomedical research is entangled with popular culture and the role that media representation and museum activities play in mediating that relationship, particularly concerning the relationship between mind and body. She also researchs and engages in collaborations between artists, scientists, and museum curators, and is interested in the diverse desires that attend such collaborations and the practical realities of how they play out.

Anette Stenslund, University of Copenhagen

Anette Stenslund, cultural sociologist and PhD in Medicine, Culture and Society, is currently lecturing at the Department of Sociology, University of Copenhagen. In her dissertation Atmospheric Smell Stenslund developed her ongoing interest in the relation between sensory perception and felt sensations of atmosphere, and her work on smell is a contribution to the so-called sensory and olfactory museology. Stenslund’s main research interests include aesthetics of atmosphere, sensory studies and phenomenology, which she studies through ethnographic methods.

Ken Arnold, Medical Museion

Ken Arnold has worked in a variety of museums on both sides of the Atlantic. He joined the Wellcome Trust in 1992 after completing his Ph.D. on the history of museums. He helped launch and directed programming at Wellcome Collection from 2007. He now holds two positions; as Director of Medical Museion and Professor of Public Engagement with Health and Medicine at the University of Copenhagen, and leading the development of international public engagement projects at the Wellcome Trust. He regularly writes and lectures on museums and on contemporary interactions between the arts and sciences. In 2006 he published Cabinets for the Curious (Ashgate) and is currently working on a book about contemporary museums and the public creation of knowledge.

Thomas Söderqvist, University of Copenhagen

Thomas Söderqvist is Professor Emeritus in History of Medicine at the University of Copenhagen. He was Founding Director of the Medical Museion from 1999 to 2016, where he led several research projects, supervised ten PhD students, and curated and produced an array of exhibitions and art-science installations. His research background is the history of twentieth century biological and biomedical sciences and the history and poetics of scientific biography as a genre. His current major research interests are the conflict between established knowledge and populist movements and the genre of autobiography as a contemporary form of ‘ars moriendi’.

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Published

07/12/2017

How to Cite

Whiteley, L., Stenslund, A., Arnold, K., & Söderqvist, T. (2017). ‘The house’ as a framing device for public engagement in STEM museums. Museum & Society, 15(2), 217–235. https://doi.org/10.29311/mas.v15i2.833

Issue

Vol. 15 No. 2 (2017)

Section

Articles

License

Copyright remains with the author(s) of the article. This article can be re-used according to the terms of the CC BY-NC-ND 4.0  licence.