Mütter Museum

Exposing the storage of a museum’s collection openly as a mode of exhibition again presents the involvement of the museum with memory.  The archive in the nineteenth century allowed collections to be easily reproduced and more accessible to the public through the emergence of new technologies.  Nevertheless, this came at the cost of establishing a socially constructed, collective memory and making the experience of a personal, individualized memory a rare occurrence by the twentieth century.  However, one may debate the validity of this collective memory.  Objects in a collection present tangible evidence to solidify a representation of the past, but the museum is still unable to provide us today with complete historical access.  By placing the object in a museum setting, it becomes decontextualized in meaning, time, and place of origin.  The museum becomes the mediator in deciding which collective memory is the authentic representation of the past and holds the power to determine which objects to display in order to communicate this understanding.  We, the visitors, place our trust in their judgment.

As an exhibition mode, the archive is no longer placing objects in historical narrative; it is merely using the museum as a “holding container” according to Henning in her book, Museums, Media, and Cultural Theory.  The archive presents classification and order to the exhibit through technical information, yet inscribed within the archive are other memories and narratives, which leak through the official documents (Henning, 130).  The collection in the Mütter Museum is on display for the purpose of scientific/medical research and education but also (intentionally or unintentionally) leaves room for larger narratives.  Since most of the specimens are human-anatomical, a great deal of memory is already embedded into each one—the memory of the person who was once living.  The professor of a museum theory course I took last year presented the concept of a cemetery as a museum, because it is a place of memory.  While the Mütter is not a cemetery, it does contain human remains, on display not only for visual and scientific analysis but also for the history and memories of the person.  On our tour of the collection, our guide gave us personal and medical background information of some specimens.  Joseph Hyrtl’s skull collection at the beginning of our tour included personal yet factual information such as ethnicity, age, and cause of death, to not only aid in the research and archival classification, but also preserve the memory of each individual. 

Each Mütter specimen’s memory is voluntary—pre-established and maintained for us by the museum.  However, the archival exhibition mode provides a greater opportunity to spark an involuntary memory (a sudden recollection of the past) in the visitor by exposing objects normally stored away from the public.  By displaying all objects in a technical order, there is limited room for creativity in exhibition design.  The archival mode returns the museum back to the overcrowding collections in curiosity cabinets, evoking again a sense of wonder and resonance in the visitor, leading to a more personal experience.  The skulls and bones in the Mütter Museum made me remember the many hours I spent in high school trying to perfect my drawing skills by meticulously studying the skeleton hanging in my art classroom.  Is the archive the mode of exhibition that will reunite the voluntary/involuntary memories that have been separated in museums since the nineteenth century?  The Mütter Museum proves that it is not impossible.