Category Archives: News

Exhibition, News

DAOULA | sheen. West African Wild Silk on Its Way

Exhibition opening on November 17, 2022, 6 pm.

Opening at the TA T in November 2022, DAOULA – SHEEN focuses on the natural formation and cultural history of wild silk obtained from caterpillars in West Africa and the multifaceted view of this unique material by microbiologists, material scientists, and architects from Germany.

DAOULA – SHEEN is a project of the Cluster of Excellence »Matters of Activity. Image Space Material« at the Humboldt-Universität zu Berlin, funded by the DFG.
Curated by Laurence Douny, Karin Krauthausen, and Felix Sattler with a film installation by Thabo Thindi.

Exhibition at Tieranatomisches Theater

DAOULA-SHEEN

Colloquium, Event, News

HZK-CARMAH-Kolloquium am 14. November 2022

1st HZK-CARMAH Colloquium in winter semester 22/23

14 November 2022, 2 p.m. right on time.

The event will take place at the HZK (House 3, Gerlachbau next to the Tieranatomischen Theater TAT, Campus Nord, Philippstraße 13) and virtually (Access data for the video conference will be provided on request by email to oliver.zauzig@hu-berlin.de).

How can science be curated? What (new) museum concepts and practices are needed for exhibiting academic collections and research as well as scientific processes and activities? Three recent science exhibitions and museums are the focus of the previous day: the FORUM FOR SCIENCE, ART AND DOUBT of the Ghent University Museum (open since 2020), the first show “After Nature” of the HUMBOLDT LABORATORY in Berlin’s Humboldt Forum (2021) and the basic exhibition of the Göttingen FORUM WISSEN (2022). What they have in common is the curatorial concern to show science in the making, i.e. the process of knowledge production, and to provide a glimpse behind the scenes to show how scientists research and work. On the one hand, it asks how such processes are (or can be) exhibited and what tensions arise in relation to representative claims. On the other hand, it will be examined which understanding of science is being exposed and which museum concept is being tested.

Dr Daniela Döring is a cultural scientist and post-doctoral researcher at the research college “Wissen | Ausstellen” at the Georg-August-Universität Göttingen. She previously held academic, curatorial and teaching positions at the Stiftung Stadtmuseum Berlin, the Braunschweig Centre for Gender Studies and the Institute for Arts and Media at the University of Potsdam. In her research, she interweaves curatorial practice and academic discourse, focusing on science exhibitions, diversity and gender in museums, body and gender history, and cultural techniques of surveying and datafication.

Sound Archive, News, Publication

Captured Voices. Sound Recordings of Prisoners of War from the Sound Archive 1915–1918 by Britta Lange

The cultural studies scholar Britta Lange researched sound recordings of male prisoners of war from the Sound Archive of the Humboldt University of Berlin produced in German camps during the First World War by scientists of the Royal Prussian Phonographic Commission. In this book, she traces the voices that are preserved today on shellac records. Each chapter constitutes a new encounter and raises complex questions: How can the historical testimonies not only be heard but also be listened to today? And what forms of translation do they demand? Captured in multiple ways, the voices in this comprehensive study not only reveal their historical making as sound recordings, but also reflect contemporary interpretations of archival and scholarly practice. The English e-book includes a streaming feature for the sound recordings co-produced by Britta Lange and Sebastian Schwesinger. It is translated from German by Dr. Rubaica Jaliwala as part of a grant from the Deutscher Übersetzerfonds.

Britta Lange’s book Gefangene Stimmen is now also available in English as an e-book titled Captured Voices, translated by Rubaica Jaliwala as part of a grant by the Deutscher Übersetzungsfonds.

News, Publication

The Royal Model Chamber of the University of Göttingen

Analysis of the historical practice of a university teaching collection, including the objects that still exist today.

Author: Oliver Zauzig.

