The Overseen Body - Steno Museum - 2026
Text by the Steno Museum:
The overlooked body unfolds in a new exhibition at the Steno Museum.
How does it affect research, diagnosis and treatment when biological female bodies have been – and still are – overlooked in medical research? This question is the focal point of the Steno Museum’s new exhibition The Overlooked Body – Blood, Breasts and Inequality.
An exhibition co-created with more than 400 children and young people
The exhibition brings together research, art and personal experiences in an exhibition experience with large bodily installations, real organs, statistics and artworks. It is co-created with researchers, artists and pupils from lower secondary schools and upper secondary education.
“We wanted to create an exhibition where what has been overlooked in health research is transformed into a shared bodily and sensory experience,” says Ella Paldam, Deputy Director and Head of Public Engagement at the Science Museums. “It is about research, personal experiences and the blind spots that still exist in the understanding of the body. When biological female bodies have historically been underrepresented in research, it has concrete consequences – from delayed diagnoses to a lack of knowledge about diseases and symptoms. More than 400 children and young people have helped develop formats and content for the exhibition, and we are very much looking forward to opening it.”
From knowledge to body
A central feature is the large, bodily installations where the body’s inner structures become visible in enlarged form. Here it becomes possible to see – and feel – what is normally hidden beneath the skin.
Objects, real organs and installations are used to make it possible to understand complex conditions without simplifying them. The body does not appear as a clear-cut system, but as something complex, changeable and different from person to person.
Visitors can, among other things, experience:
Mammae – a breast-furniture piece to sit in
The artwork Mammae by scenographer Caroline Bang Hedegaard is a large textile breast that the audience can sit inside. The work visualises the milk-producing, peeled-back breast, where guests can take a seat among milk ducts and glandular tissue. The idea was developed with input from young workshop participants, and the work invites guests to experience the female breast in a new way.
Anxiety from within
The exhibition also includes a work on anxiety developed by students from Aarhus Efterskole together with artists Amanda Kessaris and Ida Fonslet. The installation consists of embroideries, textiles and personal stories and gives the audience the opportunity to move into a sensory space that explores anxiety as both a bodily and mental experience.
The world’s largest knitted placenta
One of the central works in the exhibition is a three-metre-wide knitted placenta created by Australian artist Rebecca Vandyk-Hamilton. The work is made from more than 900 recycled T-shirts and has been created through co-creation with museum visitors. The installation serves as a visual focal point for the exhibition and as a symbol of the body’s hidden structures and life-giving functions.
How much do you bleed?
Six women have measured how much they bleed each month. Together with a timeline of menstrual products, this creates a space for conversation across genders and generations.
The starting point for the co-created work “Angsten Indefra” (“Anxiety from Within”)
Both of us, Amanda Kessaris and Ida Fonslet, explore gender, body, and identity in our artistic practices, and we have both worked with what it means to be a woman from emotional, sexual, cultural, and medical perspectives. For us, anxiety is both an important and fascinating theme, and there is a wish to contribute professional expertise in co-creation with young people, each bringing a unique perspective on this highly topical subject. In this project, there is a focus on the potential of art as a tool that can involve and engage young people in an important and often taboo topic. It is a unique opportunity to make the worlds of art and research more accessible, something that can otherwise feel very distant, especially during the teenage years.
Textile craft, especially patchwork and embroidery, is an interesting medium, as it has traditionally been used to create objects made with care for those closest. The slow work requires presence and patience, but for the same reason, this soft craft can have a calming effect on stress and anxiety, as the repetitive movements and the focus they demand occupy the mind in a meditative and therapeutic way. The idea of giving time and consideration to creating something for one another, which can later be passed down, can be transferred to the intention behind the research projects: to dream, reflect, and take the time to create something for the present that is meant to be passed on and benefit future generations.
The aim is to create a textile work in collaboration with the young participants, where each student contributes embroidered texts and words that represent their questions, thoughts, and reflections on the theme. The goal of the final work is not for the students to provide answers, but rather to ask questions and work with their own experiences of the subject. The intention is to create a safe space with room for creativity, immersion, and curiosity, where the young people hopefully leave with a deeper understanding of themselves and others. The work is meant as a snapshot of young people’s experiences and reflections on anxiety, an image of their thoughts, and something viewers can see themselves reflected in. By bringing together all their different perspectives, the hope is to highlight the complexity of the subject and reveal the many issues within the universe of anxiety, including everything that is not yet known.