Gesa Grimme and Sarah Elena Link, both Coordination Centre for Scientific University Collections in Germany (HZK), discuss academic collections in general and their sometimes problematic, imperial contexts of origin. The panel discussion with art historian Jo Vickery (Princeton/Berlin) and literary scholar Birgit Neumann (Düsseldorf) will take place within the framework of the research project “Afterlives of Empire – Encounters of Art and Academia”, initiated by Gesa Stedman (HU).
Art students from Oxford and Berlin habe been invited to work at Lichthof Ost, turning the room into a temporary studio, before transforming it back into an exhibition space. The students show how their interaction with several scientific collections at HU as well as with Berlin museums, among them the sound archive, the geographical collections, and the Winckelmann collection, have led to a new understanding of some of the colonial legacies at HU and in Berlin.
The panel discussion will take place on 10 September at 6:30 pm in the Lichthof Ost of the HU main building.
Alia Rayyan: Practice of Fissures – a trans- and interdisciplinary investigation of socially engaged art interventions in East Jerusalem in the anthology “Double bind postcolonial. Critical Perspectives on Art and Cultural Education”, edited by María do Mar Castro Varela and Leila Haghighat.
Alia Rayyan addresses in this paper questions about the adoption of socially engaged and participatory art as an emancipatory art form in public space reflecting specific local conditions. Based on her trans- and interdisciplinary investigation to translate experiences as a curator of socially engaged art interventions in East Jerusalem into a theoretical discussion, collected challenges and alternative approaches are contrasted with applied, canonised theories of participatory art practice and their terminologies. The result is a discussion that combines sociological approaches, considerations from art studies, memory studies, political history of ideas as well as postcolonial studies, without losing sight of the double bind of the author.
Double bind postcolonial. Postcolonial perspectives in the art world and in cultural education – anthology – edited by María do Mar Castro Varela and Leila Haghighat.
Double bind postcolonial. Postcolonial perspectives in the art world and in cultural education - anthology -
edited by María do Mar Castro Varela and Leila Haghighat. transcript Postcolonial Studies
The contributions to this volume illuminate the responsibility of art and art education from an explicitly postcolonial perspective. The focus is on the “double bind” that pervades the field and manifests itself in a dilemmatic position between subversion and affirmation. In doing so, discriminatory practices in the field are exposed and an (auto-)critical theory development is advanced.
With contributions by Gayatri Chakravorty Spivak, Nikita Dhawan, Ruth Sonderegger, Hayat Erdoğan, Aicha Kaleko, Sandra Babli, Joy Kristin Kalu, Anja Quickert, Thu Hoài Tran, Sruti Bala, Sab Naq, Tasnim Baghdhadi, Alia Rayyan, Carla Bobadilla, Carmen Mörsch, Mai-Anh Boger, Nina Simon, Nicole Suzuki, Rajkamal Kahlon
On the occasion of the publication of The Resonant Museum, the Gropius Bau invites you to a reading followed by a conversation.
How can the museum become a socially relevant place? How can museums contribute to the production of knowledge about mental health?
The editors Diana Mammana and Margareta von Oswald will introduce the evening and present their curatorial work and approaches with regard to these questions. The subsequent reading gives an insight into discussions and practices around mental health between the years 2021 and 2022 in Berlin. Various people who contributed to the book will read passages from their texts. The reading will be followed by an exchange and a conversation with the audience.
The book is published in the context of the exhibition YOYI! Care, Repair, Heal, which took place at the Gropius Bau from September 2022 to January 2023. The Resonant Museum brings people from science, culture, politics and activist contexts into dialogue about mental health. The publication was produced as part of a cooperation between the Gropius Bau and Mindscapes, the international programme on mental health of the British Wellcome Trust.
The Resonant Museum: Berlin Conversations on Mental Health. Ed. by Diana Mammana & Margareta von Oswald. Contributions by Beatrice von Bismarck, Priya Basil, Diana Mammana & Margareta von Oswald, Stephanie Rosenthal, Christine Wong Yap i.a. Cologne 2023. Verlag der Buchhandlung Walther und Franz König.