This research paper is about the königliche Modellkammer (Royal Model Chamber) of the University of Göttingen. This historical teaching collection has left numerous traces to this day. Despite the professionalisation of the collection’s work and the constant integration of the models into the university curriculum of the Faculty of Philosophy, especially applied mathematics, appropriate conditions of use existed almost at no time.
In the 1880s, the collection was dissolved, and the process of dissolution is documented in detail in the files. In addition, 24 models from the former collection have been preserved until now.
The structure and scope of the Göttingen Model Chamber correspond to the universal model collections of the time, whose origins can be found in courtly, municipal and bourgeois art chambers. Models and model collections for example were used for purposes of demonstrating power, for planning and designing, as patterns, for playing and experimenting, but above all in teaching and education. In addition to researching the everyday practice of historical collection work, the focus is on investigating curricular use with the royal model chamber.
To this end, some of the historical models of the collection that still exist today were examined in detail, analysed, questioned in relation to their historical curricular practice and individually contextualised. Especially through the encounter with the objects, a variety of questions emerged.
Ultimately, the numerous gaps in information that inevitably open up when researching the everyday use of the historical teaching collection through written material and objects force a predominantly heuristic approach.

To the publication (edoc).

Event, Exhibition, News

I AM ELEVATING IN ALL WAYS

KLEINE HUMBOLDT GALERIE
13.07. – 12.08.2022

An exhibition in three Elevations
Elevation I: 13.07. – 21.07.
Elevation II: 25.07. – 01.08.
Elevation III: 04.08. – 12.08.
Open Mon – Sat, 12 – 20 h

Lichthof Ost in Humboldt-Universität zu Berlin

Opening 12.07., 18 – 22 h

I AM ELEVATING IN ALL WAYS
I AM ELEVATING IN ALL WAYS – Poster (c) Marina Engelhardt

13.07. – 21.07. | Elevation I: Bedroom
Mariela Georg, Lauren Lee McCarthy, Ofra Ohana, Julia Plawgo, Agrina Vllasaliu

25.07. – 01.08. | Elevation II: Office
Mats Andersen, Pia vom Ende, Alicja Rogalska, Julian Willming, Anna Witt

04.08. – 12.08. | Elevation III: Gym & Wellness
Paula Ábalos, Josepha Edbauer, Johanna Käthe Michel, Hannah Neckel, Fette Sans

More information and program
I AM ELEVATING IN ALL WAYS – KLEINE HUMBOLDT GALERIE

Colloquium, News

Book presentation to celebrate the publication of ”Islam and Heritage in Europe: Pasts, Presents and Future Possibilities”

Book presentation to celebrate the publication of Islam and Heritage in Europe: Pasts, Presents and Future Possibilities.

Looking at diverse trajectories of people and things, the volume examines developments in various parts of Europe, including France, Germany, Russia, Turkey and the Balkans. We will discuss entanglements between heritage, Islam and Europe and ways in which these entanglements have played out against the backdrop of recent developments, such as debates on restitution, decolonising museums or the ‘refugee crisis’.

The roundtable discussion will include inputs from Wendy Shaw, Peter McMurray, Jesko Schmoller, Avi Astor, Diletta Guidi, Banu Karaca, Mirjam Brusius, Christine Gerbich and Rikke Gram, and the editors, Katarzyna Puzon, Sharon Macdonald and Mirjam Shatanawi.

The event will take place in the framework of the Helmholtz-Zentrum für Kulturtechnik / CARMAH Colloquium Series.

The event will take place at the HZK (House 3, Gerlachbau next to the Tieranatomischen Theater TAT, Campus Nord, Philippstraße 13: https://www.kulturtechnik.hu-berlin.de/en/contact/) and virtually.

Colloquium, Event, News

Invitation HZK-CARMAH COLLOQUIUM on June 27, 2022, at 2 p.m.

The event will take place at the HZK (House 3, Gerlachbau next to the Tieranatomischen Theater TAT, Campus Nord, Philippstraße 13) and virtually (Access data for the video conference will be provided on request by email to oliver.zauzig@hu-berlin.de).

