Co‐Curation as Hacking: Biohackers in Copenhagen's Medical Museion

Abstract

In 2012, the University of Copenhagen's Medical Museion collaborated with members of the local DIY biology community to create a DIY biology lab and event series. This article discusses the project and the hacker movement more generally with reference to two current museum trends: first, the opening up of museums through external collaborations, for instance in co-curation; and second, renewed interest among science and technology museums in revealing the "behind the scenes" of research, including bringing laboratories into museums. With regard to the first trend, we suggest that hacking may be a useful framework for thinking about co-curation, and argue that co-curation needs to be understood as a process that doesn't just involve the representation of diverse narratives, but instead incorporates a range of diverse actors into the design and production of an exhibition. With regard to the second, we argue that biohacking may be a better fit to a museum's desire to exhibit research processes than traditional scientific laboratories, given biohacking's emphasis on enabling citizens to understand and carry out scientific research. We develop these suggestions by charting the course of the collaboration.

Developing Local Narratives for Objects in National Collections: Lessons Learned from the “Number Please? Working with the Enfield Exchange” Project

“…Like many organizations (Davies et al. ; Stein ), the Science Museum was interested in how it could engage its audiences with the history of science, technology, engineering and medicine through public history and participation, attending specifically to the “ways in which lay people pursue historical interests—whether that be family and local history, collecting, consuming historical magazines and television programs, or museum visiting” (Boon , 383; Boon et al ).…”

‘The house’ as a framing device for public engagement in STEM museums

“…In addition, the social and political contexts of science can push museums into uncomfortably normative territory. Finally, inviting artists, sociologists, scientists, and publics to get involved in the museum's own (re)presentational practices, through for example participatory events or co-curation, comes up against pragmatic and professional barriers (Davies et al, 2015;Simon, 2010) Which houses are we talking about and what do they do?…”

“…At Medical Museion, social media have been used to share the secrets behind the magic trick; showing photographs and film from the conservation of objects and the build up of exhibitions via e.g., Facebook, Instagram, and Twitter. And research publications analyse the curatorial processes and display strategies from an internal perspective (e.g.., Davies et al, 2015;Whiteley et al, 2017). At Wellcome Collection, experimental projects in Gallery 2, such as the Institute of Sexology, evolve in public, during a year-long showing.…”

“…In a recent article on Medical Museion's 'Biohacking: Do It Yourself!' project, it was suggested that this practice should be extended in order to '… inspire us to hack the museum' (Davies et al, 2015;Tybjerg & Whiteley, 2013). But there are limits to how far the hacker ethos can be translated into museums, and hackers themselves are sceptical of the possibilities of genuinely enacting their forms of community within traditional institutions.…”

Distributed Biotechnology

“…For example, through processes of "domestication" or "demystification" that question the separation between expert and amateur (Frow 2015, Meyer 2013, Wolinsky 2009. Since the mid2000s, scholars analyzing the rise of phenomena such as DIY biology have also focused on the relation between distributed biology and hacking, thus adopting the term "biohacking" as an umbrella term referring to different forms of distributed intervention in the life sciences (Davies et al 2015, Delfanti 2013, Kelty 2010. This designation reflects the selfascribed genealogy that many DIY biologists or entrepreneurs construct.…”