Events 2023 2022 2021 2020 2019 2018 2017 2016

CARMAH regularly interacted with other researchers and museum professionals, as well as with the interested public, through talks, panels discussions and other formats of critical engagement. In this section, you can read further information on past events at CARMAH between 2016 and 2023.

2023

WARP Lecture & Workshop:

Catalina Ortiz - Living Archive: Weaving Gender (Hi)Stories of Urban Reclamation in Moravia, Medellin’

In Moravia and many other places in Colombia, women have used weaving as a symbolic reparation strategy. Learning from these weaving practices we engaged in affective co-creation through situated methodologies to trace spatial practices that reveal territorial reclamations.  We argue that living archives are artifacts for the defense of rights with the capacity to channel processes of weaving territory-body-earth as an act of healing. 

Book Launch:

ZOOM Book Launch of Cross Purposes: Catholicism and the Political Imagination in Poland by Magdalena Waligórska

We cordially invite to a zoom book launch of: Cross Purposes: Catholicism and the Political Imagination in Poland by Magdalena Waligórska (Cambridge University Press, 2023) with the author and invited commentators: Prof. Brian Porter-Szücs (University of Michigan) and Prof. Agnieszka Graff (University of Warsaw). The discussion will be moderated by Prof. Alexander Bevilacqua (Williams College). 

WARP Lecture & Workshop:

Eliza Proszczuk – ‘Girls from the Castle’

In this talk, the artist explores the three-year-long artistic research project with the "Girls from the Castle", female inmates of the Warsaw Grochów Detention Centre. "Castle" is a colloquial term for a maximum security prison. Exploring the notion of childhood as a cell, and culture as a prison, she has been working with a group of prisoners for over three years. 

WARP Lecture & Workshop:

Lebogang Mokwena: Re-Dressing Heritage, Manufacturing Industrial Custodianship: Da Gama, isiShweshwe, and Post-Apartheid Africanity

Dr Mokwena's talk will look at a corporation's construction of a custodial identity in contemporary South Africa. She will do this by sketching the visual strategies of The Good Hope Textile Corporation (which trades as Da Gama) to assert custodial responsibility over the isishweshwe textile it manufacture. Mokwena shows how these seductive visual constructions are not merely evidence of Da Gama's manufacture of the authentic textile. Crucially, these discourses stamp the corporation's cultural legitimacy in post-apartheid South Africa, enabling it to propagate a brand of post-apartheid corporate Africanity all the while eliding difficult histories of racial-capitalist exploitation at the nexus of empire and settler-colonialism. 

Workshop:

Tracing Temporalities, Unearthing Collection Ethics (TRACTS COST Action)

How do we trace the relationship between time and collections? What are the ethical challenges of researching collections within museums and earth archives? In this three-day workshop, organised by the COST Action “Trace as a Research Agenda for Climate Change, Technology Studies, and Social Justice” (TRACTS), we aim to critically explore the ethics of collections in museums and geological archives through the lens of temporality. The event seeks to initiate interdisciplinary exchange between the disparate fields of inquiry in the critical studies of different forms of collections and archives by considering the ethics of acquisition, preservation and use.  

HZK / CARMAH Colloquium:

Menschen, Tiere, Irritationen. Ein Filmprojekt von Wolfram Höhne, Larissa Förster und Michael Markert

Das Phyletische Museum in Jena wurde 1907 gegründet von Ernst Haeckel, der Charles Darwins Theorien in Deutschland bekannt machte. Hauptthema des Museums ist entsprechend die Evolution. Im Museum werden lebende und tote Tiere mit Menschen der Vergangenheit und Gegenwart in Beziehung gesetzt. Das Filmprojekt begleitete die Arbeit der Museumspädagogin und zeigt ihre Praktiken im Umgang […] 

HZK / CARMAH Colloquium:

Calcified identities: essentialism in research and restitutions of human remains

Essentialist assumptions about human beings persist in scientific practice, despite their erroneous logic. In this talk, Dr. Jonatan Kurzwelly (University of Göttingen) will examine essentialism related to research on, and handling of, academic collections of human remains. Further, the presentation will consider the effectiveness of such a politics of "strategic essentialism" in addressing the diverse injustices related to collections of human remains.  

