During the academic year 2015-16, staff and students from the Faculties of Life Sciences (now Biology, Medicine and Health) and Humanities have collaborated with the Museum of Medicine and Health (MMH), the University of Manchester Historian and Heritage Manager and Chetham’s Library to develop a series of public engagement activities that aimed to engage different audiences with the MMH’s collection of medical objects.

The project, which was led by Dr Kostas Arvanitis (School of Arts, Languages and Cultures), Dr Carsten Timmermann (CHSTM) and Stephanie Seville (Heritage Assistant, MMH), and funded by the Faculty of Humanities and the Wellcome Trust Institutional Strategic Support Fund, included

• a one-day pop-up exhibition in Chetham’s Library, which attracted c. 200 visitors (The Medicine Cabinet: Unlocking Manchester’s Medical History, 12 December 2015)
• a family activity at Manchester Histories Festival (11 June 2016),
• a social media campaign on twitter, facebook and instagram (May-July 2016), and
• a series of four videos, which show MA Art Gallery and Museum Studies students introducing MMH objects they researched for the exhibition.

The videos below, which feature objects as varied as a powder folder, a bronzed wax resin cast of a facial reconstruction of Philip II of Macedon, a nest of three Royal Worcester white crucibles and a McEvedy rectal speculum (proctoscope), provide a fascinating insight into the project and the MMH’s collection:

Learn more about the project here and here.

Click here for more photos of the exhibition at Chetham’s Library.

See also this short interview with Stephanie Seville, introducing her work with the MMH collections on the MedHumLab website.