Category Archives: News

Interview with Jayun Choi, Brown University

Jayun Choi spent her fall semester 2025 at Humboldt-Universität completing an internship at the Office for Public Engagement and Knowledge Exchange with Society at the Center for Cultural Techniques. She supported university-wide programs for public engagement and helped organize the Fluid Interdisciplinarities Festival. In the interview, she shares her impressions of supporting the exchange between science and society.

What is one insight that you got about the topic of Public Engagement at a university, about how an exchange between science and society may work?

One key insight for me is that public engagement is not primarily about delivering science or translating academic knowledge to the public, but about creating spaces for mutual exchange where people can participate, question, and contribute. This became especially clear during Berlin Science Week, where Irina Demina, the choreographer-in-residence of the Centre for Cultural Techniques, opened her research on the intersection of folk dance and artificial intelligence. Rather than explaining her work in abstract terms, she invited the audience to experience her research through movement, encouraging people to ask questions and reflect on how embodied practice can function as a form of research. This experience highlighted for me how effective public engagement operates as a process of shared inquiry, where science and society meet through lived experience, curiosity, and exchange.

What was a project within your internship that you found most meaningful? Why?

One of the most meaningful projects during my internship was working on the public communication of research and artistic programs through social media and festival materials. In creating content for initiatives such as Berlin Science Week, Open Humboldt Freiräume funding program or the Dance Artist in Residence programme, I focused on making complex research and artistic practices available for wider audiences. This process sharpened my understanding of research and science communication as an act of framing where editorial choices shape how institutions represent knowledge in the public sphere. I also came to see how universities build trust, visibility, and engagement through the intentional communicative decisions that connect scholarship and the public.

Within the Fluid Interdisciplinarities Festival, what was the part of the event that best brought together research, art and society for you?

Within the Fluid Interdisciplinarities Festival, Party of the Panke stood out to me the most as the moment where research, art, and society most visibly converged. As an open event with multiple participatory stations, it offered different ways of engaging with rivers, including archival mapping, guided participatory walks or a movement-based workshop. Rather than presenting research as something to be observed or explained, each station invited participants to relate to the river directly through artistic and embodied methods. This made one’s participation feel like a form of knowledge-making rather than an audience reception. It showed me that research can enter public space by diversifying its modes of encounter, enabling science, art, and society to meet through shared experience rather than one-directional presentation.

During your internship, did you encounter a topic, an idea, a spark that will stay with you or that you will take away for your future research or work?

During my internship, learning about the various approached to research on Water by Berlin-based scientists became a lasting spark that reshaped how I understand environmental policy and governance. Engagement with the Fluid Interdisciplinarities Festival played an important role in shaping this perspective, leading me to explore related water-focused initiatives across Humboldt-Universität and the Berlin University Alliance. This insight was further reinforced through water-related research in the “On Water. WasserWissen in Berlin” exhibition at the Humboldt Labor. Encountering projects on urban rivers, water infrastructure or climate adaptation led me to pay closer attention to how water governance becomes visible to the public. As a student concentrating in International and Public Affairs and on East Asian Studies, this led me to develop a more focused comparative research interest in how urban water governance is framed and shared with the public through public-facing projects across different historical and institutional contexts. This interest emerged through my internship and is something I would like to pursue further in my future research.

The interview and internship supervision were led by Xenia Muth, Office for Public Engagement Knowledge Exchange with Society. For a current internship opportunity in Public Engagement and Knowledge Exchange with Society see the Humboldt Internship Program.

Information, News, Research

Two new secondary members at the Zentrum für Kulturtechnik

9. December 2025 Eileen Klingner

We are delighted to welcome Prof. Dr. Marcel Robischon and Dr. Friederike Landau-Donnelly as new associate members at the Zentrum für Kulturtechnik. With their professional expertise and experience in the field of communication and knowledge exchange, they will strengthen the interdisciplinary work at the ZfK and networking within HU Berlin.

