Category Archives: News

Event, Knowledge Exchange, News, Objektlabor

Vergangene Zukünfte

Di., 10. Juni, 12:30-16:30
Ein Workshop zu Visualisierungen von Infrastrukturvisionen in Geschichte und Gegenwart

In den letzten hundert Jahren hat Berlin eine Reihe von Krisen erlebt, die die Stadt, ihre Bevölkerung und ihre Infrastrukturplaner*innen vor große Herausforderungen gestellt haben. Welche stadttechnischen Zukunftsvisionen wurden zur Bewältigung von Krisenerscheinungen in der turbulenten Geschichte Berlins entwickelt? Welche Nachwirkungen hatten diese historischen Zukunftsvisionen? Welche Anregungen können wir daraus für heutige Zukunftspläne ziehen? Anhand von inspirierendem Bildmaterial aus den Archiven lernen wir einige dieser visionären Vorschläge zur Stärkung der infrastrukturellen Resilienz der Stadt kennen. Ausgehend von diesen Visualisierungen diskutieren wir, welche Ziele mit diesen Visionen verfolgt wurden, was aus ihnen geworden ist und wie sie heute noch wirken. In Zusammenarbeit mit Expert*innen aus den Bereichen Spekulation, Kunst und Wissenschaftskommunikation werden wir diese Visionen auf neuartiger Weise aktivieren, um aktuelle Herausforderungen der Hauptstadt zu reflektieren und darauf zu reagieren.

Diese Veranstaltung findet statt im Rahmen des DFG-Projekts Past-proofing Infrastructure Futures am IRI THESys, Humboldt-Universität zu Berlin

Für Rückfragen wenden Sie sich bitte an Pauline Münch pauline.muench@hu-berlin.de.

Ort: Objektlabor
Hermann von Helmholtz-Zentrum für Kulturtechnik
Humboldt-Universität zu Berlin
Campus Nord – Haus 3
Philippstr. 13

Event, Lecture, Lecture Series, News, Theorie und Praxis des interdisziplinären Kuratierens

Lecture series “Beziehungsweise Familie” (Family Matters) – May 14, 2025 with Janet Carsten

On May 14, 2025 at 18:00 we invite you to the next date of the lecture series "Beziehungsweise Familie" (Family Matters):

The Creativity of Kinship
Prof. Dr. Janet Carsten (School of Social and Political Science, University of Edinburgh)

This lecture questions conventional understandings of the family by reflecting on the imaginative, ethical, and creative qualities of everyday kinship over time – qualities that are often ignored by social scientists. Rather than constituting a realm of conservatism and normativity, as is generally assumed, I instead propose a historically nuanced understanding of kinship and relatedness that has change and transformation at its core. Here I revisit themes from my work over several decades, including research in a Malay village in the early 1980s, a study of adoptees’ searches for birth kin in Scotland, later urban research in hospital blood banks and clinical pathology labs in Penang and, most recently, work on the texture of marital lives in the ethnically and culturally diverse world of contemporary Penang in Malaysia. I consider the ways in which ethical imagination, care and creativity expand the seemingly closed, conventional bounds of kinship. Searches for birth kin undertaken by adoptees expand their horizons of familial relations, demanding ethical reflection about family relations and about the constitution of the self. Marriage draws new elements into the heart of kinship, and is a source of change and renewal under the persuasive guise of continuity and convention. It requires a constant process of adjustment and accommodation – or refusal of accommodation – to a spouse and their relatives. Selectively and cumulatively, intimate familial processes of ethical imagination constitute and enable political transformation. These processes, I argue, are at the heart of the generativity and creativity of kinship, and its contribution to historical and political change.

The lecture will be held in English.

Participation is possible without pre-registration and is open to all interested parties.

Organiser:

Prof Dr Daniel Tyradellis (Humboldt-Universität zu Berlin)

Dr Alia Rayyan (Humboldt-Universität zu Berlin)

Dr Laura Goldenbaum (Humboldt Forum Foundation in the Berlin Palace)

Place and time:

14 May 2025,

6 to 8 pm

in Room 3 (Saal 3), ground floor,
Humboldt Forum, Schlossplatz.

