THE WORLD IS IN YOU

30 September 2021 – 16 January 2022

The Medical Museion joins forces with Kunsthal Charlottenborg to present this autumn’s major exhibition The World is in You. Blending contemporary art, science and historical objects, the exhibition explores how our bodies are connected to the world in and around us.

What are we doing to the world? It is arguably the leading question of our time. Life in the Anthropocene means we are constantly confronted with how we affect and change the world around us. But this exchange of bodies and world flows both directions. Our environment also shapes our bodies and our lives, for good and for ill. But if our world is making and re-making us in profound ways, what do we owe to the world?

We inhabit a network of connections that range from the microscopic to the planetary. Our cells detect the shift from day to night, setting our body clocks in line with the rotation of the planet. The things we eat, touch and put in ourselves affect the trillions of microbial companions living on and inside of us. The generations that came before us have left traces on our DNA. The gravity of our planet limits our dreams of life among the stars.

The exhibition The World is in You takes its starting point in new biomedical research that seeks to understand our bodies, our health and our world. But the conversations about the various insights reached by academic and scientific research cannot be confined to strictly separate disciplines. They flow into the realms of art, history, culture, philosophy, politics and more. Together, they pave the way for new understandings of how our bodies are connected to the world around us.

The exhibition comprises a blend of newly commissioned works of art, objects from the Medical Museion collections, paintings, video installations and scientific and historical artefacts. Every object has something to say about our interconnected bodies as the exhibition addresses four selected themes – Time, Space, Microbes and Generations.

Artists featured: Mediated Matter Group/Neri Oxman, Ralo Mayer, Katie Paterson, Bradley Pitts, Lucy McRae, Kathy High, Jiwon Woo, Sonja Bäumel, Baum & Leahy, Guston Sondin-Kung, Marcus Coates, Susan Morris, Till Rabus, Heath Bunting, Isabella Martin, Maya Sialuk Jacobsen, Kaitlynn Redell, Mary Maggic, Pinar Yoldas, Mogens Jacobsen, Anna Dumitriu, Andrew Carnie, Jenna Sutela, Luke Jerram, Revital Cohen & Tuur Van Balen, Sofie Louise Dam, Tine Friis & Eduardo Abrantes.

Curators: Adam Bencard, Jacob Lillemose, Kristin Hussey, Malthe Kouassi Bjerregaard.

The World is in You is curated by the Medical Museion (part of the Department of Public Health and the Novo Nordisk Foundation Center for Basic Metabolic Research – CBMR) at the University of Copenhagen. Produced in collaboration with Kunsthal Charlottenborg.

Kunsthal Charlottenborg’s exhibition program is supported by Augustinus Fonden, Det Obelske Familiefond og Statens Kunstfond.