Thomas Söderqvist

The traditional media image of what ‘a scientist’ looks like is pretty stereotypical, especially in film. The aim of the This Is What A Scientist Looks Like tumblr-site with the subtitle “Change the perception of who and what a scientist is or isn’t” is to overthrow “the overwhelming stereotype that science is conducted behind closed doors by unapproachable old, white […]

I came across this tweet from Archimuse the other day: OK, it’s just an ephemeral twitter post. But both the original tweet and the retweet are from influential sites (Archimuse and Museums and the Web, respectively), whose words should normally be taken seriously. So when they say that museum gallery rooms which are not assisted […]

‘Biomarkers’, i.e., chemical substances that are used as indicators of biological (especially pathological) conditions, is one of these important concepts in contemporary biomedicine that seem to be almost impossible as an exhibition topic — partly because the idea of ‘biomarker’ is so abstract and partly because the involved artefacts and substances don’t have much ‘presence’. Unfortunately, because the […]

The Museums and the Web 2012 conference in San Diego has just ended. In addition to attending the meeting and participating in the twitter backchannel, members of the museum community nominated and voted for their favourite museum websites: Here’s the result of the popular vote for Best of the Web 2012 (People’s Choice): 15 Second Place 1 26 Treasures […]

Did you ever feel you lacked an overview of how the current European financial crisis affects museums and the culture sector as a whole? I found a list of questions asked by the museum directors, fund-raisers, marketing managers, policy-makers etc. around Europe at the moment: How can cultural heritage be an economic driver? How can […]

Every time I see a conference call for papers in my field of expertise these days, I’m thinking: could this meeting have been organised on Twitter or Google+ or some other online platform instead? I’d rather participate in an academic discussion on my iPad at home or in a café than sitting in an ugly meeting room in an anonymous hotel somewhere in the […]

Nina Katchadourian‘s ‘Artificial Insemination’ (C-print, 20 x 20 inches, 1998) A “very spontaneous” piece of work she writes: a handful of tadpoles in water all fished out of a rainwater pond, a dinner plate from the cupboard, and a black t-shirt I was wearing at the time. A deliberate scrambling of the iconic scientific image […]

The last two weeks in April, Medical Museion will host a number of events —  including a workshop+seminar +exhibition opening with Lucy Lyons, a seminar with David Pantalony from the University of Ottawa, and a film screening (Lars von Trier’s Epidemic) as part of CPH PIX film festival. Lucy Lyons: On Friday, 27 April, we […]

Last year, Medical Museion received the Society for the History of Technology’s (SHOT) Dibner Award for Excellence in Museum Exhibits — an award that recognises museums and exhibits that interpret the history of technology, industry and engineering to the general public. I am proud to serve on the Dibner Award committee for 2012-2014 — and we are now […]

Always irritating,  but highly readable, Nicholas Carr quotes Clay Shirky saying: I remember, as a child, being bored. I grew up in a particularly boring place and so I was bored pretty frequently. But when the Internet came along it was like, “That’s it for being bored! Thank God! You’re awake at four in the morning? So […]