Focus Gender

“Focus Gender” at the Technisches Museum Wien (Vienna Museum of Science and Technology) has been dedicated to gender-informed museum practice since January 2019. The main research area closes the gap between the museum and international gender research and its implementation in museum work.

The goal is to establish a gender-informed research, education and exhibition practice at the Technisches Museum Wien. This is based on the conviction that gender and gender diversity is of relevance to all, since everyone comes into contact with it. At the same time, the museum is a cultural and social institution that influences the perception of the world and can both reinforce and break down views – including those of gender. The in-house Research Institute consolidates and documents the activities of the museum’s cross-departmental “Focus Gender” working group.

CURRENT PROJECTS

Open Access publications

insightOut › 1 (2023) Feminist and Queer Perspectives on Food, Issue 1:

With the goal of providing open and free access to the outcomes of research conducted at the Technisches Museum Wien, the museum's scientific publications are now being made accessible online to the public in open-access formats for the first time. One of these publications is the newly developed born-digital "insightOut: Journal on Gender and Sexuality in STEM Collections and Cultures" (2023), which is published annually as a scientific journal based on the Vienna Workshops on Gender and Sexuality in STEM Collections. These workshops have been held since 2020 as part of the research focus "Focus on Gender" at the Technisches Museum Wien. The objective is to further and publish research on technology and material culture from a queer-feminist perspective and to present case studies from (museum) practice.

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Workshop: DIVERSE INFRASTRUCTURES? GENDER, QUEER & THE FOUNDATIONS OF SOCIETY – 3^rd Vienna Workshop on STEM Collections, Gender and Sexuality

The focus of the "3rd Vienna Workshop on STEM Collections, Gender and Sexuality" will be on infrastructures,socio-technical systems and immaterial networks that link people, materialities, places, institutions and services.

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Online research exhibition "Women at Work"

Photo with women working at Jewellery feather factory :

Together with the opening of the exhibition "Women at Work" on 2^ndMay 2023 at Technisches Museum Wien a multimedia online exhibition was launched, which invites to further exploration with around 1,000 digitized items and remains permanently accessible. It serves as both an exhibition and a research platform. The medium shapes the form: here, what is often impossible during a museum visit is made possible – research in the museum's storage. The online exhibition houses high-resolution images and full-text digitizations from the unique collection of world exhibition materials at the Technisches Museum Wien, as well as exciting links to documents, archives, and collection items that were left out of the exhibition in favour of a linear narrative. Let's continue to research together here – because there is still much to discover about the history and beginnings of the Austrian women's movement. The content is currently only available in German.

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Engineers in the portrait collection

The portrait collection in the museum’s archive, frequently consulted by researchers, comprises predominantly portraits of male protagonists. The goal is to enrich the collection with portraits of women or non-male experts who were or are engaged in the field of technology or science in Austria.