Friederike Landau-Donnelly is a political theorist and urban sociologist. She works primarily in the interdisciplinary field of urban cultural geography. Her interests focus on manifestations of political agency and activism in urban spaces.

Marcel Robischon is a forest scientist, plant biologist, and head of the Division of Agroecology at HU. He is also the academic director of the Circle U Knowledge Hub on Climate and director of the Berlin Institute of Cooperative Studies (BICS). Among other things, he is involved in global natural and agricultural heritage in the field of agricultural education and teaching. Last year, he was honored in the Tagesspiegel series “The 100 Most Important Heads of Berlin Science 2024” as an outstanding “communication artist” who shares his knowledge of plants and biodiversity far beyond the university’s boundaries.

Welcome! We look forward to the coming collaboration.

Interested researchers at HU who would like to contribute to the profile of the Zentrum für Kulturtechnik can find further information about secondary membership on the ZfK website under “Membership-Members.”

Artwork of the month, News, Object of the Month

Object of the Month: The Rectors’ Portraits – Tradition Formation in the GDR, Media Diversity in the Present Day

9. December 2025 HZK

Object of the Month 12/2025

Many venerable universities have a picture gallery of professors or rectors. Berlin’s Friedrich-Wilhelm-Universität and Humboldt-Universität can also look back on a long line of rectors (later presidents). However, their pictorial representation (in contrast to the busts of scholars) only became established in the 1980s. In preparation for the university’s jubilee in 1985, Heinz Wagner’s portraits of Johann Gottlieb Fichte and Johannes Stroux set a clear tone: The first rector of the Berlin University in 1811/12 and the first rector after its reopening in 1946/47 were to represent the new self-image of Humboldt-Universität in the spirit of establishing tradition, leaving out both the National Socialist and late bourgeois past. The following rectors were also to be painted for the Senate Hall – only Hermann Dersch was removed from the list of proposals, as the lawyer had moved to the University of Cologne in the West in 1951.

In accordance with this selection, the design of the portraits was also politically approved. At first glance, the portraits appear quite different: some seated, some standing, with and without attributes, in action or at rest, almost all rectors wear the chain of office, but none wear a gown. The portrait of Karl-Heinz Wirzberger, whose term of office ran from 1967 to 1976, is an example of this being a deliberate choice.

Originally, Wirzberger’s portrait was to be painted by the well-known Leipzig painter Werner Tübke. In keeping with his working method – he often relied on historical references, both thematically and pictorially – he wanted to depict the rector in his academic gown. However, the request to borrow the regalia from the Traditionskabinett (Tradition Cabinet) was denied by the Cultural Commission of the SED-Kreisleitung (District Leadership) and the University History Research Centre. The reasoning cited not only the abandonment of gowns following the third university reform in 1968, but also the need to avoid misunderstandings that could have negative publicity. Otherwise, given the differences of opinion that still exist today about the decisions made at that time, the portrayal could lead to interpretations that are not in line with the measures taken at the time (HU, Custody, letter from Walter Mohrmann to Rector Helmut Klein, 14 December 1982 (carbon copy)). This was also stipulated for the other portraits. In particular, the brushwork of most of the portraits – such as those of Walter Friedrich by Heinrich Tessmer (1984), Werner Hartke by Arno Rink (1987) and Kurt Erich Schröder by Walter Womacka (1985) – as well as the framing and positioning of the subjects make the series of rectors appear lively and individual.
However, it is not immediately apparent that the English scholar Wirzberger is depicted as a rector. The portrait appears to be a vivid snapshot: Wirzberger, wearing a dark suit and tie, looks up from his work at the viewer, the document he has just been working on still in his hands and ready to be placed on the pile of completed documents. The desk at which he sits separates him from the viewer’s space and at the same time forms a spatial unity with the background. With this industrious pose, the portrait stands out from the other, much more representative rector portraits of the 1980s.

