Pandemic Objects in Practice
The project applies (design) ethnographic methods to investigate how the pandemic shaped everyday hospital life. The results will be presented as a special exhibition for the medical collection of the Inselspital Bern.
Factsheet
- Lead school School of Health Professions
- Institute Nursing
- Research unit Field of Innovation – Psychosocial Health
- Funding organisation Others
- Duration (planned) 09.08.2022 - 31.07.2023
- Project management Prof. Dr. Eva Soom Ammann
- Head of project Prof. Dr. Eva Soom Ammann
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Project staff
Dr. Julia Rehsmann
Prof. Dr. Eva Soom Ammann
Laura Haensler
Bitten Stetter - Partner Medizinsammlung Inselspital Bern
- Keywords pandemic, hospital, rapid ethnographic appraisal, design research, collaborative research
Situation
Covid-19 has brought changes to hospitals and produced stories that are both significant to present-day medicine and impossible to capture in a few years' time. "Pandemic Objects" has documented and archived some of these changes through objects and their related stories.
Course of action
In collaboration with Laura Haensler, artist and designer at the Zurich University of the Arts, a number of different locations and clinics were visited to collect "Pandemic Objects" and their relevant stories. The project follows an interdisciplinary approach and pays particular attention to the hospital as a whole and highlights the importance of infrastructure sectors such as cleaning services, hotel services, facility services and laundry for the hospital's daily operations and its interrelated workflows. The collected objects and their stories were prepared for the archive of the medical collection and published as part of a special exhibition.
Looking ahead
The special digital exhibition will be officially opened on 27 June 2023 in the sitem-atrium and will be complemented by a corresponding on-site exhibit.
