Exhibiting.Omissions.
September 15, 2022 to June 16, 2024
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| Free admission |
| English, German, Swahili |
| 2nd Floor |
The collection of the Ethnologisches Museum Berlin includes some 10,000 objects which are attributed to the area of present-day Tanzania. Most of the objects were acquired – often in violent ways – during the period of German and British colonial rule. The workshop exhibition Exhibiting.Omissions. Objects from Tanzania and the Colonial Archive questions, remembers, and reconsiders the museum’s objects and their stories: to whom and where did the objects now in the museum’s depot belong? What stories do they have to tell that remain untold or ignored to this day? Should these objects still be on display in Berlin today? And what omissions do we encounter when reflecting on these issues, what remains hidden?
The objects’ problematic colonial and racist past is addressed in several sections. For example, the exhibition includes four display cases in which original objects from the former colony of “German East Africa” are replaced with “surrogate objects” by contemporary artists, among others. Sensitive objects thus attain visibility and are subject to a new, contemporary approach. Even omissions and gaps – in archives, in historiography – are made visible: their trail is marked by blank text boxes and pink-coloured fields.
In this exhibition, the curatorial team in Berlin explore sensitive objects from Tanzania, following a process of consultation with a team of critical companions. Viewed as a preparatory event for a collaborative project, the exhibition will culminate in a presentation curated jointly with the National Museum of Tanzania. The viewpoints of various joint partners and the curatorial team’s new research findings will be integrated into the exhibition along the way. To take a few examples, from March to July 2023 visitors were able to see an intervention entitled “Mingled Living Forces” by students at the art school weißensee kunsthochschule berlin, and since October 2023 the exhibition has included an intervention “Exhibiting.Omissions.Thinking” ahead by students attending the Exhibiting Colonialism seminar at the Humboldt-Universität zu Berlin’s Institute of History, taught by Janis Nalbadidacis.
At the end of the exhibition, a short documentary film and an accompanying workbook will be made available. Further information can be found below.
As a final extension of the exhibition project “Leerstellen.Ausstellen,” Tanzanian media professional Vicensia Shule was commissioned to produce a short documentary. Shule had already been involved in the conception of the exhibition as a critical companion.
In the documentary, various participants reflect on the exhibition concept and the creative process. The exhibition curators, Vicensia Shule, scenographer Szandra Tebbe, freelance mediator Stefan Bürk, and Tarek Ibrahim, an employee of the Humboldt Forum Foundation at Berlin Palace, all have their say.
Director and concept: Vicensia Shule, Hoclay Mganga
Camera, production, sound, and editing: Hoclay Mganga
Length: 13:10 min.
Year: 2024
© Humboldt Forum Foundation in Berlin Palace / Vicensia Shule, Hoclay Mganga
Film documentary: Exhibiting.Omissions (with German subtitles)
Film documentary: Exhibiting.Omissions (with Swahili subtitles)
On 19 October 2023, the third phase of the exhibition Exhibiting.Omissions. Objects from Tanzania and the Colonial Archive entitled Exhibiting.Omissions.Thinking ahead opened on the second floor of the Humboldt Forum. It features new interventions, commentaries, and additions to the existing sections of the exhibition which have been produced by students of the Humboldt-Universität zu Berlin in the Exhibiting Colonialism seminar (taught by Janis Nalbadidacis at the Institute for History), as well as even more new information, illustrations, stories, and standpoints from the Humboldt Forum’s own curatorial team.
At the opening, Hartmut Dorgerloh spoke on behalf of the Humboldt Forum, Janis Nalbadidacis represented the seminar, and Maike Schimanowski gave a speech in the name of the curatorial team. Visitors could then take a dialogue-based tour of the exhibition, allowing them to find out more about the background to the seminar’s discussions and approaches as well as the material contributed by the students and the curatorial team. Then there was a short break while the venue was rearranged for a discussion round on the theme of “stating your position”, in which the participants reflected on the topics and questions addressed in the collaboration and discussed them with the audience.
MINGLED LIVING FORCES
A contemporary art intervention in the workshop exhibition Leerstellen.Ausstellen
11.03.23 – 25.07.23 at Leerstellen.Ausstellen, 2nd floor, Humboldt Forum
The Ethnological Museum Berlin houses around 10,000 objects attributed to the area of present-day Tanzania. A large part of the objects were appropriated – often violently – during the period of German and British colonial rule. The workshop exhibition Leerstellen.Ausstellen – Objects from Tanzania and the Colonial Archive interrogates, remembers, and re-examines the museum’s objects and their history. Within this exhibition, students engaged artistically with notions and remnants of colonial violence under the title MINGLED LIVING FORCES. Through performance, installation, print, sculpture, painting, video, and VR, they explore the meaning of collecting and exhibiting in the context of domination, as well as the perpetuation of colonial relationships, and speculate on future museum spaces once human remains and material culture have been returned.
MINGLED LIVING FORCES was developed in the context of the tandem seminars Colonial Presents: Artistic and Curatorial Interrogating and Zeichnen Farbe Fläche – Spatial Drawing at the weißensee school of art and design berlin during the Winter Semester 22 /23. Curatorial development and teaching: Juana Awad and Elaine Bonavia
Website kunsthochschule weißensee berlin
Introductory text to the exhibition (as of August 2023):
Exhibiting.Omissions. Objects from Tanzania and the Colonial Archive
In this workshop exhibition we invite you to join us as we engage with historical objects in the Ethnologisches Museum Berlin that originate from the territory that is now Tanzania. Along with documents, photographs, catalogues, and much more besides they form an archive that is neither complete nor objective. It is these gaps in the archive and their colonial origins that we wish to address; in the process learning something about how people in what was then “German East Africa” resisted violent colonial rule. These people and the societies from which the objects were looted are of special interest to us here.
We are not showing any sensitive original objects where we do not have the explicit consent of the descendants of the authors, users, custodians, or owners to present them. These “omissions” are marked in pink in the exhibition, indicating the gaps in and limitations of both the archive and our own perspectives – thereby offering opportunities for discussion.
The critical appraisal of colonial crimes and power structures as well as the impact of racist ideology that continues to this day is one of the key tasks of the Humboldt Forum. In a building that contains reconstructed sections of the facade of the former Berlin Palace, presenting objects and their history in a way that is critical of racism is as difficult as it is important. As a symbol of the Prussian monarchy, the historical palace is associated with militarism, colonialism, and the repression of democratic movements.
Together with you, we would like to question the Eurocentric perspective on this colonial history. For Exhibiting.Omissions we, the curatorial team of white academics and staff of the Staatliche Museen zu Berlin and the Stiftung Humboldt Forum, consulted two critical experts from Berlin and Dar es Salaam.
The exhibition is intended as a continually evolving work in progress. It also forms the prelude to a cooperative exhibition to be realized by the Ethnologisches Museum Berlin and the Stiftung Humboldt Forum together with the National Museum of Tanzania. The Ethnologisches Museum has been working with Tanzanian scholars, artists, and experts for many years, particularly in the field of postcolonial provenance research.
Curatorial team: Paola Ivanov, Ulrike Kirsch, Maike Schimanowski, Jocelyne Stahl, Kristin Weber-Sinn
Critical companions: Josephine Apraku, Vicensia Shule