Category Archives: Event

Collection, Event, Lecture Series, Research

Lecture series “Hands On. Research Perspectives on Collections” – winter semester 2024/25

The lecture series ‘Hands-on. Research Perspectives on Collections’ explores the question of how researchers in their respective disciplines access collections and objects, how they question and utilise them for their research topics and which theoretical and methodological approaches they use to do so. Academics from the fields of Ancient American Studies, Conservation and Restoration Science, History of Medicine, Numismatics and Film Studies will present examples of collection and object research in their disciplines and will also discuss their research projects from the BMBF funding programme ‘Vernetzen – Erschließen – Forschen. Allianz für Hochschulsammlungens’ (https://wissenschaftliche-sammlungen.de/de/allianz2/).

Organisers:
Sarah Elena Link and Gesa Grimme
Coordination Centre for Scientific Collections in Germany (https://wissenschaftliche-sammlungen.de/de)

Time and Place:
The events take place on Mondays from 6 to 8 p.m. at Kurssaal, Helmholtz-Zentrum für Kulturtechnik, Campus Nord, Humboldt-Universität zu Berlin. Afterwards, there will be an opportunity to network and exchange ideas over a small drink. There is also the possibility to participate via Zoom.

Participation:
Participation is possible without pre-registration and is free for all interested parties!

Programme and Zoom link:
https://wissenschaftliche-sammlungen.de/de/allianz2/ringvorlesung/

Poster Ringvorlesung Hands On
Lecture series “Hands On. Research Perspectives on Collections”
BUA, Knowledge Exchange, News, Third Mission, Workshop

Researching with Society: International Perspectives

HU Office for Knowledge Exchange with Society at Zentrum für Kulturtechnik | TD-Lab – Laboratory for Transdisciplinary Research of the Berlin University Alliance

Time:    Wednesday, 20. November 2024, 1:00 pm to 5:30 pm
Place:    Humboldt-Universität zu Berlin, Campus Nord, Philippstraße 13, Haus 3, 10115 Berlin
(Keynote/Workshops: Entrance Tieranatomisches Theater;
Reception: Entrance Hermann von Helmholtz-Zentrum für Kulturtechnik)

This is an in-person event that will take place in English. Please note that the workshops are currently fully booked and that your name will be added to a waiting list. Please register your interest here.

Researching with Society: International Perspectives

We are pleased to announce the event “Researching with Society: International Perspectives” on November 20th 2024, a get-together at Humboldt-Universität zu Berlin on participatory research and public engagement offering learning and networking opportunities for Berlin researchers. The day will feature a keynote speech and workshops by international experts from the University of Oxford followed by a reception allowing time and space for networking and discussions.
Science and universities have a central role and responsibility in dealing with major societal challenges of our time. Knowledge exchange between academia and society is thus increasingly becoming an important part of research and knowledge production. The event welcomes all researchers, members of BUA institutions and interested science-related organizations to explore approaches and impact of participatory research and public engagement, discuss civic responsibilities of universities and network with partners from the University of Oxford. Please join us for the following program:

12:40 pm   Doors open at Tieranatomisches Theater

1:00-1:45 pm   Keynote Speech: Enhancing Research Through Public Engagement – Strengthening Participatory Approaches in Academia
by Dr. Victoria McGuinness, Head of Public Engagement, Head of The Oxford Research Centre in the Humanities (TORCH), University of Oxford
preceded by a welcome by Prof. Dr. Julia von Blumenthal, president of HU Berlin

This talk will explore the vital role of universities in addressing today’s societal challenges and their civic responsibilities. It will outline the opportunities for collaboration and co-creation and the added value of participatory approaches and public engagement in research, including their impact and outcomes. The speaker will share examples of how universities can support participatory research methods and strengthen these essential practices in academia

1:45-3:45 pm    Parallel Workshops: please note that the workshops are fully booked at present and that your name will be added to a waiting list (register your interest here)

Workshop 1: What is Public Engagement with Research in the Humanities?
Dr. Victoria McGuinness, Head of Public Engagement, Head of TORCH, University of Oxford
This workshop will delve into the feasibility of public engagement and participation across various disciplines in the Humanities. We will explore the motivations for researchers to engage in participatory projects with non-academic audiences and organisations, and identify the support needed to initiate and lead these initiatives. Participants will discuss the challenges faced in implementing participatory research approaches and public engagement, sharing methods and solutions to overcome obstacles. Join us to enrich your research through meaningful and equitable collaboration.

