power | relations
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| Free admission |
| Duration: 60 min |
| 14 years and older |
| German |
| Ethnologisches Museum, 2. OG |
| max. 15 persons |
| Belongs to: Ethnological Collections and Asian Art |
Diplomatic gifts, historical purchases, war campaigns and situations of highly unequal power relations – the objects in the museum collections were appropriated and brought to Berlin in very different ways.
Postcolonial provenance research not only attempts to trace the exact changes of ownership and routes of objects on the basis of events, people and objects, but also to understand the historical contexts and to critically question their unequal power relations in cooperation with partners from all over the world.
On the 6th International Day of Provenance Research, the museums are inviting visitors to get to know current projects based on selected objects in the exhibitions. Provenance researchers will also provide insights into their collaboration with international research partners and their joint examination of a divided past and future. There will be an opportunity to talk to the researchers about questions and methods of postcolonial provenance research.
Participants
Sophia Bokop is a provenance researcher in the project “The Collaborative Museum” at the Ethnologisches Museum and the Museum für Asiatische Kunst. In the project, the museums are testing pioneering working methods for all areas of museum practice in collaboration with international partners. The starting point is the collections and their contexts of acquisition, appropriation and translocation, preservation and research.
Kerstin Pannhorst is a provenance researcher in the project “Traces of the ‘Boxer War’ in German museum collections – a joint approach” led by the Central Archive of the National Museums. The joint project of seven German museums in collaboration with the Beijing Palace Museum in China examines both objects in the individual institutions and the actors involved in their looting, transportation and trade.