Even after the end of the GDR, the portrait series continued – now with portraits of university presidents, whereby the subjects themselves were allowed to choose an artist and the manner of their representation. Marlis Dürkop-Leptihn was the first woman to hold this office, and the sociologist chose a woman artist to paint her portrait (2006). With Ruth Tesmar, long-time professor of artistic-aesthetic practice at the HU and director of the Menzel-Dach, a change in media also took place – collage with photos and writing on glass as the image support replaced the classic oil painting and conveyed a versatile personality and a multi-layered office.

Sabine Curio, on the other hand, takes us into the private sphere with her portrait of Jürgen Mlynek (2009). The physicist and rector from 2000 to 2005 stands at a desk in front of a patio door with a view of greenery. Mlynek, seen in profile, is engrossed in writing or editing a text and does not notice the viewer, giving the impression of a glimpse into his private working environment. The diversity of media continues with the photographs by Herlinde Koelbl, which the last presidents, Christoph Markschies (in black and white) and Sabine Kunst (in colour), chose for their portraits.

Even though the collection of portraits of rectors and presidents is not extensive, it nevertheless conveys the image of a vibrant university history with a promising future.

Author: Christina Kuhli

Information, News, Project, Research

Viktoria Tkaczyk is honoured with the Caroline von Humboldt-Professur

8. December 2025 Eileen Klingner

Prof. Dr. Viktoria Tkaczyk, science and media historian in the Department of Media Studies at the Humboldt-Universität zu Berlin and member of the Zentrum für Kulturtechnik, was awarded the Caroline von Humboldt Professorship in early December. The endowed professorship comes with one year of project funding in the amount of €80,000.

Viktoria Tkaczyk teaches and conducts research as professor of media and knowledge on technologies and knowledge techniques of the early modern and modern periods. She is the head oft he DFG project “Raw Materials of the Humanities: Material Provenances of Research Media” and is currently part of the teaching faculty of the International Max Planck Research School Knowledge and Resources.

We warmly congratulate ZfK member Viktoria Tkaczyk on this success!

Further information on the award and ceremony can be can be found under “Latest News” on the HU website.
For more insights into her research and teaching, please visit the Media Studies website.

Knowledge Exchange, News, Object Lab, Open Call, Third Mission

Teaching and Learning with Society: Call for Proposals Summer Term 2026

5. December 2025 Marlene Lüdorff

The call for applications for ‘Teaching and Learning with Society’ for the summer semester 2026 is now open. If you are interested, please apply by 18 January 2026!

The program “Teaching and Learning with Society: transdisciplinary course program” supports teachers across disciplines in shaping academic questions and seminar work in cooperation with society. The aim is to integrate experience and knowledge from society into teaching and university work with students, to learn from various actors in civil society, culture or politics and create an equal exchange.

The office for Knowledge Exchange with Society at the Center for Cultural Techniques supports seminars that work in a transdisciplinary or participatory way and include elements of exchange with society or public engagement. This may include:

Cooperation with appropriate societal actors / organizations
Cooperation in the organization or presentation of course content, in the form of co-teaching or using other methods that aim to incorporate expertise from outside academia
Course design with aspects of community-based research/learning
Cooperation with societal groups or organizations for the presentation/display of course results
Courses that combine material practices, object- or body-centered approaches in teaching with external collaborations

Support is provided through:

Funding of up to 1,000 euros per course for materials, guest lectures or workshops (expenses according to HU regulations); note that this is additional funding for existing or planned courses by HU-teachers, it does not finance an entire semester-long “Lehrauftrag”
Use of space at the Object Lab on Campus Nord, including flexible room equipment
Occasional event assistance by arrangement
Support/advice from HU team Knowledge Exchange with Society (approx. 2h per week)

Eligible for funding are:

Expenses for BA or MA seminars at HU Berlin in summer semester 2026 (funds remain with the Center for Cultural Techniques and are managed by the team)
Seminars that take place in the Object Lab on Campus Nord or are held elsewhere but connect in some way to the place or focus of the Centre for Cultural Techniques (ZfK).

