Skip to main content

FOLK – From racial types to DNA sequences

Tourist in your own city

What: Exhibition tour
When: April 28, 2019
Facebook

Among the many events during the Tourist in your own city day, you can attend a tour of the exhibition FOLK. More info coming soon! The language of the tour will be Norwegian.

How human variation is not race

What: Thematic tour
When: March 30, 2019
Facebook event

This tour explores how race and human variation are different things and invites us to discuss the scientific, ethical and political challenges that contemporary anthropological and genetic research faces. The tour is given by Ageliki Lefkaditou, curator of the exhibition FOLK – From racial types to DNA sequences, and is part of a series of thematic tours in it.

Photo: Demonstration during the USA’s civil rights movement, late 1950s. Unknown photographer/Schomburg Center for Research in Black Culture, Photographs and Prints Division, The New York Public Library.

Rase, a dangerous myth?

What: Thematic tour
When: March 16, 2019
Facebook event

The tour looks into important moments of the history of scientific racism, points to how traditional racial thinking is not in synch with today’s understanding of human genetic variation, and asks how these scientifically outdated ideas still affect us. The tour is given by Jon Kyllingstad, curator of the exhibition FOLK – From racial types to DNA sequences, and is part of a series of thematic tours in it. The language of the tour is Norwegian.

Photo: Skin color scale developed by the Austrian anthropologist Felix von Luschan. Håkon Bergseth, NTM/University of Oslo: Institute for Basic Medical Sciences.

Photo: Slide from a lecture on physical anthropology held by the military doctor C.O.E. Arbo at the Kristiania working men’s institute. Photo: C.O.E Arbo/Norsk Teknisk Museum.

To portray a race

What: Thematic tour
When: March 9, 2019
Facebook Event

How does one photograph something that does not exist? Physical anthropology research is replete with images. The tour looks at how photographs were the raw material for anthropological analyses, disseminated research results and constructed ideas about what a race was. The tour is given by photo-archivist Thale Sørlie and is part of a series of thematic tours in the exhibition. The language of the event is Norwegian.

Photo: Slide from a lecture on physical anthropology held by the military doctor C.O.E. Arbo at the Kristiania working men’s institute. Photo: C.O.E Arbo/Norsk Teknisk Museum.

One picture can change

What: Activity
When: 14 February, 2019

In the middle sits an older woman. A man stands next to her and holds fast a metallic instrument around her head.  The woman is Sara Paulsen, Eva Fjellheim's great-grandmother.

The Fjellheim family photo is the red thread in this radio narrative about racial research on Sami people. We listen together to the episode  «Et bilde kan forandre» ("A picture can change"), from the radio-documentary «I Elsa Laulas fotspor gjennom Sápmi – 100 år med samisk rettighetskamp» ("In Elsa Laula's footprints through  Sápmi – 100 years of Sami rights movement").

Photo: Skjermdump, elsalaulasfotspor.com

The sound of FOLK

What: Activity
When: February 2, 2019
Facebook Event

The sound of FOLK is an activity developed in collaboration with a group of young people from The Youth Council of Grorud (Oslo) for the exhibition FOLK. The tour will be given by educator and PhD-candidate Torhild Skåtun and is part of a series of thematical tours in the exhibition.

Suddenly sami

What: Film viewing and discussion
When: January 20, 2019
Facebook Event

Film viewing and discussion with the filmmaker Ellen-Astri Lundby. Before the film, the curator of medical history Ellen Lange will give a related tour in the exhibition. The language of the event is Norwegian.

Image above: Inger Nikolaisdatter Tjikkom (b. 1879), with her children Sara and Peder. She was widowed in 1914.

Introduction to the exhibition

What: Thematic tour
When: January 20, 2019

In the early 1900s, anthropologists attempted to determine the characteristics of the Norwegian "race" through photographing and detailed measurements of the body. They examined local people in various communities, including Valle in Setesdal and Hellemo in Tysfjord. We have followed the traces of that research and given the word to the research subjects through their decendants. 

Photo: Inger Nikolaisdatter Tjikkom (b. 1879), with her children Sara and Peder. She was widowed in 1914.

The 7th Norwegian conference on the history of science

What: Conference
When: November 15–16, 2018

Scholars working on the history of science, medicine and technology on any theme, topic or period come together to discuss historical, epistemological, political, institutional and ethical issues. Co-host is Museum of Cultural History by its department Museum of University History, University of Oslo.

