APPENDIX

Innovative museum practice
Lively learning space
Professional meeting place

Appendix contributes with new perspectives on today’s most important medical and health challenges. We break down professional silos and facilitate curious conversations: creating involving experiences, innovative ways of learning and thought-provoking events for everyone. Appendix is ​​an initiative through which we investigate new ways, formats and methods of being a medical museum.

What does Appendix mean?
The word Appendix has several meanings. It is the cecum – a small extension of the human colon, whose biological function remains a mystery. An appendix can also be a collection of documents placed at the end of a book, where readers can delve into more detailed knowledge. We have started Appendix to create a space for in-depth engagement and knowledge production, and to create meetings between people, museum objects and research ideas. The physical spaces of Appendix are an extension of Medical Museion’s exhibitions, and have previously been used as a microscopy-room where students would delve into knowledge about the human body. Today, the rooms have been renovated and newly furnished, forming the framework for workshops, events and teaching.

Here we have gathered our news and blog posts about Appendix.

Stakeholder events
Stakeholder events in Appendix are created in collaborations between the museum and its interest groups. For us, a stakeholder is someone who has a professional, personal or otherwise exciting perspective on a health-related topic. Our stakeholder events usually take the form of workshop, which can be part of a research project where many different voices need to be heard. It can explore a broad theme, or be part of a celebration or anniversary, or take on many other forms. Events last anywhere from 30 minutes to several hours, and are planned in collaboration. We take our role as a museum seriously, which is why we often use our historical and contemporary objects, as well as our professional museum expertise as a starting point and meeting point in stakeholder workshops.

Education
Medical Museion is a university museum, with some of our teaching activities taking place in Appendix. Here, our researchers teach bachelor’s and master’s students, as well as offering PhD courses. With support from the Helsefonden, we are also in the process of developing a teaching course for SOSU-students. We find that our subject-based teaching can make complex subjects more accessible at all levels of education.

Public events
We curate several public events every year. In the past we have organized bone croquis, embroidery sessions, and writing workshops with authors such as Caspar Eric, Gry Dalgas and Anna Rieder. Every month we also open the doors for Open Collection events, where our experts show visitors objects from our collections, and where guests are encouraged to explore some objects through touch.

Object-based learning and conversation
We build much of our activities around the methods of Object Based Learning (OBL). Here, objects are an integrated and central part of the conversation and learning process. We use objects for both teaching, workshops and events. For us, it is less important that our visitors and guests acquire specific knowledge about an object, with more focus on the conversations that can occur around the objects. Medical historical objects have a fantastic capacity to distill many different perspectives – from the points of view of patients and medical-professionals, from history, culture and the politics implicated by a particular object. In this way, we use the object as a focal intersection for various viewpoints, creating relationships between people and experiences.

Studying our own practices
Medical Museion is a university museum that takes part in the Danish and international community of practitioners and researchers . We therefore also participate in conferences and workshops, exchange experience with other practitioners and institutions, and publish in peer-reviewed journals. We are interested in how the role of the medical museum changes over time, in how the medical museum can contribute to the investigation of health-related challenges, and more specifically which methods, objects and meetings we can use, to contribute to this.

We collaborate with researchers, artists, patients, students, professionals, museum visitors and many others. If you are interested in doing a workshop or event with us, establish a collaboration or have ideas for developing a project, do get in touch.

Examples of collaborations:

• Research-based and engagement workshops
• Subject-based teaching for SOSU students and university students at all levels (BA, MA, PhD)
• Annual meetings, anniversaries, etc.
• Network meetings
• Collaborates with artists

Get in touch at
APPENDIX@sund.ku.dk