Advent-medicalendar – Mannequins at the museum

Christmas is nostalgia and tradition! This year Medical Museion launches an advent calendar for anyone who has a hard time waiting for Christmas Eve. It combines two traditions: the use of puppets in Danish television advent calendars and the use of mannequins in museum exhibitions. We are proud to present: Mannequins at the museum.
Using posed mannequins in exhibitions is an old museum tradition. In the 1970s, Medical Museion was populated by mannequins arranged in small tableaux. Little stories about medical procedures and advances were given a human face… and body. It’s not an exhibition aesthetic encountered often today, although it has many fans. Here at Medical Museion there are still people who remember the old setups, and look back fondly on this kind of exhibition.
The dolls are no longer to be found here. The vast majority have suffered an unknown fate and are probably no more. All that’s left is a series of photographs from around 1980, proving they were here, plus one female model and half a man, which for mysterious reasons have been allowed to survive various clear outs. Now we will take them for one last tour of the museum.
[flickr id=”8229869368″ thumbnail=”medium” overlay=”true” size=”original” group=”” align=”center”]
In the 1970s Danish television broadcast several advent calendars – in 24 daily episodes, Danish children could follow stories told with puppets, making the wait for Christmas that little bit easier. A strong characteristic of these series was the absence of typically Christmassy things such as elves, tinsel and glitter. Similarly, Medical Museion Advent Calendar 2012 is not on the surface a Christmas story, but it could be. It is up to you…
Every day from the 1st to the 24th of December, Medical Museion will post a photo with empty speech bubbles on the Facebook page. I hope that museion fans from near and far will make suggestions about what us mannequins are saying. Every afternoon we will select the day’s best suggestion, and publish it on Facebook and on our website. Enjoy!