National Medical Museum

National Medical Museum 2021

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

The exhibition Life and Death officially opened on 24 August 2021. It explores key themes around birth and death, diagnoses and treatments through knowledge and expertise in various fields such as medicine, health and natural sciences. The exhibition is both contemporary and historical. The stories are often told based on the experiences of individuals, whether these are patients, therapists, relatives or others. It contains unique items from Rikshospitalet's collections and other donors. An example are items from the Maternity Home Exhibition, organized by women's activist Katti Anker Møller. This exhibition was a contribution to the debate about both abortion and a fairer social policy about 100 years ago. The latest developments such as the NIPT test in fetal medicine and diagnostics are also presented. X-ray technology, light treatment of tuberculosis using the Finsen device and EEG technology for electrical measurement of brain activity are shown through original objects. The centerpiece of the exhibition is the dead human body called Maren, which we believe was found in one of Oslo's cholera cemeteries at the turn of the last century. Other human remains, mainly from of Pathology displayed.

The exhibition also contains a teaching room with a kitchen for activities at weekends and holidays and with school classes. The architect has been Anne Schnettler, Copenhagen. The interactive installations have been developed in collaboration with Logic Interactive.

National Medical Museum

Comic book anthology Life and death

A non-traditional cartoon catalog has been created for the Life and Death exhibition. With it, we want to stimulate conversations between generations. Seven key stories are extracted from the exhibition and processed through text and images. The artists are Lucy Lyons, Anja Dahle Øverbye, Åshild Kanstad Johnsen, Steffen Kverneland, Øyvind Torseter and Tord Torpe.

The catalog is edited by conservator Phil Loring and is published in both Norwegian and English. It is supported by Fritt Ord and published by Magikon forlag.

National Medical Museum

The corona diaries

As a result of the closure of society in March 2020, the documentation project Koronadagbøkene launched. It has been completed in connection with the exhibition opening in August 2021. The result has been a website on muse 's website : https://www.tekniskmuseum.no/koronadagbokene and a separate presentation on screens and as books in the exhibition Life and death . have been carried out with eleven contributors, four institutions and seven individuals, mainly connected to the healthcare system. Some of these have written diaries, other participants have been documented by the museum's staff. In addition, Nordre Aker's first vaccination was documented. The project is supported by Fritt Ord.  

National Medical Museum

COLLECTION WORK

After the new exhibition opened, the Medical Museum has started work on reviewing the medical collections, which largely consist of objects from the National Hospital that came in 2002 and subsequent gifts and donations after this. Much has been registered, but the aim is to get an overview of the many unregistered items from the medicine collections, initially in the magazines at Kjelsås and later at Gjerdrum. The long-term plan is to have the material to be retained audited and registered and to dispose of objects that are not of cultural-historical value.

Allocation of security funds from the Cultural Council led to fire protection work in the medicine warehouse M41 at Kjelsås. Items located in the area where this work has been carried out have been packed and temporarily stored and must be returned to M41.

National Medical Museum

NETWORK COOPERATION

The Medical Museum is responsible for the National Museum Network for the History of Health and Medicine (NMHM), which is one of the Cultural Council's museum networks. It consists of 27 museums, of which are institutional museums affiliated with hospitals. In 2021, the activity has been characterized by shutdowns and restrictions due to corona . The annual seminar was therefore not held. The network has its own website http://helseogmedisinhistorie.no .

National Medical Museum