2022

Roundtable discussion:

(Re)imagining Publics through Ethnographic Collections (with Sofia Botvinnik, Museum Europäischer Kulturen, Benjamina Efua Dadzie, Nationaal Museum van Wereldculturen & Paola Ivanov, Ethnologisches Museum Berlin)

How do museum objects shape the publics within the museum? The roundtable, co-organised with Hansjörg Dilger as part of DFG Public Anthropology workshop, explores the conditions under which publics (and counterpublics) emerge around museum artefacts. The participants, from curators to educators to decolonial activists, reflect on the imaginaries and practices of engaging and relating collections with a range of publics. This allows us to explore the potential of objects for shaping public debates and the role of diverse, emergent publics, and transforming the collection itself. 

HZK / CARMAH Colloquium:

Wissenschaft kuratieren. Akademische Sammlungen, Forschung und Prozesse im Museum als Forum

Wie lässt sich Wissenschaft kuratieren? Im Mittelpunkt des Vortrags von Daniela Döring (Universität Göttingen) stehen drei jüngst entstandene Wissenschaftsausstellungen und -museen: das FORUM FOR SCIENCE, ART AND DOUBT des Genter Universitätsmuseums (eröffnet seit 2020), die erste Schau „Nach der Natur“ des HUMBOLDT LABORS im Berliner Humboldt-Forum (2021) und die Basisausstellung des Göttinger FORUM WISSEN (2022). 

HZK / CARMAH Colloquium:

Toxische Überreste des Sammelns

Die Präsentation von Flavia Caviezel gibt Einblick in den Prozess einer künstlerischen Forschung, die sich anhand asbestbelasteter Objekte einer Stiftungssammlung und deren Handling mit toxischen Überresten befasst. 

Making Museums Matter/CARMAH:

Museums and Partnerships in Times of War in Ukraine

In this session of the Making Museums Matter event series, colleagues from Ukraine, Poland, Germany and Switzerland, among others, will report on their needs, forms of resistance, strategies of networking and possibilities of preservation. We want to talk about traps and gaps in the current wave of solidarity with Ukraine, contribute to the visibility of the work of Ukrainian colleagues, and promote global and local networking of museums and their partners in times of war. 

Reading Group:

Heritage and Infrastructure

This informal reading group, organized by Jenny Chio, will explore some key concerns of the “infrastructural turn” in anthropology and how they might inform and challenge understandings of heritage. The sessions will mostly take place online.  

HZK / CARMAH Colloquium:

The Museum as a Choir: Visitor Reactions to the Multivocality at the Humboldt Forum’s ‘Berlin Global’

This talk by Irene Hilden & Andrei Zavadski will provide insights into the research project ‘Realizations and Reception in the Humboldt Forum,’ based at the Centre for Anthropological Research on Museums and Heritage (CARMAH), Humboldt-Universität zu Berlin. With ethnographic audience research at its root, the project explored how visitors engaged with the Humboldt Forum and its exhibitions during the first weeks of the institution’s operation. The talk will focus on some of the findings related to audience experiences of multivocality as employed in the exhibition ‘Berlin Global.’ 

Making Museums Matter/CARMAH:

Cultural institutions on the radar of right-wing politics: experiences, ways of dealing and scope for action

The first of two events in the series Making Museums Matter deals with concrete actions against right-wing populist practices in cultural institutions. It is intended as a contribution to a whole series of initiatives in the cultural sector that are currently actively confronting this phenomenon. Panelists of the first session are Nicole Broder (Anne Frank Education Centre), Benjamin Kryl (Stadtmuseum Parchim), and Hatice Ince ( Neue Deutsche Medienmacher:innen). 

HZK / CARMAH Colloquium:

Digital Network Collections

Presentation of the project "Digital Network Collections", which deals with a conceptual planning of a digital network of Berlin's university collections, in order to create a common interdisciplinary basis that enables the research and digital evidence of objects. The lecture will be held in German. 

2021

Conference:

Exhibitionism. Sexuality at the Museum

A three day online conference organized by Hannes Hacke (HU Berlin, DE), Rebecca Fasman (Indiana University, Bloomington, USA), Melissa Blundell Osorio (WEAM, Miami, USA) about how museums and exhibition spaces around the world are using artwork, objects, and other materials to talk about sexuality in new ways. 

