From 2017 to early 2020, Dr. Mieneke te Hennepe prepared to warn the world about the devastating potential of viral outbreaks. Dr. te Hennepe is a curator at the Netherlands’ Rijksmuseum Boerhaave, a museum in Leiden dedicated to the medical sciences, research, and innovation. The exhibit she was working on, Besmet! (“Contagious!”), was scheduled to open in March 2020 as an immersive experience of a world ruled by contagion. The curator brought in objects she thought visualized the scary, sobering truth of managing infection. Visitors would be able to stare…