Since the 1990s, collecting practices and associated problems such as contamination and toxicity have increasingly come into focus due to the growing ecological and political relevance of objects and materials. However, little epistemic relevance has been attributed to the toxic remains produced during these transformative processes of differentiation, purification and reevaluation.

The presentation provides insight into the process of an artistic research that deals with this marginality by means of asbestos-contaminated objects of a foundation collection and their handling.

Flavia Caviezel is an ethnologist, film scholar and lecturer at the FHNW – Hochschule für Gestaltung und Kunst Institut Experimentelles Design und Medienkulturen in Basel. The work was produced during a research residency 2021-22 at the Matters of Activity cluster at Humboldt University.

The lecture will be held in German.

Colloquium, Event, News

Invitation HZK-CARMAH COLLOQUIUM on June 13, 2022, at 2 p.m.

The event will take place at the HZK (House 3, Gerlachbau next to the Tieranatomischen Theater TAT, Campus Nord, Philippstraße 13) and virtually (Access data for the video conference will be provided on request by email to oliver.zauzig@hu-berlin.de).

Museum Space Knowledge. An Interdisciplinary and Co-laborative Experiment at Humboldt Labor

The exhibition spaces of the Humboldt Laboratory in the Humboldt Forum are conceived as an instrument of knowledge transfer between science and society. The research project “Museum Raum Wissen” (Museum Space Knowledge), funded by the Joachim Herz Foundation, examines this transfer from a spatial perspective in an intersectional way. The aim is to produce insights into the space and architecture of the co-production of knowledge in the museum context and to develop impulses for the design of exhibition spaces. To this end, a ‘co-laborative’ field research at the interface between architecture and social sciences will be carried out in the opening exhibition “Nach der Natur”.

Sarah Etz and Séverine Marguin provide insights into the ongoing project and initial results.

The lecture will be held in German.

Colloquium, Event, News

Invitation HZK-CARMAH COLLOQUIUM on May 23, 2022, at 2 p.m.

The event will take place at the HZK (House 3, Gerlachbau next to the Tieranatomischen Theater TAT, Campus Nord, Philippstraße 13) and virtually (Access data for the video conference will be provided on request by email to oliver.zauzig@hu-berlin.de).

The DFG-funded research project „Curating Digital Images: Ethnographic Perspectives on the Affordances of Digital Images in Heritage and Museum Contexts“ deals with the question of how digital images transform the museum experience. Two interconnected empirical studies explore these transformations ethnographically. The first study takes a close look at how digital images from museum databases are downloaded, shared, and dealt with in people’s everyday lives. The second study concentrates on digital image practices in the physical museum and seeks to understand how visitor-photographs taken in museums are curated and contextualized on social media platforms. An eye-tracking study furthermore gives interesting insights on how interdisciplinary collaboration with information science can enhance ethnography and shows how the human eye plays into curatorial practice processes.

Katharina Geis & Sarah Ulrich will give insights into the empirical studies and present the research results.

The lecture will be held in English.

Event, Exhibition, News, Symposium

Viral Theatres: Pandemic Past / Hybrid Futures – Opening/Symposium: 28.4.-30.4.2022 – Exhibition 28.4.-3.6.2022

How hybrid is the future of theater?

The exhibition of the research project “Viral Theatres” explores this question and makes its Living Archive accessible – a multifaceted collection that shows the new forms and themes of pandemic theater making and experience in interviews, video and audio documents and digital interactions.
The opening of the exhibition will be accompanied by a symposium with workshops, a VR performance, and discussion panels on the future of hybrid theater work with international cultural practitioners and scholars.

Symposium
28. – 30. April 2022
Tieranatomisches Theater Berlin & Streaming

Exhibition
28. April – 3. June 2022
Tieranatomisches Theater Berlin
Philippstr. 13, Campus Nord, Haus 3, 10115 Berlin
Opening hours: Mo – Fri, 14:00 -18:00

Information, program and registration
Viral Theatres: Pandemic Past /Hybrid Futures