Accusing, shocking, melancholic – the large-format painting by Annemirl Bauer is expressive. From the eyes of a centrally placed female figure, crouching on a box in prisoner’s clothing, rays emanate to both sides of the picture. On the left, a row of naked women in high-heeled shoes stand in line, the one in front holding out her armed hand. Behind her are other figures, some with oversized phalluses. The pistol points to the right side of the picture with a female figure crucified by crutches, from whose womb blood is flowing. A male army, indicated in heads at the lower right edge of the picture is described with the invocation of the Trinity. The dark, violent and sexualised scenes are only counteracted on the far right by a mother and child standing in the golden light, standing upright and calm despite all hostility. The title “Männliche Herrlichkeit Gottes”, present in the picture through characters in the sky or on a rocket, refers to the horrors of war and violence (perpetrated by men) as well as to the roles of women – as victims, as perpetrators, as mothers.
Annemirl Bauer, Männliche Herrlichkeit Gottes, oil/ carpet, 208 x 246 cm, 1988
Since 2018, the painting has been hanging in the Humboldt University as one of the few works by Annemirl Bauer still present in public. The valiant paintress, herself under surveillance by the Stasi, expelled from the GDR artists’ association (VBK) and subsequently banned from working, repeatedly explored feminist themes. The “Male Glory of God” can also be linked very specifically to the conscription law for women in the GDR, the “Women for Peace” (Frauen für den Frieden), but also to the feminist Ingrid Strobl, who was imprisoned in the Federal Republic.
In 1982, a new law on military service was passed that would also have called on women to serve in national defence in the event of mobilisation. Against this, 150 women protested in a joint plea to Erich Honecker: “We women want to break the cycle of violence and withdraw our participation from all forms of violence as a means of conflict resolution. […] We women understand the readiness for military service as a threatening gesture which opposes the striving for moral and military disarmament and allows the voice of human reason to be drowned in military obedience.” (Petition to the Chairman of the Council of State, Erich Honecker, 12 October 1982) This pacifist criticism was followed by a wave of interrogations by the state security, intimidation and arrests – for example, of the politically active paintress and main signatory Bärbel Bohley, who, like Annemirl Bauer, was organised in the Association of Visual Artists of the GDR (VBK), from whose district executive committee she was expelled in 1983.
Ingrid Strobl, in turn, an Austrian journalist who was editor of the magazine Emma in Cologne from 1979 to 1986, was taken into remand or solitary confinement as a terrorism suspect in 1987. She had been filmed buying an alarm clock that had been prepared by the BKA (Federal Criminal Police Office) and identified in the remains of a bomb in the 1986 attack on the Lufthansa administration building. The attack against Lufthansa, perpetrated by the organisation “Revolutionary Cells” (Revolutionäre Zellen), also had a feminist background and targeted sex tourism (“state racism, sexism and the patriarchy”, as the Revolutionary Cells themselves stated, cf. Ingrid Strobl: Vermessene Zeit. Der Wecker, der Knast und ich, Hamburg 2020). Strobl received public solidarity after her arrest. Even without knowledge of this historical background, Annemirl Bauer’s work has an effect through its offensive pictorial language, which also plays with religious motif quotations. Despite all the criticism – especially against the rejection of Annemirl Bauer’s repeated calls for travel “with return” – the artist was not a dissident and did not want to leave the GDR. Changing the social and political structures, that was her struggle throughout her life, which she lost through her early death shortly before the fall of the Wall in the summer of 1989. Since 2010, a square named after her in Friedrichshain at Ostkreuz station has commemorated the pugnacious artist.
Particularly significant is the fact that these three records were previously considered lost in Berlin; no digital copies existed until now. In Oslo, digital copies were made and also transferred to the Lautarchiv. The shellac records had been lent to the Norwegian Iranologist Georg Morgenstierne (1892-1978) by the founder of the Lautarchiv Wilhelm Doegen (1877-1967) or by the Göttingen Iranologist Friedrich Carl Andreas (1846-1930). Through Morgenstierne’s estate, they made their way into the Norwegian Nasjionalbiblioteket.
On the records, the voices of Ábdil Kadír Khan, Beidullah Khan and Shahdad Khan (Afghan and Baluchi) can be heard.
The shellac records were brought to Berlin with official permission from the Norwegian Ministry and a written statement from the Nasjionalbibliotekek.
In particular, the Lautarchiv would like to thank Johanne Ostad, Bente Granrud and Włodek Witek from the Oslo Nasjionalbiblioteket.
