Eleanor S. Armstrong, University College London
New Orleans 2019: Imagining
Supported by the British Society for this History of Science, Queering the Science Museum was a series of guided tours that used queer theory and LGBTQ+ lives of STEM professionals as a point of departure for thinking about how we construct narratives about STEM in museums. In collaboration with Damien Arness-Dalton, I worked to develop and deliver the tours in the Science Museum, London, thinking about queering the tour format as well as the tour content. Since delivering these tours, I have been working with four other science and technical museums, exploring different stories and different approaches to communicating STS-related knowledge. This Making and Doing exhibit will act as a space to reflect on the project with others, to share ideas, directions and motivations for STS activism in public spaces. If you’d like to read more about the project, I have written about it in the BSHS Viewpoint 119.