Further information

Plakat Ringvorlesung Beziehungsweise Familie
Portrait Janet Carsten

Prof. Dr. Janet Carsten is Emeritus Professor of Social and Cultural Anthropology at the University of Edinburgh.  Her research focuses on the anthropology of kinship with particular reference to Malaysia and Britain; it encompasses domestic relations, gender, historical migration, the house, adoption reunions, and kinship and memory. She has worked on ideas about bodily substance, and the interface between popular and medical ideas about blood in Malaysia and Britain.  Janet Carsten is a Fellow of the British Academy and of the Royal Society of Edinburgh, and a Member of Academia Europaea. She has recently held an ERC Advanced Grant to examine contemporary transformations of marriage in global perspective. Among other works, she is the author of After Kinship (2004) and Blood Work: Life and Laboratories in Penang (2019).

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Knowledge Exchange, News, Objektlabor, Third Mission

Teaching and Learning with Society: New Courses in the Object Lab (summer term 2025)

A new Seed Funding program has been established by the Office for Knowledge Exchange with Society to support transdisciplinary seminars in the Object Lab.  Financial help and advice is given to shape research questions and coursework in cooperation with society.

The programme in the summer term 2025 focuses on the engagement with archives, collections, media and art works as carriers of historical, political and aesthetic meanings, as well as questions on showing and concealing. Through research-based, curatorial and artistic approaches, the seminars experiment with practices of visualisation, erasure, transformation and rethinking.

“Censorship and the public. On the material culture of image- and speech bans”

Dr. Katja Müller-Helle (The Technical Image, Department of Art and Visual History) and Dr. Alia Rayyan (Theory and Practice of Curating, Centre for Cultural Techniques)

This practice-oriented exercise takes a historical and systematic look at the concepts of the public and censorship and at the specific material practices of their context-dependent realisation: blurring effects, black bars, fading and overpainting reach deep into the history of debates on content regulation and are at the same time highly up-to-date and in constant transformation. The art space occupies a special position with regard to the handling, framing or expansion of what can be said and shown: it can be understood as a field of experimentation through which practices of censorship are avoided, expanded, overwritten or even demanded. Hengame Hosseini, an artist from Tehran whose work emerges from lived experience within Iran’s sociopolitical landscape, will co-lead the seminar. Drawing on her position as a witness and engaged observer, she will share reflections on public space, visibility, and the visual language of resistance—as seen, for example, during the Women, Life, Freedom movement, where the streets became a canvas for an ongoing dialogue between suppression and expression. (Seminar in German)

„Archiving Werkstatt der Kulturen: (Post)Migrant Histories in Berlin Arts“

Dr. Habiba Hakimuddin Insaf (Department of Art and Visual History) and Juana Awad (inherit.heritage in transformation)

The Werkstatt der Kulturen (WdK) in Berlin operated from 1993 to 2019 as the city’s only state-funded institution dedicated to showcasing art and culture by migrant communities and communities of Colour. In formats including festivals, concerts, screenings, workshops, and transnational collaborations, it offered a platform for artistic experimentation to individuals and groups that had been largely excluded from other state-supported cultural spaces in the city. After its closure by the Berlin Senate, the WdK left behind its archival material, now comprising over 180 boxes of official correspondence, photographs, videos or flyers, documenting the work of thirty years of (post)migrant arts and culture presentation in the city. This course examines the materials left behind by the WdK, collaborating with the custodian of the archival collection, the Migrationsrat Berlin e.V. as a local societal actor. By asking key questions on notions of archiving and presenting, participants construct an inventory of the archival collection, and research and curate examples for public presentation in the form of a virtual exhibition. (Seminar in German and English)

“Overloaded! Inter-imperial Entanglements of Material and Photographic Collections in Berlin and Vienna” (Café Interimperial)

Prof. Dr. Magdalena Buchczyk (Department of European Ethnology), Dr. Hanin Hannouch (Weltmuseum Wien) and Anna Szöke (Ethnologisches Museum/Asian Art Museum)

Café Interimperial is a public student-led event designed as part of the MA seminar Overloaded! Inter-imperial Entanglements of Material and Photographic Collections in Berlin and Vienna at the Institute for European Ethnology. As part of this project, students collaborate with the Weltmuseum Wien and the Ethnologisches Museum Berlin to trace the inter-imperial relations that shape collections of photography and material culture across both cities. The public event Café Interimperial transforms the Object Lab into a pop-up space for conversation and research-in-progress. The event invites scholars and members of the public to interact with students’ work and engage in a meaningful dialogue about the layered histories that continue to shape the present. (Seminar in German and English)