For the object of the month August, we have chosen the diagram of the precipitation in Berlin-Dahlem for the year 2022 (Fig. 4), which is a piece of the daily weather observation. Morever it also reflects the diversity of research at the Humboldt-Universität zu Berlin as well as allowing the connection to current debates such as climate change and questions of future food security. It is therefore about the one topic where everyone surely always wants to form an opinion: the weather.
The terms weather and climate should be kept apart. Weather describes the measurable instantaneous state of the atmosphere, whereas climate is defined more as a typical recurring annual pattern of weather, usually based on 30-year averages.
Weather is usually associated with sunshine, wind, rain or temperature. These are variables that can be measured or counted and play a central role, especially for agriculture and thus for food. And in order to be able to measure or count them professionally, there are fixed weather stations, which are also located at Humboldt-Universität.
The agro-climatological weather station at the agricultural experimental site in Berlin-Dahlem was established in 1931. The weather data measured since then is used on the one hand for the evaluation of the permanent agricultural experiments at the site (investigation of the relationships between weather patterns and growth, development and yield formation of agricultural crops) and on the other hand for the evaluation of the most diverse field experiments, which are designed to be more short-term. The data is available to all students and staff for the evaluation of their field trials.
In addition, the long-term weather records provide an insight into the climatic changes in Berlin.
Figure 1: Weather station on the grounds of the permanent field experiments of the Department of Crop and Animal Sciences of the Thaer Institute of Agricultural and Horticultural Sciences in Dahlem. (Photo: O. Zauzig 2023)
Figure 2: Course of the annual mean air temperature (Ta) since the beginning of weather recording in Dahlem.
Figure 3: Annual precipitation (Pa) over the same period.
The two graphs show the course of the annual mean air temperature and the annual precipitation depth (both y-axis) from 1931 to 2022. The air temperature in Berlin-Dahlem increased significantly by 1.8°C between 1931 and 2022 (1.78 Kelvin in 92 years). Annual precipitation shows no significant trend, with the lowest annual precipitation to date of only 338 mm (equivalent to 338 litres per square metre) measured throughout the year in 2022.
Figure 4: Course of precipitation depth in 2022, measured at the Dahlem site.
Figure 4 shows that only 3 months of the year (February, April, December) had precipitation levels above the long-term average. This led to an annual precipitation deficit of 40 percent and thus to the lowest annual total of 337.8 litres per square metre since observations began in 1931. With only 0.6 l/m² precipitation, March 2022 also set a record, which was due to the highest sunshine duration of 245.3 hours measured to date.
This means that four records were set at once in 2022: highest sunshine duration and lowest precipitation level in March, lowest annual precipitation level since 1931, highest number of “desert days”.
Observing the weather remains our task.
Authors: Prof. Dr. Frank-M. Chmielewski and Dr. Oliver Zauzig
As the interdisciplinary Central Institute of Humboldt-Universität, the HZK has the task of establishing the Third Mission as a new core competence within the university, alongside research and teaching. This includes the transdisciplinarily oriented competence field of “knowledge exchange with society”, which orients Humboldt-Universität as a whole more strongly towards a bi-directional understanding of imparting knowledge. Scientific results should not only be brought into society, but a direct exchange of diversely understood knowledge should be tested in concrete forms of encounter.
In order to bundle the research, teaching and application results gained by the HZK since the turn of the millennium and to become the central point of contact in the area of knowledge exchange with society for the members of the university as a whole, the Central Institute will dedicate itself to the multi-year theme “The Elements” – a fuzzy term from the perspective of the natural sciences, but a historical one from the perspective of the humanities – starting in summer 2023.
Elements such as earth, fire, water or air play a self-evident role in everyday concepts – and in this they represent not least a bridge between the most diverse disciplines and knowledge traditions. Thus, “earth” can be understood from a geopolitical perspective, as a biological breeding ground (“topsoil”) or as a historically damaged habitat (“scorched” earth), as well as in terms of the technical-innovative potential of “rare earths” or the increase in yields through fertilisation and profound interventions in the landscape, be it through buildings, earth eruptions or erosion.
Various research and outreach formats will test the inter- and transdisciplinary collaborations involved. The Humboldt Labor located in the Humboldt Forum, part of the HZK and one of the central stages of the Humboldt-Universität, will start with a teaser for the overall series “The Elements” before devoting itself to the individual elements in the following years and presenting the results of the research on an ongoing basis.
