Artefacts 2025
Artefacts is an international network of historians of technology, science, and medicine working in academia and museums. It aims to promote the use of objects and material culture in research. The network was established in 1996, and since then it has held annual conferences and released its own book series. Read more about Artefacts .
This year's Artefacts conference, which is number 30 of its kind, is arranged at Norsk Teknisk Museum (the Norwegian Museum of Science and Technology) on October 12-14, 2025. The theme of this year's conference is Care and Repair . Registration is now closed.
SUNDAY 12 OCTOBER |
14.00–15.00 | RECEPTION | Registration |
15.00–16.00 | RECEPTION | Guided tours |
16.15–16.30 | AUDITORIUM | Welcome with Frode Weium |
16.30–18.00 | AUDITORIUM | Session 1 - Communities (works-in-progress) Torhild Skåtun & Thanushiga Rajah (NO, Oslo) Caring for stories, people and relationships in exhibition spaces: User involvement in the making of the digital time travel activity. Yurika Saito (JP, Tokyo) Innovative Simplicity: Participatory Care of Gara-Bo Spinning Machines and their legacy.
Frank Dittman (DE, Munich) Colonial Contexts in Technical Museums: The Case of Electrical Engineering Materials . Jan Hadlaw (CA, Toronto) The Lives and Afterlives of the Modern North American Telephone. |
18.00–21.00 | FLYHALLEN | Drinks and mingling |
MONDAY 13 OCTOBER |
9.30–11.00 | AUDITORIUM / GLASS ROOM | Parallel Session 2 - Bodies (works-in-progress) Marieke Hendriksen (NL, Amsterdam) Care and repair in and for early modern food conservation technologies: introducing the PRESERVARE project. Phil Loring (NO, Oslo) Skeletal cares and repairs. Arne Langleite (NO, Oslo) Care and Repair in the Handling of Sensitive Medical Photographs at NTM. Erin McLeary (US, Philadelphia) Medical Care and Historical Repair in the Pages of a Medical Museum Catalogue. Repair Cultures (for publication)
Hal Wallace (US, Washington) Conveyors and the care and repair of electrical devices. Siavash Bakhtiar (UK, London) Continuidad de baja intensidad: Exploring the (re-) assemblage of the social fabric in Cuba's repair shops. Rebekah Higgitt (UK, Edinburgh): Regimes of service and repair: Exploring itineraries of Royal Navy chronometers at scale c.1820-1890. |
11.00–11.30 | MEZZANINE | Break |
11.30–13.00 | AUDITORIUM | Session 3 - Conserving (works-in-progress) Tara Panesar (UK, London) Scars on the Lands and More-than-human Artefacts: Care-ful Museologies of the Trans-Alaska Pipeline. Alexandra Lefebvre (CH, Neuchâtel) (with Arianna Passaretti, Laura Brambilla, Anna Neus Igual Muñoz, and Isabel Tissot) Testing solid lubricants for the conservation of scientific and technical heritage. Charlotte Holzer (DE, Munich) and Lisa Young Developing customized conservation procedures for discolored Sokol space suits through collaborative discussion. Jessica Walthew (US, New York) Conservation and the afterlives of the obsolete. |
13.00–14.00 | TBA | Lunch / Publication discussion |
14.00–15.30 | AUDITORIUM / GLASS ROOM | Parallel Session 4 - Life Cycles (works-in-progress) Tim Boon (UK, London) Caring for, and caring about, objects and collections. Michael Loftus (NO, Bodø) Life eternal or managing decline? Understanding treatment options and their consequences. Carola Dahlke (DE, Munich) To care or to repair? A controversy for curators of museums of science and technology. Alexander Gall and Frank Zwintzscher (DE, Munich) Caring for a Museofact: The Operational Replica of the Puffing Billy in the Deutsches Museum.
Artifacts (for publication)
Tomas Brown (UK, Cambridge) (with Giulia Moretti, Paul JC van Laar, and Jessica Mantoan) Mending as Making: Reassessing the Production of the Chelsea Maypole Group, 1755. Claudio Giorgione (IT, Milan) The exhibition project 'In scena' (On Stage): Exploring the relationship between technology and theatre. Cathleen Lewis (US, Washington) The Care, Repair and Breakdown of the Smithsonian Collection of Spacesuit Gloves. |
15.30–16.00 | MEZZANINE | Break |
16.00–17.00 | AUDITORIUM | Artefacts museum updates |
19.30–22.00 | OSLO | Conference dinner (at diner's expense) |
TUESDAY 14 OCTOBER |
9.30–11.00 | AUDITORIUM / GLASS ROOM | Parallel Session 5 - Extremes (works-in-progress) Jennifer Levasseur (US, Washington), Bryan Lintott (NO, Tromsø), Teasel Muir-Harmony (US, Washington), Lisa Young (US, Washington) Extreme environment object conservation. Health (for publication)
Antonia Belli (UK, London) Caring for the body / Caring for the object: the Giustiniani medicine chest as technology and relic. Hugo Schalkwijk (NL, Amsterdam) (with Manon Parry) Iconic objects and image problems: Nursing heritage and the recruitment and retention crisis. Tricia Close-Koenig (FR, Strasbourg) Who cares? The anatomy and pathology collections at the University of Strasbourg. |
11.00–11.30 | AUDITORIUM | Break |
11.30–13.00 | AUDITORIUM | Session 6 - Mending (works-in-progress) Cathrine C. Arnesen (NO, Asker, Oslo) Care for traditional boats. Harriet Barratt (UK, Sussex/London) The cement leg: Object attachment, extreme repair and curious care. Tacye Phillipson (UK, Edinburgh) Changing time: Originality and use of clocks. Juan-Andres Leon (UK, London) The maintenance and care of Stephen Hawking. |
13.00–14.00 | TBA | Lunch / Publication discussion |
14.00–15.30 | AUDITORIUM | Session 7 - Garbage (works-in-progress) Erin Gregory (CA, Ottawa) From garbage to gold: The afterlives of a disposal test model. Anxo Vidal Nogueira (ES, Valencia) Rotten, broken. Used, displayed: Reimagining the potential of forgotten instruments. Kirsten Linde (NO, Akershus) Contested plastic items. Kathrin Tschida (DE, Berlin) The role of repair in the longevity of consumer goods produced in the GDR. |
15.30–16.00 | AUDITORIUM | Round-up and goodbye |