Foto: Åsa Maria Mikkelsen

Researchers’ Night – Making sense together 

What: Public event
When: September 28, 2018
Facebook Event

The Researchers’ Night program takes the exhibition FOLK – From racial types to DNA sequences as its starting point. The event is part of European Researchers’ Night and Forskningsdagene 2018.

FOLK FILM: My family portrait

What: Film viewing and conversation
When: September 16, 2018
Facebook Event

Join us to celebrate the Cultural Heritage Days with the documentary My Family Portrait by Yvonne Thomassen. The screening includes a conversation with the filmmaker.

See the trailer.

Doing and undoing race at the museum

What: Event
When: May 19, 2018
Facebook Event

On International Museum Day #IMD2018 we welcome to a curator's tour and a roundtable discussion in the exhibit "FOLK – From racial types to DNA sequences”.

Race: A dangerous myth?

What: Thematic tour
When: April 28, 2018
Facebook Event

Why is race a myth? How do we understand human diversity? This tour of FOLK will explore contemporary DNA research and will discuss why it is so difficult to rid both science and society of this dangerous idea.

Photo: Slide from a lecture on physical anthropology held by the military doctor C.O.E. Arbo at the Kristiania working men’s institute. Photo: C.O.E Arbo/Norsk Teknisk Museum.

To portray a race

What: Thematic tour
When: April 21, 2018
Facebook Event

How do you photograph something that does not exist? Physical anthropology research is replete with images. The tour looks at how photographs were the raw material for anthropological analyses, disseminated research results and constructed ideas about what a race was.

Photo: Slide from a lecture on physical anthropology held by the military doctor C.O.E. Arbo at the Kristiania working men’s institute. Photo: C.O.E Arbo/Norsk Teknisk Museum.

"Foreign contamination"

What: Thematic tour
When: April 14, 2018
Facebook Event

This tour explores our newest exhibition, FOLK, from the point of view of the history of medicine. It focuses on how ideas of purity and hygiene shape the ways people have been categorized by scientists and doctors, now and in the past.

Foto: Susanna Andersdatter Koltik, Gällivare. Fotograf: Johan Brun eller Kristian Schreiner, i Alette Schreiners "Anthropologische Lokaluntersuchungen in Norge, Hellemo", Vitenskabs-selskabets skrifter nr. 1 (1932).

Traces of racial science

What: Thematic tour
When: April 7, 2018
Facebook Event

In the early 1900s, Kristian and Alette Schreiner led several surveys with the aim to map the racial characteristics of the norwegian population. How has this research been experienced by the research subjects – and their descendants? How does it function in the local communities today?

FOLK – From racial types to DNA sequences

What: Exhibition opening, public event
When: March 21, 2018
Facebook Event

Explore cases from contemporary research on human biological diversity and historical race science, examine the interplay between science, society and culture, and find out about the consequences of such research for society and the lives of individuals. 

DNA and identity

What: Public discussion
When: May 22, 2017
Facebook Event

How does contemporary scientific DNA research relate to our understandings of individual and group identities? What is the relationship between population labels used in genetics and ethnic labels assigned through social and cultural processes? Why are individuals so eager to search their ancestry through DNA-typing? Does this reflect the hype with genetics or a deeper dichotomy between biological and cultural understandings of identity?

Race and ethnicity

What: Public discussion
Whan: November 7, 2017
Facebook Event

We explore the contemporary uses of race and ethnicity in the context of health and medicine. We ask if such categories, even if not understood as biologically real, could be seen as useful tools in medical research and practice. And we discuss the possible social, ethical and policy implications of their continued use.

To research and exhibit human biological diversity

What: Conference
When: March 21–23, 2018
Facebook Event

More than 25 invited scholars from the humanities and social sciences, geneticists and evolutionary biologists, physical anthropologists, as well as museum professionals meet to present papers that discuss both scientific and museum practices in the field of human biological diversity.

Typically Norwegian?

Hva: Arrangement
Når: 19. april 2017
Facebook Event

We meet at the museum and discuss on identity, belonging and origins. Who is a typical Norwegian? Does a person need to be white to be accepted as Norwegian?

Disse fotografiene ble tatt i forbindelse med C.O.E. Arbo’s raseantropologiske forskning omkring 1890-tallet. Fotograf: ukjent. Eier: NTM

Racial science – Photography as scientific instrument

What: Public discussion
When: March 23, 2017

Get a glimpse into how past research established a specific language and practices for examining human biological variation. What does this mean for us today? How do we relate to scientific racism of the past? The Norwegian Museum of Science and Technology shows photos from the heyday of racial science (ca. 1890–1940) at the University of Oslo and discusses its content and implications.