“Meet the Sponges: Curating Dark Ecology, Deep Immersion, Shifting Senses and Other Retionality”

Felix Sattler (Curator of the Tieranatomisches Theater, Centre for Cultural Techniques)

MEET THE SPONGES explores theories and practices of accessing and queering material heritage in collections, examines transversal curating and dvelves into artistic and indigenous research methodologies. In exchange with academic and societal actors students prepare curatorial concepts and sections for an exhibition. This includes presenting and/or performing artifacts, written and oral history, and works of art, while developing a concise curatorial narrative and dramaturgy. The seminar works with the so called deep sea cabinet, containing of microscopic preparations of glass sponges from the HU Zoological Teaching collection, gathered within the Valdivia deep sea expedition (1898–99). The project’s co-creators experiment with establishing new relational aesthetics and ethics between deep-sea lifeforms and humans. (Seminar in Englisch)

“Course of the Menzel-Dachs with Matt Saunders: Remediations”

Dr. Jakob Schillinger (Menzel-Dach, Department of Art and Visual History) and Matt Saunders (Art, Film and Visual Studies, Harvard University)

Departing from Matt Saunders’ own artistic practice, this practice-oriented course examines processes of remediation and transfer between different media. Grounded in painting, Saunders’ work makes porous and provocative relationships with other forms, especially photography, printmaking and installations of animated films. Connecting different techniques, the course will involve off-site collaboration with lithographer Ulrich Kühle in Berlin. This idea of maker-centred learning and teaching is a shared interest and approach of Matt Saunders, the Centre for Cultural Techniques and the Menzel-Dach, which will soon reopen as a site for research and teaching that explores artistic practice. (Seminar in English)

 

Contact:

If you have any questions, please contact

Xenia Muth
Leonie Kubigsteltig

Office for Knowledge Exchange with Society
Phone: +49(0)30 2093-12892 | -12881
Email: wissensaustausch.hzk@hu-berlin.de

Knowledge Exchange, News, Objektlabor

Dance Artist in residence: Engaging with Science Through Movement

Choreographer and artistic researcher Irina Demina (SCARBOD Lab) is currently a resident artist at Hermann von Helmholtz-Zentrum für Kulturtechnik (ZfK). In this interview she talks about her vision to use body-based formats for knowledge exchange and public engagement with research. In collaboration with the Office for Knowledge Exchange with Society she develops new ways of enhancing engagement with science. The research community is invited to visit the newly activated ‘object lab’ at ZfK and engage in participatory sessions or get inspired by performative talks

Irina Demina, how do you workwhat do you do and what does SCARBOD Lab stand for?

As  a choreographer and artistic researcher, my work is driven by a lot of curiosity for transdisciplinary formats that connect embodied artistic practice with scientific inquiry. I understand choreography not just as stage art, but as a method of thinking about and through movement — a strategy for navigating knowledge and uncertainty, and exploring relationships between bodies, spaces, ideas, and time. I call this approach SCARBOD Lab, which is short for Science Art Body.

How can dance and science engage with each other?

My practice revolves around trans- and multidisciplinarity. — I’m curious about what emerges when seemingly unrelated fields cross-pollinate, like, for example, folk dance and AI or dance improvisation and theoretical neuroscience – which are projects I am currently involved in. What fascinates me about the dialogue between dance and science is the chance to explore knowledge not just intellectually, but to experience it with the whole body. Participatory, embodied formats create opportunities to reconnect knowledge with lived experience — inviting people to sense, reflect, and engage with science in a different way.

How can the research community get to know participate in or experience your work?

This invitation to dialogue isn’t limited to specific disciplines, on the contrary, the most exciting things often happen at the most unexpected intersections. We have developed a couple of pilot formats for the object lab at ZfK, which everyone is welcome to take part in – from open movement sessions to performative talks. If you are interested to join one of these events or would like to start an exchange about movement and engagement practices – please contact us at wissensaustausch.hzk@hu-berlin.de

Photo: (c) Claude Hofer

Current events in the object lab

Open movement sessions: “BODYATION”: First Wednesday of the month on 07.05.25, 04.06.25, 02.07.25 from 09:00 – 10:00

This regular movement session invites the HU community to rethink thinking – engaging your body as an active partner in the research and ideation process.