Ethnographers have to evolve their methods while investigating other people’s artful practices. How to make sense of other ways of making?
Contemporary multimodal ethnographic approaches are deeply rooted in fieldwork interactions with other knowing and making communities. Describing and theorizing making practices contributes to triggering new interests in material cultures. It also branches out to further studies on embodiment and on the techniques of the self. Telling better stories of making means sharpening our techniques for storytelling, experimenting with new media, and probing other ways of entering into collaboration with epistemic partners.
During the summer semester of 2023, we engaged in four collective fieldworks around technical activities: pottery, boomerang making, 3D sketching, and Iyengar yoga. We experimented with various ways to share the ethnographic experiences of “making” practices into text, drawings, workshops, and virtual installations. Students have also actively explored one technique of their choice during the course and documented their practice with a fieldwork notebook, using various techniques such as writing, sketching, 360° captures, etc.
Together on 14.07.2023, we will share our findings with the public in workshop formats, during which students will share their insights, their journals, and their newly acquired practices.
This seminar was taught by Prof. Sharon Macdonald and Dr. Maxime Le Calvé at the Helmholz-Zentrum für Kulturtechnik, part of the curriculum of the Master programme “Ethnography” at the Institute für Europeäische Ethnographie (Humboldt-Universität zu Berlin).
The poet Adelbert von Chamisso (1781-1838) is probably familiar to most people as the author of the fantastic tale „The Wonderful History of Peter Schlemihl” published in 1814. In it, the protagonist sells his shadow to the devil and thus falls victim to social ostracism. Chamisso’s importance as a natural scientist is far less well known. He was active in the fields of ethnology, zoology and, above all, botany. From 1815 to 1818, he participated in the circumnavigation of the globe by the Russian research vessel Rurik (Chamisso 2012). One of the significant results of this voyage was Chamisso’s discovery of the alternation of generations of the salps. He was not only able to decipher the alternating formation of sexual and asexual generations of these planktonic organisms, but was one of the first researchers ever to recognize the connection between larvae and generational successions of marine animals (Glaubrecht & Dohle 2012).
The sawed dolphin skull shown here from two sides comes from Chamisso's voyage around the world aboard the Russian research vessel 'Rurik'. (Photography G. Scholtz)
The sawed dolphin skull shown here from two sides also comes from this voyage. In his book “Reise um die Welt” Chamisso mentions dolphins among other things in the notes of May 12 and June 4, 1816: “A dolphin was harpooned, the first of which we got hold of – it served us as welcome food.” “…On the 4th a second dolphin of a different species was harpooned.” In total, Chamisso reports catching of six dolphins, all of whose skulls he donated to the “Zootomisches Museum zu Berlin.” This statement is confirmed by the inventory book of the zootomic collection, as six dolphin skulls collected by Chamisso are listed there. The entry in the inventory book under number 3956 for the skull shown here states: “Crania Delphini n. sp. … cl. a Chamisso ex itinere trans orbem attulit.”
Crania Delphini n. sp. a 3955 diversa. illi Delphini dubii Cuv. oss. foss. affinea aut vero sumuliter (simuliter?) eodem (Translation: Dolphin skull n. sp. (new species) different from 3955. The excavated bones resemble those of Delphinus dubius (Cuvier) or are even the same). cl. a Chamisso ex itinere trans orbem mundum attulit. (Translation: collected by Chamisso, he brought them back from his voyage around the world).
In 1999, the skull and a mandible from the anatomical collection of the Charité were given to the Zoologische Lehrsammlung of the Humboldt-Universität (see Scholtz 2018). The historical significance of these objects went unnoticed for over a decade. It was not until there was an inquiry from Hamburg about the whereabouts of a dolphin skull collected by Chamisso as part of the DFG project “The Appropriation of World Knowledge – Adelbert von Chamisso’s world tour” that our own provenance research led to the identification of the object. Other dolphin skulls collected by Chamisso were identified in the holdings of the Museum für Naturkunde. A comparison with the notes in Chamisso’s travel diaries (Sproll et al. 2023) now offers the possibility to identify individually the six skulls mentioned in the diaries and to which dolphin species they belong.
