Lead Partner: Royal College of Surgeons of Edinburgh
Partners: City of Edinburgh Council; Collins Gallery, Strathclyde University; Edinburgh College of Art; Fetlar Museum Trust; Fife Council; Highland Council; Hunterian Museum and Art Gallery; Lothian Health Services Archive; NHS Health Scotland; National Galleries of Scotland; National Library of Scotland; Royal College of Physicians of Edinburgh; Royal College of Physicians and Surgeons of Glasgow; Royal College of Surgeons of Edinburgh; Royal Scottish Academy; Scottish Borders Council; Scottish Enterprise Edinburgh & Lothian; University of Aberdeen (Marischal Museum); University of Dundee; University of Edinburgh; University of Glasgow; University of St Andrews; VisitScotland Edinburgh; West Lothian Council.
The project aims to promote medical collections and health collections in Scottish museums to local, national and international audiences. The partnership is delivering a range of initiatives to make better use of medical/health collections and to build a Scotland and Medicine network.
The project is touring a major museum exhibition �Anatomy Acts� to six venues across Scotland throughout 2006/07. �Anatomy Acts� will show over 180 objects, many on display for the first time, from 19 different lenders including medical museums, university teaching, archive and library departments, as well as fine art collections, and health boards. It is the largest touring exhibition of its kind ever undertaken in Scotland. All the objects in the exhibition come from Scottish collections and span more than 500 years of creative development. Made by professional artists, anatomists and technicians, from Europe and beyond, most have been created as tools for medical teaching or diagnosis and many are still in use today. They represent where the worlds of art and science meet and where ideas are exchanged. In addition, the exhibition contains new commissioned work by artists Christine Borland, Joel Fisher, Claude Heath and the poet Kathleen Jamie. �Anatomy Acts� opened at the City Arts Centre, Edinburgh in May 2006 and attracted around 20,000 visitors. A modified version of the exhibition has since toured to the Lamb Gallery, Dundee; Gateway Galleries, St Andrews; Swanson Gallery, Thurso and Inverness Museum and Art Gallery. It will end its tour at the Collins Gallery, Glasgow where it will be on display from 26 May to 30 June 2007.
Public opinion to �Anatomy Acts� has been very favourable with 98% of visitors stating they enjoyed the exhibition, 93% stated they thought medical collections could be educational to people outwith the medical profession and 96% said they would like to see more exhibitions like this in the future. �Anatomy Acts� also received positive coverage by the press including a 5 star review from The Scotsman and The Herald described it as �the richest, most challenging historical exhibition I have seen in Scotland in recent years�.
�Anatomy Acts� is complemented by an exciting programme of activities which have been held in and around the exhibition venues. Approx. 1,500 people have participated in the events which have ranged from drawing classes, living history demonstrations, tours, and a series of talks by authors, artists, surgeons and other medical professionals. Using �Anatomy Acts� as the focus, Scotland & Medicine offered a teacher placement programme through the Careers Scotland Excellence in Education through Business Links (EEBL) scheme. Three teachers participated in the programme and created a range of downloadable teaching resources.
In addition to the exhibition a number of associated publications have been produced by the project including an Object Guide, a guide to the exhibits in the exhibition; �Anatomy Acts: How We Come to Know Ourselves� a companion publication to the theme of the exhibition; and an artist�s book �Diagnosis� by Joel Fisher.
A series of four regional leaflets are being produced by Scotland & Medicine. The leaflets are intended to raise awareness of the medical related collections and connections held in museums, archives, libraries and visitor centres across the country. To date three have been produced: Edinburgh: City of Medicine; Fife & Tayside: History of Medicine; Northern Scotland: Pioneering Medicine. A fourth Glasgow and the West: World of Medicine will be available from June 2007. The leaflets have provided an excellent opportunity for partners in each region to collaborate on sharing knowledge and pooling resources effectively.
Two websites have been developed by Scotland & Medicine. The partnership website www.scotlandandmedicine.com was launched in July 2005. It contains a growing directory of museums, libraries, archives and galleries; forthcoming events and exhibitions and information on Scottish medical connections and leading medical charities. To coincide with the opening of �Anatomy Acts� an exhibition website was launched in June 2006 www.anatomyacts.co.uk. The website is fully searchable with images and captions and contains information on the public events programme; details of the publications; and downloadable teaching resources.
Scotland & Medicine partners and volunteers have benefited from broad continual professional development through the experience of working on all aspects of the project but in particular the touring exhibition. Areas include: collections care; touring exhibition planning, development and delivery; print design and content; events programming; advocacy; audience development and evaluation.
Scotland & Medicine: Collections & Connections was nominated for the prestigious Gulbenkian Prize 2007.
To view the project project websites, please click on the following links
Contact: Malcolm MacCallum
T: 0131 527 1633
E: [email protected]
Please click on the link below to view the project launch press release
