At the end of the activity, participants are invited to put their mouse inside the Infinity box and see their mouse multiplied into many animals. As they watch their single unique mouse become many indistinguishable mice we start to ask about caring for an individual verses caring at scale and what kinds of responsibilities and care does a maker have for the future of their colony?
In our activity, people use the ear punch to make a hole in the mouse’s ear to connect it to the passport. In carrying out the same movement as an animal technician might do, they can learn about the use of ear notching as a means of identification and source of tissue for genotyping, and it may (or not) raise an affective response as they metaphorically cut some of the body of the animal they’ve just created.
Biobanks are where frozen mice embryos are stored until needed for implanting into a surrogate mouse mother. Our Biobank is repurposed picnic cooler filled with ice packs.
Evolving the Mouse Exchange The Mouse Exchange has gone through many iterations since Paul and Sara sat at the Nightingale building at the University of Southampton and invited people to come and make a mouse. The Mouse Exchange evolved and grew through experimenting and listening. This is why the colonies Read more…
The mouse passport is a tool to make sure that animal technicians and vets responsible for caring for these mice can access information about what these mice are like and how best to care for them.