Watercolor portrait of Chamisso under palm trees in the Pacific Ocean by Ludwig Choris from 1817 (Collection Stiftung Stadtmuseum Berlin, Reproduction: Oliver Ziebe, Berlin, Paper, Sheet: H: 22,80 cm, W: 18,40 cm, Inv.Nr.: TA 00/2026 HZ)
Like many of his scientifically active contemporaries, Chamisso was a member of the “Gesellschaft Naturforschender Freunde zu Berlin”. As a characteristic product of the Age of Enlightenment, this private association was launched on July 9, 1773, in the apartment of the Berlin physician Dr. Friedrich Heinrich Wilhelm Martini (Böhme-Kassler 2005). The seven founding members, beyond their professions as physicians, pharmacist, astronomer, royal war councillor and royal administrators, showed great interest in natural science issues and were proud owners of natural history collections. Martini, for example, who initiated the foundation, was a dedicated conchologist, and the pharmacist Marcus Élieser Bloch was interested in ichthyology. The eventually twelve full members met regularly in their private residences, discussed natural history issues, and presented their newly acquired collection items. Associate and honorary members were also appointed. Last but not least, the founding of the Berliner Universität in 1810 caused the number of members to rise sharply. When Chamisso was elected to the GNF in 1819, it was already good manners to list membership alongside that in other national and international associations and academies. The explosive development of scientific research in the 19th century was also reflected in the GNF. It grew steadily, and especially the large number of outstanding researchers who belonged to it shows its historical importance. The focus of interests changed more and more towards biological questions. Accordingly, the Society was closely connected with the Museum für Naturkunde, and with the beginning of the 20th century the meetings were held there. The 2nd World War led to a break in the activities of the GNF.In 1955 the revitalisation took place at the newly founded Freie Universität in the western part of Berlin, where the society is still located today. From the beginning, the GNF has dedicated itself to the promotion and dissemination of scientific knowledge. It still follows this ideal today. It is closely connected to the major Berlin universities and the Museum für Naturkunde. It awards an annual prize for outstanding biological bachelor’s and master’s theses. Regular meetings with scientific lectures as well as excursions are still held. It is the oldest still existing private natural history society in Germany. The GNF celebrates its 250th anniversary on July 9, 2023 with a colloquium in the lecture hall of zoology at the Freie Universität Berlin. In addition, a Festschrift published on behalf of the steering committee highlights aspects of its long history (Scholtz et al. 2023).
References Böhme-Kassler, K. 2005 Gemeinschaftsunternehmen Naturforschung. Modifikation und Tradition in der Gesellschaft Naturforschender Freunde zu Berlin 1773 – 1906. Franz Steiner, Stuttgart.
Chamisso, A. von 2012 Reise um die Welt (Nachdruck). Die Andere Bibliothek, Berlin
Glaubrecht, M. & Dohle, W. 2012 Discovering the alternation generations in salps (Tunicata, Thaliacea): Adelbert von Chamisso’s dissertation “De Salpa” 1819 its material, origin and reception in the early nineteenth century. Zoosystenatics and Evolution 88: 317-363.
Scholtz, G. 2018 Zoologische Lehrsammlung (Zoological Teaching Collection). In: Beck, L.A. (Hrsg.). Zoological Collections of Germany – The animal kingdom in its amazing plenty at museums and universities. Springer, Berlin, pp. 123-134.
Scholtz, G., Sudhaus, W. & Wessel, A. (Hrsg.) 2023 Festschrift zum 250-jährigen Bestehen der Gesellschaft. Sitzungsberichte der Gesellschaft Naturforschender Freunde zu Berlin 57 (NF): 5-320.
Sproll, M., Erhart, W. & Glaubrecht, M. (Hrsg.) 2023 Adelbert von Chamisso: Die Tagebücher der Weltreise 1815-1818, Edition der handschriftlichen Bücher aus dem Nachlass. Brill/V&R Unipress, Göttingen.
Daniel Tyradellis, Vice Director of the Helmetholtz Zentrum, is a member of the project group “eFin & Democracy” of the ZEVEDI – Centre Responsible Digitality, funded by the Mercator Foundation.
The group, which is made up of representatives from business, law, science, culture and the media, has been critically monitoring the ECB’s plans to introduce the digital euro for five years. The aim is to open up the discussions on the social effects associated with digital central bank money in an interdisciplinary and transdisciplinary manner.
