Humboldting!

Contents

About the project

Inspired by Alexander von Humboldt’s five-year expedition to America, 30 school pupils from Berlin’s Märkisches Viertel are setting off on a five-year voyage of discovery around the Humboldt Forum. Their journey will be completely in the spirit of the Humboldt brothers: courageous, creative and full of the joy of discovery.

Artistic direction

Born in Edmonton, Canada, in 1965, Darren O’Donnell is a multi-award-winning Canadian writer, director, performer and has travelled worldwide as the artistic director of Mammalian Diving Reflex. With projects such as Torontonians, upLIFTers and Mit Ohne Alles, he has developed projects that break unusual ground in cultural work, especially with young people. Darren O’Donnell’s work is based on mutual trust and balanced communication among all participants. On this basis, equal collaborations are created with groups underrepresented in the cultural sector, especially young people.

His numerous publications on this artistic form of participation include Social Acupuncture (2006). In 2018, he published “Haircuts by Children, and Other Evidence for a New Social Contract”, which proposes the cultural sector as a place to explore a new social contract with children.

Darren O’Donnell

is a creative producer working primarily in theatre and film. Her curatorial practice focuses predominantly on socially engaged projects for, and with, people who do not normally work in the arts and cultural sector. She regularly collaborates and tours with the Canadian performance group Mammalian Diving Reflex. She recently produced the Australian Back to Back Theatre’s first feature film SHADOW. The film was made in collaboration with an ensemble of actors who are perceived to have intellectual disabilities. She is currently producing a 20-part animated series with Back to Back Theatre featuring a group of young people who identify as disabled, which will air on ABC TV in early 2022. Other projects in development to be unveiled in 2022 include collaborations with plants, scientists, virtual reality technology, live theatre, young people and senior citizens in Australia, Italy, Germany and the UK.

Melika Ramić

Künstlerische Mitarbeit

Nana Adutwum

Künstlerische Mitarbeit

Foto: David von Becker

Part 10: Can the Humboldt Forum be a place for Giving and Receiving?

February 2026 – June 2026

Object under investigation: social responsibility

As a public space and cultural institution, the Humboldt Forum is also a social space, a place of daily encounters and negotiation. It is only logical, then, to address social questions of giving and receiving here as well. In this unit, the young people from Humboldting! join forces with the artist collective The Farm to ask: What can we give, and what do we need?

In the emerging performance Social Muscle Club, everything from a pencil to advice on relationship issues can be brought to the table. Together, these needs are discussed and solutions are sought.

In addition, the young people explore the question of how a performance actually comes into being: What are the stages and components of a show? Together with The Farm, they develop the individual elements: design and set, moderation, interventions, sound, a feast, and a party make up the overall picture of the Social Muscle Club.

The resulting performance will be presented on June 19th and 20th 2026, as the final events of the project Humboldting!.

Part 9: What Does Family Feel Like?

August 2025 – January 2026

Object under investigation: Family

The Humboldt Forum’s theme for 2025 is “Family Matters”. The young people of Humboldting! are exploring this topic and asking themselves: What is family, really? What does family mean today – affinity, obligation, or home? And what does family feel like?

Family is viewed as a feeling, as a construct, as a space of possibilities, as a tapestry of many voices, times, and worlds. Together with dramaturge and theater educator Juliane Meckert, the young people imagine themselves as coming from a distant future, returning to 2025 to explore their own experiences of family and bring them to the stage. Under the title “Family Feeling Factory”, a playful performance is taking shape, featuring entertaining visions of the future of family and thought-provoking questions about our present.

The resulting performance will be presented on January 24th 2026, as part of the theme day “Hide or Tell?”.

Part 8: Where is the Humbolt Forum?

February 2025 – July 2025

Object under investigation: The surroundings of Humboldt Forum

The Humboldt Forum is located in Berlin-Mitte, surrounded by imposing buildings, streets, hotels, residential buildings, and the Spree River. How is the Humboldt Forum connected to its surroundings? How can we explore this area? Is it different at night than during the day?