Performative encounters: “Choreographies of knowledge”: 04./05.07.2025, 17:00 – 19:00

This event aims at fostering transdisciplinary dialogue, where artistic exploration and academic inquiry converge to spark new possibilities and creative collaborations.

All events take place in the object lab of Hermann von Helmholtz-Zentrum für Kulturtechnik, Campus Nord – Haus 3, Philippstr. 13

We kindly ask you to register your interest: wissensaustausch.hzk@hu-berlin.de

 

Event, Lecture, Lecture Series, News, Theorie und Praxis des interdisziplinären Kuratierens

Lecture series “Beziehungsweise Familie” (Family Matters) – April 30, 2025 with Nadja-Christina Schneider

On April 30, 2025 at 18:00 we invite you to the next date of the lecture series "Beziehungsweise Familie" (Family Matters):

Family and other forms of cohabitation in urban India
Prof. Dr. Nadja-Christina Schneider (Humboldt-Universität zu Berlin, Institut für Asien- und Afrikawissenschaften)

Nadja-Christina Schneider’s presentation will examine the extent to which housing planning in India has changed in recent decades to accommodate new social and demographic developments. Although the trend, especially in larger cities, is clearly moving towards housing forms for smaller family units, multi-generational households continue to exist. A rapidly growing market has also emerged for age-appropriate housing and care facilities. Households and communal living are still closely associated with the ‘family living model’, particularly from a state perspective. Does this in turn offer room for alternative forms of family and kinship alongside heteronormative extended and nuclear families? And conversely, how accepted are individual or communal forms of living that deliberately do not define themselves in terms of family or kinship? The lecture will take a closer look at these questions using selected examples.

The lecture will be held in German.

Participation is possible without pre-registration and is open to all interested parties.

Organiser:

Prof Dr Daniel Tyradellis (Humboldt-Universität zu Berlin)

Dr Alia Rayyan (Humboldt-Universität zu Berlin)

Dr Laura Goldenbaum (Humboldt Forum Foundation in the Berlin Palace)

Place and time:

30 April 2025,

6 to 8 pm

in Room 3 (Saal 3), ground floor,
Humboldt Forum, Schlossplatz.

Further information

Plakat Ringvorlesung Beziehungsweise Familie
Nadja-Christina Schneider

Prof. Dr. Nadja-Christina Schneider is a South Asian Studies scholar and teaches as a professor at the Institute for Asian and African Studies at HU Berlin. The results of her research on family, reproduction and housing in India can be found in the two book publications ‘Reimagining Housing, Rethinking the Role of Architects in India’ (Heidelberg Asian Studies Publishing, 2024)(open access) and ‘Family Norms and Images in Transition. Contemporary Negotiations of Reproductive Labour, Love and Relationships in India (ed. with Fritzi-Marie Titzmann)(Baden-Baden: Nomos, 2020).

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Knowledge Exchange, News, Objektlabor

Performative encounters in the object lab “Choreographies of knowledge” on 4th/5th July 2025

“Choreographies of knowledge” at the Object Lab invites practitioners and researchers from the fields of body-based arts, movement and performance to share their practices in a relaxed open studio atmosphere. In this series of dynamic encounters scientific concepts are gaining potential to transform into lived experiences, tracing the invisible choreographies of knowledge and suggesting novel pathways for teaching and research.

How does knowledge move? What transformative potential lies in movement for sharing and shaping ideas? Does research have a rhythm, a form, a choreography? How do bodies, materials, concepts and spaces interact and dance together in the dynamic co-creation of knowledge?

This event aims at fostering transdisciplinary dialogue, where artistic exploration and academic inquiry converge to spark new possibilities and creative collaborations.