To apply:

HU-Teachers and seminar instructors are welcome to contact wissensaustausch.zfk@hu-berlin.de and send the following information until January 18, 2026 to apply for the programme in summer semester 2026:

Short course description
Motivation and description of the transdisciplinary/participatory collaboration with external society actors/organizations
Brief budget outline with expected or needed expenses
Outline of the required course/event/object support

Contact:

Xenia Muth / Leonie Kubigsteltig
HU Office for Knowledge Exchange with Society
Email: wissensaustausch.zfk@hu-berlin.de
Phone: +49(0)30 2093-12892 | -12881

Collection, News, Publication, Research

New publication: Unearthing Collections: Archives, Time and Ethics

2. December 2025 Eileen Klingner

Unearthing Collections is a new volume co-edited by Magdalena Buchczyk (IfEE), Martín Fonck, Tomás Usón, and Tina Palaić, and published by UCL Press.

The book is available in full Open Access and can be accessed here.

Unearthing Collections invites readers to rethink the ethics of collections and archives through the lens of time. From community protests over glacial sampling to ethical dilemmas around human remains and political art, the authors explore the challenges of collecting, displaying, and preserving traces.

The book centers on the concept of ‘unearthing’- revealing hidden truths, uncovering layers of history, and bringing the unknown to light. It considers how the pursuit of knowledge often comes at a cost, including displacement, exploitation, commodification, and the enduring legacies of imperialism and colonialism.

Alongside critiquing the extractive practices that shaped many collections and archives, the book introduces ‘re-earthing’ – a practice that reshapes how we understand and engage with traces of the past. As a critical approach, re-earthing recognizes the messy, entangled nature of these traces and resists attempts to control or sanitize them, allowing them to evolve into new forms of knowledge. This perspective encourages scholars, archivists, artists, and collection practitioners to rethink time and trace, challenge dominant chronologies, and develop more ethical ways of working with collections and archives.

The book is accompanied by the Practising Collection Ethics Toolkit—a practical resource designed to support museum and archive professionals in navigating ethical challenges associated with managing collections.

These publications are based upon work from TRACTS COST Action, supported by COST Association – European Cooperation in Science and Technology.

News, Project, Research

Evolutionary biologist John Nyakatura receives DFG project funding

1. December 2025 Lucia Wagner

Prof. Dr. John Nyakatura, Professor of Comparative Zoology at the Institute of Biology and secondary member at the Zentrum für Kulturtechnik, is researching changes in the locomotor apparatus in the evolution of mammals. His project “Robotic Paleontology A new Key to Understanding Early Mammal Evolution” will receive project funding from the DFG for five years starting in 2026 as part of their Reinhart Koselleck Program.

John Nyakatura’s interdisciplinary research has helped to establish the field of “robotic paleontology.” The goal of the current research project is to enable a new perspective on early mammal evolution and to further consolidate the methodological foundations for this interdisciplinary research field.

We congratulate ZfK member John Nyakatura on this success!

A detailed project description can be found on the DFG website.

Further information about his research can be found on the website of the Nyakatura Lab.

News, Projects, Publication

New release: ‘Mutter Museum’ by Werner Hamacher

1. December 2025 Anna Grodecki

Werner Hamacher’s book, edited by Daniel Tyradellis, has just been published: ‘Mutter Museum’ (english: Mother Museum).

‘One can only ever talk about the museum on the threshold of it.’

Werner Hamacher’s lecture ‘Exhibitions of the Mother. A Walk Through Various Museums’ is a key text for understanding the museum as a Western institution: It becomes legible as a place of materialised mourning for the loss of a reference that never existed. Virtually uncommented upon in Germany after its publication in 1995, the text met with both approval and criticism in France from Philippe Lacoue-Labarthe and Jacques Derrida. Hamacher then planned an expanded edition that responds to this criticism and goes far beyond it. In particular, his examination of Raphael’s ‘Sistine Madonna’ and Artaud’s ‘La Maladresse sexuelle de dieu’ points the way to an irreational marking that lends a novel and fundamental power to the unreservedness of the work and the museum in their interplay.