The young people from Humboldting have already explored many areas of the Humboldt Forum – now it’s time to explore its immediate surroundings. Together with the artists from Mammalian Diving Reflex, they are examining the places directly neighboring the Humboldt Forum and developing activities for the walking performance “Nightwalk with Teenagers”.

“Nightwalks with Teenagers” is a walking performance concept originally produced in 2011 in Inverness, Canada. It brings together young people and adults who might not otherwise meet. In Berlin-Mitte, the young people from Humboldting! discover streets and paths they didn’t know existed and harness the power of walking together. Following this, they will lead public night walks through the city: the streets become a stage for shared time, an utopian social space.

The results will be presented publicly as a participatory walking performance on July 11th and 12th 2025.

Part 7: How can we play in a museum?

August 2024 – January 2025

Object under investigation: The rules in the museum

Can a museum foster the act of play? What types of play are permitted and which types are not permitted in a museum? Is it possible for a museum itself to contain different kinds of play? If so, who gets to play and are there rules?

Canadian artists Milton Lim and Patrick Blenkarn will work alongside the Thomas Mann Gymnasium students to explore the possibilities of play at the Humboldt Forum. By designing new games inspired by the people, life, architecture, and collections of the Humboldt Forum, the group will aim to discover the ludic potential of the museum and how gameful acts of play might reveal new perspectives on its place within Berlin.

The results will be presented to the public on january 24th and 25th as part of F(UNFUG).

Milton Lim (he/him) is a digital media artist, game designer, and performance creator. His research-based practice entwines publicly available data, interactive digital media, and gameful performance to create speculative visions and candid articulations of social capital. This line of inquiry aims to reconsider our repertoires of knowledge aggregation and political intervention in the contemporary context of big data and algorithmic culture. miltonlim.com

Patrick Blenkarn (he/him) is an artist working at the intersection of performance, game design, and visual art. His research-based practice revolves around the themes of language, labour, democracy, and economy, with projects ranging in form from video games and card games to stage plays and books. patrickblenkarn.com

Together, Patrick and Milton explore urgent questions around the social value of art, digital labour, and the political potential of games. Mixing their backgrounds in performance, philosophy, psychology, and digital media, their collaborations have manifested in video games, participatory installations, digital archives, and card games. Among their works are: asses.masses, a video game designed to be played live from beginning to end in a theatre and culturecapital, a performing arts economy trading card game. They are also the co-founders of videocan, the Canadian national video archive of performance documentation. Milton and Patrick’s projects have been presented across Canada, as well as in Argentina, Germany, Mexico, Eu countries, and the UK, in English, French, German, Spanish, Italian, and Catalan.

Part 6: What is the everyday drama at the Humboldt Forum?

February 2024 – July 2024

Object under investigation: the everyday life of the service staff

Museums are known for their objects, for their displays that connect visitors with the far away. But how about the people right in front of our eyes, the front-line workers whose service makes this world of magnificence accessible to the public? Who are they and what is the everyday life like behind the sleek floor, the professional uniforms and service?

What gives them headache, and where are their secret bases in the Humboldt Forum?

Together with the students of the Thomas-Mann-Gymnasium, the performance collective from Taiwan, Prototype Paradise, and its Taiwanese colleagues based in Germany venture into the everyday drama in Humboldt Forum.

Starting from collecting museum visitors’ questions towards the unseen players, the young adults follow the work and life of these front-line workers, and process their encounters in sounds and stories, while relating to their own life and observations.

Outcomes of this joint adventure will be shared in an audio-walk performance led by students on June 28 and 29, 2024.

“Everyday Drama in Humboldt Forum” is sponsored by National Culture and Arts Foundation Taiwan, and is part of Humboldting!, a long-term project of the Stiftung Humboldt Forum im Berliner Schloss at the intersection of education and art. Artistic direction: Alice Fleming and Darren O’Donnell.

