Vision and mission

What is Medical Museion?
A university museum that examines and collects medical science and health, through the lens of history, culture and art.
What does it do?
It connects the public to researchers and other professions through imaginative exhibitions, events, conversations, as well as our own investigations.
And why?
To deepen our understanding of bodies & minds, health and its contexts; and ultimately, to enrich people’s lives.

If you have a little longer, here’s the seated version…

Dating from 1787, our oldest building originally housed the Royal Danish Academy of Surgery: a founding institution for medicine in Denmark. We interpret this, our biggest ‘object and its spaces, through our work.
We have a collection of objects, mostly reflecting Danish medical history, with great technical and cultural significance.
Our artefacts include human bodies. We also hold ‘bodies’ of knowledge and of work. We present changing combinations of them in our galleries & exhibitions.
We are part of the Public Health Department in the University of Copenhagen’s Faculty of Health and Medical Sciences; but we also reach out across the humanities and arts.
We are an energetic team with discipline-hopping appetites. We encourage each other to bring together personal as well as professional expertise and experiences.

We host a broad ecology of research, dealing with the culture and history of medical thought and health practices. We investigate how these perspectives intersect with all our lives.
We assume that science is embedded in culture and society, and produce enquiry-led exhibitions, events and other activities aimed at dialogue, dissemination and communication.
We teach, learn and host discussions that uncover uneven relationships between the institutions, people and ideas that make up a medical heterotopia.
We collect, conserve, investigate and share the material culture and history of medicine and health.
We are drawn to dichotomies, but don’t seek to resolve them: body vs mind; nature vs nurture; science vs culture; reason vs emotion; research vs practice; thought vs action.
We seed and nurture vibrant links between university and society.

We believe in the value researchers, health professionals and the public meeting and exchanging ideas, and do this by bridging the university’s sense of curiosity with a variety of public needs.
We relish the grand challenge of enhancing understandings of health, illness, environment, and peoples every day experiences of bodies and minds.
We think it’s vital to understand why things are they are; how different they have been in the past; and how they could change in the future.
Sometimes, we aim to uncover complications within what might seem simple, and to explore (occasionally explode) assumptions and prejudices about health, illness and bodies.
We want to help the world become a better and more sustainable place; but we also consistently question how that could be achieved.