4 July 
5 pm   An Boekman “Moving the Classroom” (Tanz in der Schule) / auf deusch
6 pm   Irina Demina  “Folk Dance and AI. Rethinking traditions” / in english

5 July  
5 pm   Lina Gomez  “Embodied Landscapes. Seismic bodies” / in english
6  pm  Wanda Golonka  “Rund um die Leere. Choreografie und Keramik” / auf deutsch

Location:
Objektlabor
Hermann von Helmholtz-Zentrum für Kulturtechnik
Humboldt-Universität zu Berlin
Campus Nord – Haus 3
Philippstr. 13

Short, non-binding registration would be appreciated: wissensaustausch.hzk@hu-berlin.de

 

Knowledge Exchange, News, Object Lab, Objektlabor

“Bodyation” movement workshops in the object lab: brain storming the body

Image

This regular movement session invites the HU community to rethink thinking—engaging your body as an active partner in the research and ideation process. Where in your body does curiosity arise? How do ideas take shape through movement? How does a shift in posture shift your perspective?

Through guided movement improvisation tasks, we will tune into our researching and thinking bodies, exploring how physical awareness can offer new perspectives in scientific inquiry. Bring your research questions, wear comfortable clothing and shoes, and come with a spirit of playfulness and curiosity. This session is designed with an open and flexible approach, ensuring that participants can engage at their own pace, free from expectations.
No prior movement experience required—just an open mind and a willingness to experiment.

These sessions are part of Irina Demina’s commission at the Center for Cultural Techniques (ZfK), in which participatory, body-based formats for knowledge exchange with society and public engagement are developed and integrated into the research and teaching activities of the Object Lab. This practice invites to explore, how sensory experiences and artistic practices have the potential to open new pathways to scientific research and knowledge exchange. It offers an inviting space and opportunity for experimentation where ideas can flow freely, so that transdisciplinary and creative research approaches can meet and unfold together.

You may come to one or more sessions as you see fit.

Location:
Objektlabor
Hermann von Helmholtz-Zentrum für Kulturtechnik
Humboldt-Universität zu Berlin
Campus Nord – Haus 3
Philippstr. 13

Dates:
Wednesday   30.04.25  12.30 – 13.30h  (for ZfK members only)
Wednesday     07.05.25  09 – 10 h (open to all HU members)
Wednesday      04.06.25  09 – 10 h (open to all HU members) 
Wednesday      02.07.25  09 – 10 h (open to all HU members)

Language: English/Deutsch            

Short, non-binding registration would be appreciated: wissensaustausch.hzk@hu-berlin.de

Knowledge Exchange, News, Research, Third Mission

Research Lounge – Participatory Approaches in Research

Call for Contributions: Submit abstracts for the fifth Research Lounge on the topics of Participatory Approaches in Research until April 20, 2025.

The fifth Research Lounge will take place on Tuesday, June 3, 2025 from 2 to 5 p.m. on the topic of “Participatory Approaches in Research”, this time at the Central Institute Center for Cultural Techniques (ZfK) on Campus North. Organized by the team of the Vice President Research in cooperation with the HU office for “Knowledge Exchange with Society”, researchers from Humboldt-Universität zu Berlin and its partner institutions are invited to network at this event.

Knowledge exchange with society is becoming an increasingly important part of knowledge production in research through participatory and transdisciplinary approaches. While these approaches are standard in some research areas, such as sustainability and innovation research, there is less experience and exchange in other areas. Among other research methods, participatory and transdisciplinary research methods are seen as a particularly good way to contribute innovative solutions to current societal challenges. To this end, cooperation with citizens, organised civil society, culture or politics can open up new research topics and strengthen trust in science through their active participation.

There are many definitions, methods and experiences of participatory approaches to research, as well as a wide variety of actors and forms of participation. The Research Lounge “Participation in Research” therefore aims to promote scientific exchange and networking in this area and to highlight the diversity of current research activities and examples of success at Humboldt-Universität.

We welcome contributions from researchers at all career stages (R1-R4) and from all disciplines. The short presentations of 7 minutes can deal with empirical or theoretical scientific aspects of participatory and transdisciplinary research or with practical perspectives and experiences. The non-exhaustive list of possible presentation topics includes:

