Researchers on display: moving the laboratory into the museum

Abstract

International audienceAn intriguing development is taking place in several European science museums: the move of university research laboratories into the space accessible to visitors. Seen as a means to encourage the public understanding of research and to render research practice more accessible to visitors, such laboratories-in-the-museum have been set up in museums in Munich, Berlin, Milan and Gothenburg. This paper is concerned with the changes that the laboratory undergoes through this relocation - namely a transformation of its social and material architecture; an extension of its object-world; and a change in, and multiplication of, the roles of researchers. The laboratory-in-the-museum not only represents, displays and explains a particular kind of space - the laboratory - but it is also designed to create space for dialogue and discussion between researchers and visitors

The Open Planning Laboratory at the Museum für Naturkunde – Experiences From First Attempts in a Participative Exhibition Planning and Working in Public

“…However that can only show an incomplete and rather performed representation of the whole scientific process “behind the scenes.” It can also lead to misinterpretations about the work done. Moreover, the experiences by staff working in the laboratories varies greatly and can cause “responses ranging from frustration and stress to enjoyment and a sense of public service” (Wylie :12, see also Meyer ).…”

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

“…Projects that form collaborations with scientists in order to bring working laboratories into museums (Hix and Heckl ; Meyer ) are connected to broader representational concerns to display not only the results (theories and “facts”) of scientific practice, but also the practices themselves: laboratory processes, structures of authority, and wider contexts and social controversies (Macdonald ; Yaneva et al. ).…”

“…Other prominent examples include the NanoToTouch laboratories in Munich (Deutsches Museum), Milan, and Gothenburg. Meyer () describes these lab‐in‐museum projects as part of broader changes within the public (re)presentation of science, suggesting that putting research (and researchers) “on display” has the potential “to foster an interrogative approach” (268) and thus to both unsettle everyday laboratory practices and invite visitors to play an active part in this unsettling.…”

“…This article focuses instead on collaboration with scientific institutions. Of the work that has been published on laboratories in museums, most has focused on representations of science or visitor participation (see e.g., Hix and Heckl ; Meyer ), with a substantial amount also having been written on artists working in labs and with biohacking spaces (see Scott ; Bar Shai ). This article focuses instead on the processes of collaboration and on the material aspects of co‐curation—the challenges of collectively producing a physical museum space together, rather than just representing different voices.…”

Science museums as political places. Representing nanotechnology in European science museums

“…Second, nanotechnology has already been described as an opportunity to do representation of "science in the making": as the science exhibit used to display pictures of already-made science, the science exhibit is now expected to display pictures of science in the making. 12 This comprises the representation of nanotechnology "ELSA" (in Europe) or its "implications" (in the U.S.). In so doing, they participate in the consolidation of "nanotechnology" as an original entity comprising objects, futures, concerns and publics to engage.…”