Vision and mission

Short version

 

  • What is Medical Museion?
    A university museum that examines and collects medical science and health, through the lens of history, culture and art.
  • What does it do?
    It connects the public to researchers and other professions through imaginative exhibitions, events, conversations, as well as our own investigations.
  • And why?
    To deepen our understanding of bodies & minds, health and its contexts; and ultimately, to enrich people’s lives.

If you have a little longer, here’s the seated version…

Vision and mission

Long version

 

What is Medical Museion?

Medical Museion amounts to more than the sum of its varied parts.
  • Dating from 1787, our oldest building originally housed the Royal Danish Academy of Surgery: a founding institution for medicine in Denmark. We interpret this, our biggest ‘object and its spaces, through our work.
  • We have a collection of objects, mostly reflecting Danish medical history, with great technical and cultural significance.
  • Our artefacts include human bodies. We also hold ‘bodies’ of knowledge and of work. We present changing combinations of them in our galleries & exhibitions.
  • We are part of the Public Health Department in the University of Copenhagen’s Faculty of Health and Medical Sciences; but we also reach out across the humanities and arts.
  • We are an energetic team with discipline-hopping appetites. We encourage each other to bring together personal as well as professional expertise and experiences.

What does it do?

Medical Museion is a lively house of interconnected activities
  • We host a broad ecology of research, dealing with the culture and history of medical thought and health practices. We investigate how these perspectives intersect with all our lives.
  • We assume that science is embedded in culture and society, and produce enquiry-led exhibitions, events and other activities aimed at dialogue, dissemination and communication.
  • We teach, learn and host discussions that uncover uneven relationships between the institutions, people and ideas that make up a medical heterotopia.
  • We collect, conserve, investigate and share the material culture and history of medicine and health.
  • We are drawn to dichotomies, but don’t seek to resolve them: body vs mind; nature vs nurture; science vs culture; reason vs emotion; research vs practice; thought vs action.
  • We seed and nurture vibrant links between university and society.

 

And why?

Medical Museion is purpose-driven, but we frequently revisit our aims
  • We believe in the value researchers, health professionals and the public meeting and exchanging ideas, and do this by bridging the university’s sense of curiosity with a variety of public needs.
  • We relish the grand challenge of enhancing understandings of health, illness, environment, and peoples every day experiences of bodies and minds.
  • We think it’s vital to understand why things are they are; how different they have been in the past; and how they could change in the future.
  • Sometimes, we aim to uncover complications within what might seem simple, and to explore (occasionally explode) assumptions and prejudices about health, illness and bodies.
  • We want to help the world become a better and more sustainable place; but we also consistently question how that could be achieved.