Research on participation and transdisciplinarity in science:
  • Participation and transdisciplinarity research
  • Theoretical and methodological reflections on the (further) development of participation in research
  • Responsible Research and Innovation (RRI)
  • Reflections from impact research, findings on impact and added value of participatory and transdisciplinary research
Approaches, methods, case studies:
  • Concepts and methods as well as project/context-specific application of transdisciplinary and participatory processes in research projects and teaching
  • Examples of participatory research projects and participation formats
  • Experience from areas such as participatory action research, participatory health and social research, transformation research, artistic research, co-curation, co-design, Citizen Science, shared coding/computing
Challenges and principles of transdisciplinary collaboration with a focus on:
  • Integration of heterogeneous types of knowledge, experiential knowledge, knowledge needs and expectations, project goals and desired research outputs
  • Reflections on trust, ownership, emotions, power relations including reflection on one’s own role as a researcher in the participatory research process
  • Theoretical approaches and application of quality criteria, evaluation criteria and evaluation methods

Procedure and further information

  • The planned short presentations should not exceed 7 minutes.
  • If you are interested in giving a presentation, please send an abstract (approx. 100 to a maximum of 250 words) to vpfref[at]hu-berlin.de by April 20, 2025 at the latest.
  • The event languages are German and English.
  • Speakers will be notified by May 6, 2025.
  • The event will take place at the Central Institute ZfK (Centre for Cultural Techniques) and will be co-supervised by the HU office for “Knowledge Exchange with Society”.

If you have any questions, please contact the organizers of the Research Lounge at vpfref[at]hu-berlin.de or consult the event website.

Photo: Nadine Zilliges, Humboldt-Universität zu Berlin

Knowledge Exchange, News, Objektlabor

“Choreographies of Knowledge” – Knowledge Exchange with Society through Dance

How does knowledge move? What transformative potential lies in movement for sharing and shaping ideas? Does research have a rhythm, a form, a choreography? How do bodies, materials, concepts and spaces interact and dance together in the dynamic co-creation of knowledge?

These questions form the foundation of Irina Demina’s work as a choreographer, dramaturg, and artistic researcher. Since February 2025, she has been commissioned with the development of participatory, body-based formats for knowledge exchange and public engagement at the Center for Cultural Techniques’ Object Lab.

Irina understands choreography not as something that occurs exclusively on stage, but as a way of thinking movement, a strategy for organizing knowledge and exploring relationships between ideas, bodies, objects, space, and time. With SCARBOD Lab (a name derived from Science, Art and Body), she founded an experimental platform and investigates how body-based artistic practices can open up new approaches to scientific research and public engagement.

The Object Lab at the Center for Cultural Techniques provides the space and setting for Irina to conceptualize and explore formats with the potential of transforming scientific concepts into embodied, tangible experiences. The aim of this practice is to build bridges between science and society and to bring focus to the body as a medium of thinking and researching — an approach Irina calls ‘bodyation,’ where ideas are shaped and directly experienced through movement. This holds potential for creating spaces of encounter— between people and objects, between movements and ideas, between theory and practice.

Upcoming events in the Object lab: 

„Choreographies of knowledge“ (performative encounter)  
04.07.2025 and 05.07.2025 5 – 7 pm

„Bodyation“ (movement workshops)
Wednesday   30.04.25  12.30 – 13.30h  (for ZfK members only)
Wednesday    07.05.25  09 – 10 h (open to all HU members)
Wednesday    04.06.25  09 – 10 h (open to all HU members) 
Wednesday    02.07.25  09 – 10 h (open to all HU members)

If you would like to engage in a deeper exchange about object, body, and movement, please feel free to contact us at wissensaustausch.hzk@hu-berlin.de

Photo: Philipp Weinrich

 
 
inherit, News, Research

Open Call for inherit Fellowships 2026-2027

The Centre for Advanced Study inherit. heritage in transformation, a BMBF-funded Käte Hamburger Kolleg based at Humboldt-Universität zu Berlin, is pleased to invite applications for its fellowship program, which will run from 1 October 2026 to 31 July 2027. This opportunity is open to both experienced and early-career postdoctoral researchers, as well as artists, filmmakers, and curators.

📅 The deadline for submission is 14 April 2025.

The Centre explores historical, contemporary, and potential future transformations in heritage and hosts up to fifteen international fellows each year to pursue their research. The topic for applications for fellowships for 2026-7 is Addressing Heritage Loss. Applications should also relate to one or more of our guiding themes: decentring the west. decentring the human, and transforming value.

Researchers and topics from areas currently underrepresented in heritage scholarship, including the global South and Eastern Europe, are especially encouraged to apply.

🔗 For more information about the call, see https://inherit.hu-berlin.de/open-call