Category Archives: Research

Event, Exhibition, Project, Research

„BINDING BODIES. Perspectives on Bound Feet“

Starting in 2021, the Tieranatomisches Theater will launch the three-year research and exhibition project “Binding Bodies. Perspectives on Bound Feet” in cooperation with MARKK – Museum am Rothenbaum in Hamburg and the Kunstuniversität Linz.

This is made possible by generous funding from the German Federal Cultural Foundation (project description Binding Bodies), the Stiftung Preußische Seehandlung and the Alfred Töpfer Stiftung.

From 2021 to 2023, an interdisciplinary team will conduct research at the Hermann von Helmholtz-Zentrum für Kulturtechnik / Tieranatomisches Theater, MARKK and the Kunstuniversität Linz in cooperation with other international scientists and artists. The project will conclude with exhibitions that will be shown at MARKK Hamburg (2022) and the Tieranatomisches Theater (2023), among others.

Numerous ethnographic and anatomical collections in Europe contain preparations, casts, X-ray images and photos of so-called “lotus feet”, the bound feet of women in China. The research and exhibition project BINDING BODIES takes these collections as the starting point for research into the discourse history of female body modifications. Already Hans Virchow (1852-1940) and his colleagues draw comparisons to lace dancing, high heels and corsets in their publications. The project attempts an “entangled history” of female body deformations between Europe and China. It examines the complex interactions of self-perceptions and perceptions of others, reconstructs exemplary object biographies and contextualises them against the background of colonial, gender, social and scientific history. Thus, the project is also part of the current controversy about the handling of ethnographic objects and especially human remains in scientific collections.

Curators: Prof. Dr. Jasmin Mersmann (project leader), Dr. Evke Rulffes, Felix Sattler
Project Management Organisation: Helmholtz-Zentrum für Kulturtechnik, Humboldt-Universität zu Berlin
Partners: Museum am Rothenbaum. Cultures and Arts of the World (MARKK), Prof. Dr Barbara Plankensteiner, Dr Susanne Knödel, Gabriel Schimmeroth

X-ray of the lotus foot of a 32-year-old woman, taken through the shoe, 1905 © Charité, Centrum für Anatomie, Humboldt-Universität zu Berlin, Photography: Barbara Herrenkind
Information, News, Research

„Digitales Netzwerk Sammlungen“ – a project of the Berlin University Alliance

The project is jointly managed by the Humboldt-Universität, Freie Universität and Charité, but refers to partners of the Berlin University Alliance. The aim is to evaluate IT systems and digital strategies, taking into account different perspectives of scientific use, networking and cataloguing of collections, as well as subject-specific needs. Case studies on collections, usage and digitization scenarios will be used to develop recommendations for action that will serve as the basis for a sustainable collection infrastructure for Berlin’s universities.

The Koordinierungsstelle für Universitätssammlungen in Deutschland (HU), with its nationwide and international expertise in this field, is accompanying this project as a partner.

In addition, the overarching and transdisciplinary approach and strategic orientation is supported by an expert advisory board.

„Digitales Netzwerk Sammlungen“ is a component of the „Sharing Resources“ workspace of the Berlin University Alliance. Access to excellent infrastructure is a decisive competitive factor in promoting research and recruiting outstanding scholars and scientists. The goal is to make the best possible use of existing resources and to be able to plan new projects jointly and thus more efficiently. Collections are seen as part of the complex research infrastructure, which should be transparent and accessible to the four partners.

More than 90 scientific, partly unique collections are known at Berlin’s universities. University collections were and are created in the context of scientific research or as a basis for teaching. In some subjects they form a central basis for research; in their diversity they are the basis for subject history, history of science and culture, object and collection research. The Berlin collections are mainly housed in the institutes, which favors close integration into teaching and research. The networking of the collections is still comparatively weak and poorly organized, which currently makes it difficult to use them.

A good, centralized record facilitates and enables provenance research, cooperation in teaching, scientific cooperation, exhibitions and citizen science projects. At the same time, such a system is a challenging task due to the large number of requirements and the interdisciplinary nature of the work. The aim of the study is to develop and evaluate a concept over a period of 19 months that will open up the collections as a scientific resource and at the same time support the needs of the Berlin collections.

Project management and contact

Dr. Yong-Mi Rauch (provisional Collection Officer, University Library of Humboldt-Universität)
yong-mi.rauch@ub.hu-berlin.de

Dr. Andreas Brandtner (Director of the university library of the Freie Universität Berlin)
brandtner@ub.fu-berlin.de

Prof. Dr. Thomas Schnalke (Director of the medical history museum of the Charité)
thomas.schnalke@charite.de

 

Berlin_University_Alliance
Supported by the Federal Ministry of Education and Research (BMBF) and the State of Berlin as part of the Excellence Strategy of the Federal Government and the States