Workshop 2: Developing Compelling Impact Stories
Pavel Ovseiko, DPhil MSc PGDip, Senior Research Fellow in Health Policy and Management, John Radcliffe Hospital, University of Oxford
This interactive workshop will introduce you to the UK’s best practice in defining, capturing, communicating, and incentivising research with impact on society, culture, and the economy. We will look at the fundamentals of a narrative impact case study, examine a mixture of real-world case studies, and critically discuss comparative advantages and disadvantages of different approaches to measuring and rewarding impactful research. You will walk away with real insights into what it takes to develop a narrative impact case study; which types of indicators you can use to demonstrate your impact; and how to pull different strands of evidence into compelling impact stories.

4:00-5:30 pm  Reception and Networking (snacks and drinks provided)
With Dr. Victoria McGuinness (TORCH, University of Oxford), Pavel Ovseiko (John Radcliffe Hospital, University of Oxford), OPEN HUMBOLDT Advisory Board, HU Office for Knowledge Exchange with Society, BUA TD-Lab

Registration: Please register for the event and select a workshop here (waiting list)
Contact: wissensaustausch.hzk@hu-berlin.de

Photo: Humboldt-Universität zu Berlin

Event, inherit, Lecture Series

Lecture Series Heritage in Transformation – winter semester 2024/25

Käte Hamburger Kolleg | Centre for Advanced Study inherit. heritage in transformation

Lecture Series
Heritage in Transformation
22.10.2024 – 04.02.2025
Tuesday, 16.00-18.00 c.t.
Lecture Hall 3075, Main Building, Humboldt-Universität zu Berlin, Unter den Linden 6, 10117 Berlin

Public livestream is available here (no registration required), with the option to ask questions via chat: https://hu.berlin.zoom-x.de/j/63948996575.

Which pasts are valued and why? How has this changed historically and in what ways is it changing today? What gets to count as heritage and in what broader global and local transformations is this entangled? How can heritage be proactively changed to help address pressing social, political and environmental problems, including those of decolonization, cultural conflict and climate crisis? And how do the arts, humanities and social sciences need to be done differently to comprehend and enable the potential of such transformations?

This lecture series introduces and showcases exciting trans- and multi-disciplinary humanities approaches to such questions. It does so with a particular focus on the following three strands of ongoing transformation: the decentring of the West (Europe/Global North); the decentring of the Human; and the transformation of value. These three strands structure the research programme of the Humboldt University’s Käte Hamburger Kolleg | Centre for Advanced Study inherit. heritage in transformation. Lecture series contributors will be drawn from international fellows and inherit’s core team, which include artists of various media as well as researchers from a wide range of humanities and social sciences, such as anthropology, art history, history, literature, philosophy, political science, and sociology.

Lectures are followed by open sessions on Wednesdays from 10:00 to 12:00 c.t. at inherit. heritage in transformation, Charlottenstraße 42, 10117 Berlin.

