Sensitive Collections and Human Remains
{{ time.start_TS | TS2dateFormat('MMM') }}
{{ time.start_TS | TS2dateFormat('YYYY') }}
| English, German |
| Humboldt Lab, 1st floor |
| Belongs to: After Nature |
Is it acceptable to exhibit human remains (like a skull, a preserved organs, or other body parts of the dead) publicly? Does it matter if their identity, or the circumstances that brought them to a collection, are known? Will different visitors to an exhibition with human remains have different perspectives on these questions? Should the exhibition curators decide then which of these perspectives prevail?Artist and researcher Tal Adler, creator of the installation “Who is ID 8470?”, will focus on these questions on a guided tour through the exhibition “After Nature” at the Humboldt Lab. In dialogue with another guide and the visitors the question will be discussed what might be considered as ethically “sensitive objects” and “sensitive collections”. The talk will be held in English and German.
Tal Adler is an artist and researcher at Humboldt University’s Centre for Anthropological Research on Heritage and Museums (CARMAH). For over two decades he has been developing methods of collaborative artistic processes for engaging with contentious cultural heritages in Israel/Palestine and in Europe. At the Academy of Fine Arts, Vienna, Tal Adler did research on the politics of memory and exhibiting in Austria, and published a variety of art works. His current project, “Who is ID8470?”, is an artistic research-collaboration with the Humboldt Lab that asks visitors and professional communities to consider the ethical and political implications of exhibiting human remains in public settings.