Labelling Machines and Synthesizers: Collecting Queer Knowledge in Science and Technology Museums

Abstract

Museums of science and technology embody the potential to affect institutional change on issues of gender equality, actively shaping future practices. This article argues that alternative methods of storytelling, creative practice and collaboration with new partners are crucial in museum work; they both ensure representation and awareness of the diversity of gender and sexuality and promote the equality of marginalised groups. Using the Focus Gender initiative at the Technical Museum Vienna, Austria as a case study, the article explores concepts for queering museums to examine how the gap between extensive theory and missing practice can be closed. It asks how a queer reading and diversification of collections is possible–and by whom? How can multi-layered yet excluded forms of knowledge be documented in databases? This article offers innovative approaches and perspectives for engagement with gender, LGBTQI+ and activist movements in the context of museums of science and technology and beyond.