Curating

Today, universities and museums bear a great responsibility and have equally great potential. Together, they can become places for the exchange of knowledge, where people from diverse backgrounds share their knowledge, discuss their views, and learn from one another. In their research, scholars often address topics that are of the utmost social relevance. At the same time, curatorial work with historical collections and artistic practices—in museums as well as in other venues—is developing innovative formats for communicating these topics and fostering encounters between academia and society.

In line with this fundamental idea, the conference explores how universities and museums, as democratic institutions, “care for” society—for example, by bringing together a wide variety of actors and interest groups, by remaining open to the knowledge and ideas of their conversation partners, and by affirming contradiction and dissent as the foundation for shared discussion. Through four thematic panels—“Experiencing Nature,” “Living Together,” “Becoming Healthier,” and “Shaping the Future”—curators from various Berlin cultural institutions, together with researchers from all four institutions of the Berlin Network of Excellence, will present and discuss different curatorial practices based on specific case studies. The panel discussions will be complemented by a keynote address by Elke Krasny (Academy of Fine Arts, Vienna) on the connection between care and curation, as well as a conversation with Marion Ackermann (Prussian Cultural Heritage Foundation) and Joachim Baur (Technical University of Dortmund), which, under the title “Care, Anger, Courage,” will focus on museums and universities as spaces for action.