National Medical Museum
The National Medical Museum is the country's central custodian of the tangible and intangible cultural heritage of the history of health and medicine. The museum aims to be a meeting place for different environments, understandings and experiences. Older and more recent health and medical history is communicated in an open, interdisciplinary and relevant way and the development of new knowledge and reflection is facilitated.
LIFE AND DEATH – MAN IN CHANGE
In 2020, much of the activity at the Medical Museum has been concentrated around the work on the new permanent exhibition which will open in February 2021. This will be larger than, Healthy soul in a healthy body from 2003, which was there previously. With Life and death, large parts of the entire Medical Museum's exhibitions are renewed.
The new exhibition has been named Life and death - the human being in change. The exhibition explores central conditions for being human, throughout life and through the ages. What does it mean to be healthy, and how is good health achieved? Through new stories, perspectives and voices and through interactivity and dialogue with the visitors, new thoughts and new understanding are created. We want the exhibition to touch and be touched. It should make an impression on people, regardless of age and previous knowledge, facilitate active dialogue and knowledge development and be characterized by the ongoing social debate and input from the visitors.
The exhibition goes into a number of central topics and discussions in the history of health and medicine. Examples of topics that are given special attention are birth and newborn medicine, handling of death, infection and infection control history, disability and adaptation, care technology and artificial intelligence in medicine and healthcare, and challenges and opportunities within genetic technology. We go into important parts of medical practice and understanding - historically and contemporary. Here are examples from a number of different treatment methods, such as pills, ECT and other electrical therapy, lobotomy, vein ligation, surgery, VR glasses for social anxiety and orgone therapy. Here are historical material such as a lobotomy tool, Norway's first incubator and other objects from the Maternity Exhibition 1916, state-of-the-art medical technology equipment such as a robotic hand prosthesis, as well as more useful equipment important in people's everyday lives such as contraceptives and urine test tubes.
The stories are often told based on the experiences of individuals, be they patients, therapists, relatives or others. The exhibition is also clearly rooted in our collections and in carefully selected objects, photographs, films, artworks and installations.
Based on the museum's rich collection of objects, photos and archives, visitors are invited to an open and playful joint exploration of what medicine and health are, have been, can and should be. In 2020, a separate audience strategy has been drawn up for Life and Death.
Cartoon anthology
For the Life and Death exhibition, a non-traditional catalog in the style of a cartoon anthology is being created. With this exhibition catalogue, we want to stimulate conversations between generations. At the same time, such a catalog can engage visitors visually, without many words. It can open up the exhibition for people with different horizons of understanding, and be accessible also to, for example, immigrants and people with language difficulties. The catalog is published in both Norwegian and English. It has seven chapters, each of which relates to key objects in the exhibition.
The corona diaries
While work on the new medical history exhibition was in full swing, paradoxically, a medical history event of enormous dimensions occurred. The corona pandemic has fundamentally affected the work on the new exhibition, as it has affected Norwegian society and the world at large. The name National Medical Museum obliges: Although we were busy, we decided to "collect" something of the epidemic, to better remember to understand it in the future.
We established contact with around 15 people and agencies in various situations and environments in the health field. These must report on their everyday working life and how it has been affected by the corona epidemic over a period of time in 2020. What kind of new conditions, issues and challenges have appeared recently? What dilemmas do they face, what decisions do they make, why and how? The stories will be disseminated online and in the exhibition Life and Death .
By being a platform for many different voices and views, and collecting data almost at the same time as they unfold, we hope to make valuable contributions to a nuanced and pluralistic historiography about the corona in Norway. The narratives will be able to provide concrete and detailed descriptions of changed practices and actions, challenges and decisions, which will have significance both at individual and system level. They are told by people who, in different ways, were very close to the story of the corona in Norway, influenced and were influenced by it. The goal is that many small medical stories together should be able to provide a complex and diverse medical history, which enriches the future narrative about corona, and adds knowledge and understanding that would not have been possible if it had been told from one point of view and with one voice.
THE MUSEUM – A PLACE TO MEET AND TALK
The museum has a tradition of having good meeting places where visitors are given the opportunity for real participation and exploratory conversations. In 2020, this became difficult due to infection control concerns. In 2021, we will come back strong with the implementation of new and old event concepts. We will continue with the successful open meetings The power of diagnosis once every six months, where people with different expertise, understandings and experiences meet to explore what a disease and diagnosis is, how it is experienced, encountered and treated. We also have a number of other exciting plans for active communication and engagement linked to the exhibition Life and Death, such as digital broadcasts from the exhibition, collaboration where the exhibition is made available to others in the health field and guest tours of the exhibition.