Hygiene - the story of a museum
Research Exhibition
Project | Hygiene - the story of a museum
Commisioned by | Marres Maastricht
Curator | Claudia Banz & Guus Beumer
Type | Research Exhibition
Date | 23 Oktober – 30 January 2011
Location | Marres, Maastricht
Architecture | Herman Verkerk & Paul Kuipers (EventArchitectuur)
Project Coordinator | Floor Krooi
Production | Landstra & De Vries
Graphic design | Maureen Mooren
Photography | Johannes Schwartz
Hygiene - the story of a museum
Hygiene - the story of a museum was a historical exhibition that examined how hygiene evolved from a scientific concept into a global ideology, manipulated by the Nazis and East German (DDR) socialism. The exhibition featured artifacts and the famous 'Glass Man' on loan from the Deutsches Hygiene-Museum in Dresden.
The project used the history of the Dresden-based museum—founded in 1911 by Odol mouthwash inventor Karl August Lingner—to raise critical questions about public health, eugenics, and the use of the human body in political propaganda. Visitors could view historical posters, models, and archival documents that detailed how public health campaigns historically shaped society.
Museum as Discourse focuses on making the invisible visible, on striving towards transparency, which can be seen as a dominant ambition of the twentieth century. In Museum as Practice, the pedagogical strive for education on hygiene and the diffusion of scientific knowledge takes central place. Museum as Ideology offers insights into the meaning and the practical mission of hygiene in connection to the political and social-economical systems that characterize the Germany of the twentieth century.