The Humboldt Forum – A Shared Understanding

Four partners jointly shape the Humboldt Forum: the Humboldt Forum Foundation in the Berlin Palace, the Prussian Cultural Heritage Foundation with the Ethnological Museum and the Museum of Asian Art, the Stadtmuseum Berlin Foundation, and the Humboldt University of Berlin.

They contribute different perspectives, competencies, and working methods. This interplay constitutes the particular strength of the Humboldt Forum. Together, they shape the Forum as an open platform for cultural practice, knowledge transfer and scholarly exchange, societal negotiation, and critical reflection.

Humboldt Forum: a unique place in the heart of Berlin

Since its opening, the four partners have developed the Humboldt Forum into a well-attended venue with a strong program and a high-quality visitor experience. Exhibitions, performing arts, festivals, workshops, guided tours, digital offerings, as well as participatory and dialogue-based formats together constitute a transdisciplinary program that cuts across genres. People come for a variety of reasons—for the program, the reconstructed Baroque façades, and for the special atmosphere of the space.

The Humboldt Forum attracts a broad audience: Berlin residents and visitors from out of town, diaspora communities, different generations, individuals as well as groups. Some come to learn about the history of the site; others are interested in contemporary issues and diverse perspectives. All bring different experiences and expectations. The four partners create tailored points of access for different audiences.

The Humboldt Forum understands itself as a place where social cohesion is actively fostered. As a site of encounter, accessibility, and co-creation, it conceives democratic values as lived practice: open, welcoming, and respectful.

In doing so, the Forum creates space for reflection and meaning-making, safeguards the freedom of scholarship and the arts, and thus strengthens the resilience of a democratic society. It makes tangible that differing viewpoints—and even dissent—need to be acknowledged and negotiated as the basis for a just, diverse, and peaceful society.

Historical site, collections, and programmatic mission

The Humboldt Forum is located at the center of a constantly changing city with diverse histories and a heterogeneous urban society. The site is historically and politically charged: the Berlin Palace once stood here, followed later by the Palace of the Republic. The reconstructed façades point to historical continuities while also making ruptures, layers, and interpretative conflicts visible. The site is therefore not merely a backdrop but itself an object of critical engagement.

Significant collections are presented in the building, including the largest ethnological collection in Germany. This gives rise to particular responsibilities: to conduct provenance research; to critically engage with the enduring legacies of colonialism and contemporary racism; to sustain dialogue with people and communities connected to the collections; and to critically reflect on the conditions under which knowledge, collections, and cultural frameworks were formed. The collaboration of the four partners within the Humboldt Forum creates a multi-layered context in which historical and contemporary perspectives, scholarly, artistic, and societal perspectives, as well as different forms of knowledge and experience, interact. From this context, they jointly develop the Forum’s themes.

In reference to its namesakes, the Humboldt Forum considers topics not in isolation but in relation to one another. These are relevant locally in Berlin, across Germany, and globally. They address societal questions, illuminate different perspectives, generate meaning, create personal connections, evoke emotional responses, and make a sense of community tangible.
These themes are translated into an open, dialogue-oriented, and contemporary program. The Humboldt Forum aims not only to inform its visitors but also to generate resonance and maintain an ongoing dialogue with diverse publics. It offers visitors a wide range of program formats that are accessible yet intellectually rigorous.

Visitors are invited to understand themselves as part of a global community—connected through shared responsibility and intertwined histories. In this way, the historical site becomes a place of mutual understanding, where societal questions are negotiated, new alliances are imagined, and forward-looking forms of coexistence are tested— supported by respectful moderation, clear house rules, and a safe environment for controversial viewpoints.

Cooperation and international collaboration

This programmatic work is not shaped by the four partners alone. It thrives on collaboration with Berlin’s urban society, international expertise, long-term partnerships, and the support of representatives of source communities as well as diasporic and Indigenous institutions. Methodologically, the Humboldt Forum is committed to collaborative and research-based approaches—through co-curation, transdisciplinarity, decolonial practices, and the inclusion of Indigenous knowledge holders and diverse forms of knowledge. The Global Cultural Assembly exemplifies this approach, having found in the Humboldt Forum both a physical and conceptual space to experiment with new forms of international collaboration. It promotes sustainable institutional participation and enables communities to achieve self-determined visibility. Together with the GCA, the Humboldt Forum is developing processes through which international cultural work and global connections can be shaped in a sustainable and continuous way.

Prof. Dr. Marion Ackermann
President of the Prussian Cultural Heritage Foundation

Prof. Dr. Julia von Blumenthal
President of the Humboldt University of Berlin

Prof. Dr. Hartmut Dorgerloh
Director-General of the Humboldt Forum and Chair of the Board, Humboldt Forum Foundation in the Berlin Palace

Dr. Henrietta Lidchi
Director of the Ethnological Museum and the Museum of Asian Art

Sophie Plagemann
Chair of the Board and Artistic Director of the Stadtmuseum Berlin Foundation