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.