Further information: https://inherit.hu-berlin.de/events/inherits-lecture-series
Contact: Elisaveta Dvorakk elisaveta.dvorakk@hu-berlin.de

Lecture Series
Heritage in Transformation
22.10.2024 – 04.02.2025
Tuesday, 16.00-18.00 c.t.
Lecture Hall 3075, Main Building, Humboldt-Universität zu Berlin, Unter den Linden 6, 10117 Berlin

22.10. Sharon Macdonald and Eva Ehninger
Introduction

29.10. Juliana Robles de la Pava
Material Ecologies and Ethics of Entanglement through an Aesthetics of South America
chair: Eva Ehninger

05.11. Yujie Zhu
China‘s Heritage through History: The Orchid Pavilion Gathering and Calligraphy
Lecture and Book Discussion
18.00 – 20.00 s.t. – Kurssaal, HZK, Campus Nord, Haus 3, Philippstr. 13, 10115 Berlin

12.11. Munyaradzi Elton Sagiya
Nature-Culture Dichotomy: Rethinking Heritage Conservation in Zimbabwe’s National Parks
chair: Sharon Macdonald

19.11. Raviv Ganchrow
Agencies of Aquatic Hearing
chair: Yoonha Kim

26.11. Dani Gal
White City – Architectural Utopias and Racial Hierarchies
chair: Tal Adler

03.12. Lisa Stuckey
Theory and Aesthetics of Tribunalisation
chair: Margareta von Oswald

10.12. Megha Yadav
The Sacred and the Profane in Tibetan Buddhism: Materiality and Divinity of Thangka Paintings
chair: Habiba Insaf

17.12. Juana Awad
Transcultural Heritage: Curating Time-Based Arts, the Werkstatt der Kulturen and the Making of the Postmigrant Nation
chair: Elisaveta Dvorakk

14.01. Saskia Abrahms-Kavunenko
Being, Uncanny: Plastics, Personhood and the Beyond on an Indian Ocean Island
chair: Yoonha Kim

21.01. Daina Pupkevičiūtė
Practices of Attention: Attending to Wounded Landscapes and Listening to Nonhuman Others
chair: Sharon Macdonald

28.01. Roxana Coman
Inter-Imperiality and Heritage: Collecting and Displaying Artefacts in Mid-19th Century Romania
chair: Elisaveta Dvorakk

04.02. Closing Forum for Students

poster inherit RVL WS 2024-25

Discussion, Event, Publication

CANCELLED! Synthetic materials as heritage? A book launch conversation – 4 November 2024 | The event is postponed

Book launch and fish bowl conversation on the occasion of ‘Rest in Plastic’ .

Synthetic materials such as plastics, but also concrete and even aluminum, are often not considered to be valuable and as such usually excluded from thinking about heritage. Ethnological museum collections feature little if any synthetic materials, due to the origin of the collections in colonial times, but also due to Western perceptions of these materials as unauthentic and not local to Non-Western social contexts. Little has been written about plastics and the likes in these collections, while there is some work on conserving plastic materials in collections, showing that these are quite hard to preserve, different to what may be expected of these undying materials.

On the occasion of launching the book ‘Rest in Plastic: Death, time and synthetic materials in a Ghanaian Ewe community’ (Berghahn 2024) by social and cultural anthropologist Isabel Bredenbröker, this panel discussion brings the author in conversation with anthropologist Saskia Abrahms-Kavunenko, curator Elisabeth Heyne, material scientist Bright Asante and industrial designer Heidi Jalkh. Conversation participants will be introducing to their work in relations to synthetic materials and discussing how their insights speak to the idea of synthetics as heritage, both difficult and welcome. The conversation invites the audience to participate by offering an empty chair for questions and comments.

Confirmed participants:
Saskia Abrahms Kavunenko (Humboldt-Universität, in.herit fellow working on plastic on Christmas Island, anthropologist).

Heidi Jalkh (associated member Matters of Activity, co-curator of Matters of South / Kunstgewerbemuseum, experimental industrial designer).

Elisabeth Heyne (Museum für Naturkunde, Natur der Dinge collection).

Bright Asante (Bundesanstalt für Materialforschung und -prüfung BAM).

Isabel Bredenbröker (Hermann von Helmholtz-Zentrum für Kulturtechnik).

