Month: June 2019

Through the looking glass (excerpt) From an anthropological museum…

11. June 2019

by Anja Nitz

Anja Nitz is a Berlin based artist and photographer. Born in Hamburg (1971) she studied at Kunsthochschule Berlin Weißensee. In her work she deals with socially relevant institutions and she conceptually potrays the related buildings. Among others she has worked on the Berlin Charité Hospital and several important Berlin Embassies, the United Nations Headquarter in NYC, German State Libraries and depots of museums. Her most recent work was at the Berlin Volksbühne. Her works have been exhibited and published numerous times. She has received grants and scholarships including the Bonn Foundation Kunstfonds.

Museum Collections in Motion International Conference July 15-17, 2019, Cologne

4. June 2019

The conference programme will be announced soon.

Download the poster here.

Museum Collections in Motion: Colonial and Postcolonial Encounters

International conference
July 15-17, 2019

A cooperation of
University of Cologne, Bremen University, the Rautenstrauch-Joest-Museum Cologne and boasblogs

Venue: Rautenstrauch-Joest-Museum Cologne

Thematic Outline

The growing public awareness of colonial violence and historical injustice has put ethnographic collections into the spotlight of social and political debates. Museums are increasingly confronted with the challenge to decolonize their exhibition practices and examine their collection history for looted art, colonial entanglements, and systematic exclusions. The recent initiative of French President Macron to explore the modalities for restituting African objects from French collections has opened a new chapter in the debate on restitution and repatriation. While its actual implementation remains to be seen, the report by Felwine Sarr and Bénédicte Savoy has set a world-wide agenda for decolonizing museum collections and academic research in the coming years.
In order to envision alternative futures for these collections and new forms of co-operation, this conference brings together activists, curators, experts, young researchers and scholars from around the world. Over three days we will re-visit museum collections and the debates and practices that have evolved around them, discuss ongoing work in the longue durée of colonial and postcolonial encounters and bring views from the Global North and South into intensive dialogue.
Convenors: Anna Brus, Larissa Förster, Michi Knecht, Ulrike Lindner, Nanette Snoep, Martin Zillinger

Wie weiter mit Humboldts Erbe?

Month: June 2019