Available to order from your trusted bookshop or directly from diaphanes.

Softcover, 256 pages, diaphanes Verlag, Zurich 2025, €35.

News, Publication

Publication: Family Matters. Global Stories about Affiliation, Disruption, and Belonging

18. November 2025 Anna Grodecki

Family. Everyone has one, and each one is different. This unconventional book challenges traditional notions of the nuclear family by presenting voices from around the world in a series of “snapshots.” It asks: Who belongs to the family? What economic and social functions does the family fulfill? What shapes the family, and how does it shape us? Key questions being discussed in local settings around the globe demonstrate how complex and diverse – but also how similar – the idea of the family is across cultures. This is an invitation to reflect on one’s own concept of family.

Order here:

Family Matters. Global Stories about Affiliation, Disruption, and Belonging.

Hardcover, 296 pages, Hirmer Verlag, 39,90 €.

Artwork of the month, News, Object of the Month

Object of the Month: Humboldt diverse – Gerald Matzner’s terracotta busts and the idiosyncrasy of form

11. November 2025 HZK

Object of the Month 11/2025

Since 2009, the HU’s portfolio of Humboldt busts has been supplemented by modern adaptations by Austrian sculptor Gerald Matzner (1943-2018). From a series of 15 busts of Alexander and Wilhelm von Humboldt, which Matzner created based on models by Christian Daniel Rauch (1851) and Bertel Thorvaldsen (1808), Der abgewickelte Humboldt (The Unravelled Humboldt) and Die Brüder Humboldt (The Humboldt Brothers) were acquired for the university’s art collection. In accordance with the title of these busts from the ‘Metamorphoses’ series, the brothers are clearly removed from the original portraits. The thin-walled clay sculptures, each with its own pedestal, were painted after firing, and signatures and dates can be found on their surfaces.

Eight additional busts were added to the art collection through a donation from the artist’s widow. The spectrum of techniques used, from reshaping and wrapping in ribbons to adding attributes until the model is almost unrecognisable, gives an insight into both the diverse biographical and scientific life of the Humboldts and the imagination and expressiveness of the artist, who was trained in Vienna and Berlin and worked for many years as a freelance artist in Berlin. Not only are the subjects closely associated with the university, Matzner began his series of sculptures in 1990 – at a time when the liquidation of Humboldt Universität was on the agenda. It is, so to speak, an artistic commitment to the two scholars and their ideals, but also to the tradition of Humboldt Universität and its continuation into the present and future. Matzner himself was drawn to Berlin by the student revolts of 1968. He worked primarily in terracotta, although in the 1980s he began to produce larger formats for public spaces, including the Corinthian column for the Rostlaube building at Freie Universität Berlin and the series of pocket pyramids.

The titles alone – such as Humboldt bucht eine Reise (Humboldt books a trip), Im Insektenschwarm (In the swarm of insects), Nach Worten ringend (Struggling for words), Die Vermessung des Alexander von Humboldt (The measurement of Alexander von Humboldt), Humboldt mit Reisetasche (Humboldt with travel bag) or Abgewickelter Humboldt (Unravelled Humboldt) – refer to the creative and sometimes ironic treatment of these great men. The Humboldts are populated with plants, animals such as frogs and beetles, but also with bags, telephone receivers and garden gnomes. Amusing, sometimes sombre, not always immediately aesthetically appealing, the busts are intended to stimulate reflection. What do the scientific curiosity and industriousness of the Humboldts mean to us today? Which of their achievements do we recognise in the narrative portraits, and what impact do they (still) have? Furthermore, the alienations refer us back to ourselves; Matzner’s distortions are ‘the “natural cast” of our civilisation, the portrait […] of our world, frightening and bitterly amusing’ (Sperlich 1991, p. 24).

The fact that some of the busts are located in the so-called Humboldt Cabinet in Adlershof, a technological science centre that emerged long after the Humboldts’ time and has had an even greater impact on today’s world, would have pleased both the subjects and the artist.