Moderation: Magdalena Buchczyk (Institut für Europäische Ethnologie, Humboldt Universität zu Berlin)

About the book:
In Peki, an Ewe town in the Ghanaian Volta Region, death is a matter of public concern. By means of funeral banners printed with synthetic ink on PVC, public lyings in state, cemented graves and wreaths made from plastic, death occupies a prominent place in the world of the living.Rest in Plastic gives an insight into local entanglements of death, synthetic materials and power in Ewe community. It shows how different materials and things that come to shape power relations, exist in a delicate balance between state and local governance, kin and outsiders, death and life, the invisible and the visible, movement and containment.

More about the book on the Berghahn Books website.

Date:
tbc (the event is postponed!)

Event Location:
Humboldt-Universität zu Berlin
Hermann von Helmholtz-Zentrum für Kulturtechnik
Philippstr. 13, Haus 3, Kurssaal
10115 Berlin
Germany

Plastic_Crush_Exhibition_IB
View of the Plastic Crush exhibition at the Wereldmuseum Amsterdam. Photo: Isabel Bredenbröker, 2023.
Discussion, Event, Exhibition, Workshop

Queer Sonic Fingerprint – Transdisciplinary Research – Isabel Bredenbröker and Adam Pultz

How do bodies sound? And how can a group of cultural belongings in an ethnological museum collection resonate in unexpected queer kin relations? In their interactive multichannel sound installation Queer Sonic Fingerprint, sound artist Adam Pultz and anthropologist Isabel Bredenbröker (Hermann von Helmholtz Zentrum für Kulturtechnik) speculatively imagines non-normative relations around cultural belongings in ethnological museums and beyond. The installation amplifies the collection‘s materiality through sonic fingerprints—that is—the reflections of a body’s acoustic characteristics. In a transdisciplinary encounter with sound processing and evolutionary computing, dynamically changing fingerprints bring selected parts of museum collections to life in a multichannel sonic ecology.

Queerness contains a tension, something which gender and sexuality studies scholar Susan Talburt identifies as a fundamentally productive quality. Cultural belongings in ethnographic collections are things deeply affected by the colonial encounter and its political aftermath. They, too, are caught in a tense state, as current debates about ownership, their history, their representative functions, and proper place come to show. Voices from indigenous communities and scholars have reframed so-called ethnographic “objects” in museum collections as person-like entities. The installation includes those relations that are currently being claimed with increasing insistence, alongside relations between collection items.

The playback of the sonic fingerprints will form part of a multichannel sound installation also involving field recordings and spoken narrative. Here, kinship and relations between objects become sonic relations, contributing a different register to what is traditionally a visual experience. Museum displays and collections are governed by strict rules: most things may not be touched and many things remain inaccessible in storage. In response to such restrictions, the sonic domain can provide access through a different sensory modality. Here, imagining a sonic image of these bodies offers a sensitive way of not looking or touching, not representing or claiming ownership.

Throughout the installation the sonic fingerprints will merge, recombine, and create new generations of virtual fingerprints with their own acoustic properties, evading museal categories and representational claims, just like queer identities and ways of kinning evade normative ideas of gender, relations, and sexuality. Through evolutionary computing and audience interaction, Queer Sonic Fingerprint highlights new object-relations that transcend the logic of the museum as a place of clear-cut display, education and safekeeping. A multisensory and interactive format challenges such established forms of museal practice. Through the speculative sonic-material futures that emerge, non-normative kinship and queer narratives work toward a critique of the ethnographic collection’s colonial roots.

Venue
Art Laboratory Berlin
Prinzenallee 34, 13359 Berlin

Dates and opening hours
Opening: 19 October 2024, 8 pm
Running time: 20 October – 1 December 2024
Fri – Sun, 2 – 6 pm

ALB Team
Tuçe Erel, Christian de Lutz, Regine Rapp, Alice Cannavà, Camila Flores-Fernández

Photo documentation
Isabel Bredenbröker and Adam Pultz Melbye

Supported by
Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft
Dansk Komponistforening/ KODA Kultur
Sound Art Lab
The Speculative Sound Synthesis Project

Queer_Sonic_Fingerprint_Transdisciplinary_Research_Poster
Exhibition poster. Copyright: Alice Cannava
Event, Exhibition, News

About grey parrots and humans

The Animal Anatomy Theatre opens the exhibition ‘Parrot Terristories’ on 10 October, focusing on the multifaceted history of grey parrots and humans

African grey parrots are social animals that live in the tropical rainforests of West and Central Africa, where they travel in large flocks. However, these clever birds are endangered in the wild. There are now probably more grey parrots living in human households in Europe, the USA and the Middle East than in the wild.

