It is worth mentioning one very important element of the mobile lab. Ever since we decided to embark in this project, we agreed that one of our principal goal would be to turn the mobile lab into an interactive piece that not only sought material and memory from the prospective participants, but also encourage them to become “urban curators”. The idea was to propose a few hints that people could caption, describe, displace and substitute, add. The top of the mobile lab consists of a drawer which we designed with a couple of references in mind: first, the drawers full of specimens and mysterious objects that visitors could open and explore in museums’ archives and collections; second, the science laboratory where scientists use petri dishes and test tubes to collect specimens and the products of their experiments.

Our mobile lab contains such drawer that can be pulled open. Inside, petri dishes and test tubes can be removed, filled, substituted etc.. Unlike museums and laboratories, the top of the drawer is transparent, so that participants can immediately see its content, have a conversation about the objects, write notes and leave messages, caption the pieces or decide to add new pieces to the collection.