Epidemic Objects in Museums: Cholera, Storytelling, and Ecological Disturbance
Publikation: Bidrag til tidsskrift › Tidsskriftartikel › Forskning › fagfællebedømt
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Epidemic Objects in Museums : Cholera, Storytelling, and Ecological Disturbance. / Brichet, Nathalia Sofie; Hastrup, Frida.
I: Nordisk Museologi, Bind 2-3, Nr. 2021, 2021, s. 5-19.Publikation: Bidrag til tidsskrift › Tidsskriftartikel › Forskning › fagfællebedømt
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TY - JOUR
T1 - Epidemic Objects in Museums
T2 - Cholera, Storytelling, and Ecological Disturbance
AU - Brichet, Nathalia Sofie
AU - Hastrup, Frida
PY - 2021
Y1 - 2021
N2 - The Covid19 pandemic has made it painfully clear that global interconnectedness may explode in virulent contagion. Against this background, the article looks to another disease outbreak and engages an object from a historical cholera epidemic, namely a nineteenth century sealed flask containing gut secretion from a Nordic cholera patient. The so-called cholera bottle, now held in Copenhagen Medical Museion, works as an “epidemic object”, implying that its contents may spread along uncontrollable paths, producing and transforming nation states, medical frontiers, hotspots and havens along the way. Through open-ended fieldwork around the cholera bottle, pursuing unforeseen relations between then and now, here and there, and cholera and wider ecologies, the article suggests that such epidemic objects force us to pay acute attention to the choices that underpin museums’ storytelling. As such, the cholera bottle can point to highly problematic structures of global transmission – of scientific knowledge, virus, and health resources in an era of ecological disturbance – which is vital for museums for them to respond adequately to the pandemic.
AB - The Covid19 pandemic has made it painfully clear that global interconnectedness may explode in virulent contagion. Against this background, the article looks to another disease outbreak and engages an object from a historical cholera epidemic, namely a nineteenth century sealed flask containing gut secretion from a Nordic cholera patient. The so-called cholera bottle, now held in Copenhagen Medical Museion, works as an “epidemic object”, implying that its contents may spread along uncontrollable paths, producing and transforming nation states, medical frontiers, hotspots and havens along the way. Through open-ended fieldwork around the cholera bottle, pursuing unforeseen relations between then and now, here and there, and cholera and wider ecologies, the article suggests that such epidemic objects force us to pay acute attention to the choices that underpin museums’ storytelling. As such, the cholera bottle can point to highly problematic structures of global transmission – of scientific knowledge, virus, and health resources in an era of ecological disturbance – which is vital for museums for them to respond adequately to the pandemic.
U2 - 10.5617/nm.9604
DO - 10.5617/nm.9604
M3 - Journal article
VL - 2-3
SP - 5
EP - 19
JO - Nordisk Museologi
JF - Nordisk Museologi
SN - 1103-8152
IS - 2021
ER -
ID: 250226244