Foto: David von Becker

Part 5: Can We Add Value to Objects?

Trailer

What is the value of an object? What value does a museum object have? Who gives it this value and can it be changed?

How does repairing or reassembling it change that value?

In the museum, objects are sometimes restored.The act of restoration itself holds profound cultural meaning. Through restoration, we acknowledge that an object’s history is not confined to its moments of perfection, but encompasses the entirety of its journey, including moments of loss and destruction.

Using a blend of modern technologies and traditional skills, the group will experiment with breaking things apart and putting them back together and so hoping to create new interesting value.

Whether and how the emotional, cultural or monetary value of these things changes, you can judge for yourself!

The research results will be presented live in an entertaining multimedia performance on February 23 and 24, 2024.

The Australian artists Ivy and Rhian Hinkley will develop the project together with the students and direct the performance. Concept development with Nicole Tsourlenes.

Make it. Break it. Fake it. is part of Humboldting!, a long-term project of the Stiftung Humboldt Forum im Berliner Schloss at the intersection of education and art. Artistic direction: Alice Fleming und Darren O’Donnell.

Rhian Hinkley is a filmmaker and artist based in Melbourne. For ten years he was director of Nebula a portable arts and performance space run by Arts Access Victoria, creating collaborative theatrical and installation-based shows across the state of Victoria. His sculptural practice includes commissions from the City of Melbourne and exhibitions at multiple galleries including the Ian Potter Gallery of Art in Melbourne. He has a longstanding relationship with Back to Back theatre, creating the video components of The Shadow Whose Prey the Hunter Becomes (2019), Lady Eats Apple (2016), Ganesh Versus The Third Reich (2011), Food Court (2008) and Soft (2002). He has directed numerous versions of the Democratic Set and Radial film projects including in Hong Kong (2019), Edinburgh (2015), Freiburg (2016) , Berlin (2017) and Dundee (2018). In 2020 he was the director of photography and editor of the short feature Shadow which premiered at the South By Southwest Film Festival in Austin Texas 2022. He has worked as designer on a number of collaborations with choreographer Sandra Parker including the shows Out of Light (2009), Document (2011), The Recording (2013), Small Details (2016), as well as the gallery installations Replacement (2022) and All Day and All Night (2019). Other dance production credits include I Could Pretend the Sky is Water by Trevor Patrick (2011), Origami by BalletLab (2006) and Aorta (2014) by Stephanie Lake for Chunky Move. Film Credits include Buckstop (1997) winner of the Directors Award for technique at the New York animation festival, Face of the West (2000), finalist in the Tropfest Film Festival.

Rhian Hinkley

Ivy Hinkley’s artistic practice focuses on fashion, textiles, and photography, addressing the way that society tends to dismiss crafts as ‘women’s skills’ instead of incredible artforms. This stems from an aim to valorise craft through photographic, knitting and sewing works, by displaying them as ‘pure art’. Ivy is interested in exploring the role of craft in contemporary art and the way these skills are passed down through generations of women.

In 2013 she was mentored by Melbourne based costume designer Shio Otani, across her dance-based costume design and making. In 2018 -2019, she launched, designed and led an online fashion business, Maude Fashion. She continues designing and creating costumes and clothing, including working on costumes for a number of dance and film projects including Chunky Move’s Aorta (2013), Back to Back’s Shadow (2022) and her self-directed film Adorn (2022). She is interested in processes of collaboration and is keen to explore the way in which creativity can be shared and expanded within collaborative and group settings.

Her textile piece ‘Transformer’ was displayed in the 2022 Top Design exhibition at the Melbourne Museum, and a three-part photographic series which explored tradition, heritage, and lineage, was awarded the exhibitions ‘artwork acquisition’ prize. Her work has been exhibited in the 2022 Centre of Contemporary Photography in Fitzroy, Victoria.