The research and exhibition project ‘Parrot Terristories’ focuses on the history and complex facets of the relationship between grey parrots and humans. For six years, Ute Hörner and Mathias Antlfinger, Professor of Multispecies Storytelling at the Academy of Media Arts Cologne, have been working with numerous actors and institutions to create images, texts, films, sound works and installations that examine and show where parrots and humans meet and what these encounters look like.

Art by grey parrots and humans

Hörner and Antlfinger themselves have lived in a household with grey parrots for 20 years and founded the interspecies collective CMUK – which stands for the first letters of the collective’s four first names – with Karl and Clara in 2014. There is a shared workbench in the studio where installations such as the ‘Dollhouse for Dinosaurs’ are created: A model of their shared home, on whose windows, doors and walls the birds have left their mark. Shredded magazines, cork crumbs and splinters of wood litter the floor and bear witness to the power of the beaks and the desire to mould and shape. An audio recording inside the model gives an idea of the strength and perseverance with which the animals went about their work. The exhibition also includes a joint work with Nick Byaba from the Parrot Tree Caretakers Association in Uganda, which examines the relationship between wild grey parrots and their environment.

The exhibits make this clear: Grey parrots are individuals with their own will and experience, they have agency and actively create and shape their world. Recognising this ‘animal agency’ is the central concern of ‘Parrot Terristories’.

The Tieranatomisches Theater is showing the exhibition in the context of research into material cultural heritage at the Helmholtz-Zentrum für Kulturtechnik and the Käte Hamburger Centre for Advanced Study in the Humanities ‘inherit.heritage in transformation’ at Humboldt University.

Caption: CMUK. Divided workbench in the studio. Photo: Hörner/Antlfinger

Supported by Kunststiftung NRW, Hauptstadtkulturfonds Berlin and Kunsthochschule für Medien Köln

Further information
Vernissage: 10 October, 7 pm
Location: Tieranatomisches Theater, Campus Nord, Philippstraße 13/Haus 3, 10115 Berlin
Exhibition duration: 11 October 2024 to 29 March 2025

Learn more about the exhibition at TA T

Further cooperation partners
Dr. Sylke Frahnert, Dr. Katja Kaiser, Museum für Naturkunde Berlin (wissenschaftshistorische Beratung)
Christine Bluard, Annelore Naeckerts, Royal Museum for Central Africa, Tervuren, Belgien
Prof. Nancy Jacobs, Brown University
Dr. Vanessa Wijngaarden, University of Johannesburg, University of Liège

Contact:
Felix Sattler, Director and Curator of the TA T
felix.sattler@culture.hu-berlin.de

 

Knowledge Exchange, News, Third Mission, Workshop

Training Program in Public Engagement for Researchers

The team of HU ‘Knowledge Exchange with Society‘ at Zentrum für Kulturtechnik (HZK) invites researchers to participate in a training program for Public Engagement, delivered by the Berlin School of Public Engagement and Open Science. The workshop series is an effective and flexible training in public engagement and knowledge exchange between science and society. It offers an active network and a certificate in the field of participation and engagement.