Ivy Hinkley

Part 4: What vibes are there in the Humboldt Forum and which are missing?

February 2023 – July 2023
Object under investigation: Vibes in the Humboldt Forum

What are vibes? What moods and atmospheres are there in the Humboldt Forum? And above all: which ones are missing? People often say are boring and not particularly inviting places. But is that really the case? The Humboldt Forum is a huge place, with many stories, with many exhibits – and also with many moods. For this unit, the students of the Thomas-Mann-Gymnasium have taken on a special mission: they observe which feelings different rooms in the Humboldt Forum trigger in them and investigate the vibes. Some spaces in the Humboldt Forum may be lively, energetic, others more quiet and cozy, some spooky or weird, others captivating or enigmatic.

In this edition, Humboldting! explores the atmosphere of this sometimes confusing place and asks what the new vibes are. At the end, the students will implement their research results in an installation: in four immersive rooms, they will show which vibes they would add on in the Humboldt Forum and invite the audience to experience them.

Part 3: What is where in the Humboldt Forum?

August 2022 – January 2023
Research subject: Objects in the Ethnological Museum and Museum of Asian Art

Today, Alexander von Humboldt’s travelogues and publications give us insights into how he approached nature and the environment. They include personal entries and scientific descriptions and illustrations of botanical, geographical, archaeological and ethnological objects.

Using different techniques of drawing as a form of aesthetic engagement, students engaged with the exhibits of the Ethnological Museum and the Museum of Asian Art. The exhibits inspire the pupils to engage with them artistically.

Through encounters with professional mediators who work in the exhibitions, as well as discussions with international cooperation partners who have designed the exhibitions, the pupils got to know different perspectives on the objects. Through intensive exchange, their own viewing and trying out many creative drawing methods, they got to know the exhibits better and recorded their impressions in drawings and texts – accompanied by the Berlin artist Manuel Ahnemüller.

At the end of the school semester, their artistic works were publicly displayed in a large installation in the foyer of the Humboldt Forum.

Part 2: Who is the Humboldt Forum?

February 2022 – July 2022

The life of the Forum’s directors in 100 objects.

Object under investigation: the Humboldt Forum’s executive leadership

Part 2 was dedicated to studying the Humboldt Forum’s staff. The pupils were invited to focus their sharp anthropological gaze on the decision-makers at this cultural institution. Pupils undertook trips to the homes of the leadership team, and were given free rein to investigate their lives, while developing a relationship that will extend over five years.

What is the General Director’s favourite food? What song does the Senior Events Coordinator sing in the shower, and what is the Academy Director’s favourite holiday destination? How did the leadership team come to be in their current jobs, what education, training and personal decisions led them to their positions? Do they have a sense of humour? Can they cook, and what are the names of their pets?

Based on these home visits, the pupils from the Thomas Mann school brought one hundred objects into the Humboldt Forum to share with the audience in an artistic performance. Inspired by Neil MacGregor’s ‘A History of the World in 100 Objects’, with the help of 100 objects, they presented their findings on the Humboldt Forum’s directors to the public in a theatre performance on 1 and 2 July 2022.

Darren O’Donnell and Alice Fleming have proven time and again at numerous international theatre festivals (including the London International Festival of Theatre, the Ruhrtriennale or the Kunstenfestivaldesarts, Brussels) how entertaining and challenging performance shows with amateurs can be.

Part 1: What is a good question?

August 2021 – January 2022

A spotlight on the art and science of asking questions. Questions are of central importance in every research endeavour, and defining and refining good questions is the first step of an investigation. The young researchers questioned one another, the Humboldt Forum staff, their parents, brothers and sisters, and even strangers on the street. And the questions didn’t end there! One of the most important principles of Humboldting is: there is no such thing as a boring person, or a boring question. Everyone has an interesting story to tell, we just have to learn how to ask the right questions.