  • What: Training program (Ger/Eng) with 3 thematic modules and optional units: 1. Foundations – Engagement in Practice, 2. Evaluation Practice, 3. Creative Engagement – Skills and Formats
  • Who: the training is aimed at researchers from all disciplines and at all stages of their careers who are interested in cooperating with non-academic and community partners
  • When: from October 2024 to June 2025, with an average of one workshop per month; you can choose and book the individual appointments on your own
  • Where: live online sessions on Zoom

Please see here for detailed information about the training

If you are interested in participating or have questions, please contact the HU-team Knowledge Exchange with Society at wissensaustausch.hzk@hu-berlin.de until September 15.

 

Event, News, Sound Archive, Symposium

Symposium “No future without memory. Strategies of preservation in cultural archives” – Nuremberg, 20-22 June 2024

Symposium in Nuremberg
There are more than 350 different archives in Germany alone, containing collections on architecture, photography, dance and more. That’s why the Institute of Modern Art Nuremberg and the Neues Museum Nürnberg are organizing a conference on the topic of “No future without memory. Strategies of preservation in cultural archives”. At this symposium, guests from all over Germany, Austria and Switzerland will talk about the work and challenges of cultural archives.

Alina Januscheck and Christopher Li from the “Towards Sonic Resocialization” project will be holding a lecture on Friday, 21.6.24. Focusing on the ethic(s) of the Lautarchiv, they will discuss the handling of collections from colonial contexts of injustice. Furthermore, the impact of these ethics on the Lautarchiv’s current and future culture of remembrance will be explored.

Date: 20-22 June 2024
Venue: Auditorium in the Neues Museum Nuremberg, Luitpoldstraße 5, 90402 Nuremberg
Costs: EUR 50,- (lecturers + students free of charge)
Website: https://www.moderne-kunst.org/archiv/kulturarchive-projekt

Event, News, Sound Archive

The Long Night of Science 2024 – ECHOING ARCHIVES

The Long Night of Sciences will take place again on 22 June 2024. The Collegium Hungaricum is celebrating its 100th anniversary by presenting the contents of archives in this context.

In addition to guided tours of the institution and an interactive sound installation, lectures will be offered. The Lautarchiv presents a sound recording from its collection by Robert Gragger, who founded the Collegium Hungaricum around 1924.

Date: 22 June
Time: 17:00 hrs
Place: Collegium Hungaricum Berlin, Dorotheenstraße 12, 10117 Berlin
Website: https://culture.hu/de/berlin/veranstaltungen/lndw2024

Please note that the event will be held in German.

Event

Film premiere “The Empty Grave”

Since October last year, the exhibition “MAREJESHO: The Call for Restitution from the Peoples of Kilimanjaro and Meru” has been running successfully at the Tieranatomisches Theater. In addition, on February 19th 2024, the political documentary “The Empty Grave” celebrated its world premiere at the “75 Berlinale”.
“The Empty Grave” documents John Mbano’s search for the human remains of his great-grandfather Songea Mbano, who was executed by the German colonial army in Tanzania. The filmmakers show great empathy for the protagonists and have managed to give a voice to the descendants of the executed, whose remains are still kept in European and American museums. A film about the colonial past and restitution – and a call for political action. Many thanks to Agnes Lisa Wegner and Cece Mlay.

Across Kilimanjaro and Meru in Tanzania, the legacy of resistance against the German colonial rule beats strong in the hearts of descendants. Only many ancestral witnesses and testimonies from that violent time are missing; waiting to be found languishing in German museum depots. In 1900, Colonial Officers publicly hanged leaders of the local communities and shipped dismembered body parts to the Ethnological Museum in Berlin for racist research. This was further compounded by the theft of personal belongings: local symbols of power, weapons, armory and jewellery. For over 50 years, relatives have been demanding the return of their abducted ancestors. But how to locate them? How to re-memorise belongings of cultural heritage that had been gone for over century? How to repair from the acts of dismemberment and rupture? What action do the descendants expect from Germany?

Together with the exhibition at the Tieranatomisches Theater and the documentary film, these questions are brought to light anew, and call for a first step towards coming to terms with German colonial history.

Image: Filmstill „The Empty Grave” (c) Salzgeber/kurhaus production/Kijiweni Productions