Paper presentation:

Curated textiles

Magda Buchczyk will present her research on the social and political transformations of Polish weaving in the context of Nazi-era curating, state socialist craft revival in Poland, and current global, commercial afterlives of this art. 

Book presentation:

Across Anthropology (Grassi Museum)

Book presentation of 'Across Anthropology. Troubling Colonial Legacies, Museums, and the Curatorial' by Jonas Tinius and Margareta von Oswald, in an online talk, together with Leontine Meijer-van Mensch (Director of the Ethnological Museums in Leipzig, Dresden, Herrnhut). 

Panel discussion:

Memorylands We Live In. Part of the 'At a Distance' Series at the International Cultural Centre in Krakow

Join Sharon Macdonald (founder and director of CARMAH) and Maria Kobielska (Jagiellonian University in Krakow, Poland) on October 7, 2021, at 7 p.m., for a discussion of the memorylands we live in. The discussion will focus on Prof. Macdonald's acclaimed book 'Memorylands: Heritage and Identity in Europe Today' (2013), which has been translated into Polish by Robert Kusek and published the International Cultural Centre in Krakow.  

2020

Conference:

Digital Truth-Making. Ethnographic Perspectives on Practices, Infrastructures and Affordances of Truth-Making in Digital Societies

Over the last two decades, the ubiquity of digital infrastructures has brought about numerous drastic changes to a globalized world. One of the most pressing socio-political questions on a global scale is how digitization has changed the ways in which particular truths are enacted and established in everyday life. Following these and further examples, the 7th conference of the dgv-working group “Digitization in Everyday Life” at the Humboldt University of Berlin will examine concrete practices of digital truth-making. 

Seminar:

A digital museum of restitution

‘A digital museum of restitution’. Conversation with artist Emeka Ogboh. Centre for Anthropological Research on Museums and Heritage (CARMAH), Institute of European Ethnology, Humboldt-Universität zu Berlin/Germany. 22 January 2020.  

2019

Panel discussion:

Decolonising Islam in Museums

A discussion on decolonising Islam in museums with Mirjam Shatanawi (Reinwardt Academie, Amsterdam), Stefan Weber (Museum für Islamische Kunst (SMB/SPK), and Katarzyna Puzon (CARMAH). 

Conference:

The Trouble with Art (EASA Meeting)

On 21-22 September, Roger Sansi (Barcelona) and CARMAH research fellow Jonas Tinius organised the 2019 interim meeting of the Anthropology and the Arts (ANTART) Network, which they convened within the the European Association of Social Anthropologists (EASA). CARMAH was delighted to host the event, which was open to the public. 

Conference:

Queering Memory. Archives – Arts – Publicities

An International Conference on LGBTIQ+ Archives, Libraries, Museums and Special Collections. What does ‘queering memory’ mean under the political, social and cultural conditions of the present? How can the diversity of queer histories be made visible in these digitized times? ALMS 2019 Berlin will explore the potential of generating audiences for queer archives, libraries, museums and special collections, with a special focus on the arts and artistic interventions. 

Workshop:

ODDKIN°labs

ODDKIN°labs are prototype workshops that explore the Museum für Naturkunde Berlin by questioning objects, spaces and narratives with a transdisciplinary approach.  

Symposium:

Museums, Religion, and the Work of Reconciliation and Remembrance

In their collections and their buildings, museums often carry traces of religion, past and present, which they curate and narrate for diverse audiences. Increasingly, museums are called on to represent and acknowledge the politics embedded in these collections, whether by repatriating spiritually-charged objects acquired through colonial networks or by telling more complex stories of national histories of racism, antisemitism, and violence. 

Workshop:

Islam and Heritage in Europe

Convened by Katarzyna Puzon, the workshop brought together international scholars to discuss Islam and heritage in different parts of Europe and across various scales. 

2018

Conference:

Mediated Pasts – Popular Pleasures

Organized by Christoph Bareither and Ingrid Tomkowiak, the 5th conference of the dgv working group „Kulturen populärer Unterhaltung und Vergnügung” (www.kpuv.de) in cooperation with the Centre for Anthropological Research on Museums and Heritage (CARMAH) raises critical questions at the intersection of popular culture and memory/heritage studies. 

Symposium:

Anthropology, Art, and Alterity

Alterity describes the state of bring other or different. A concept entangling postcolonial critique with key debates around ontology, phenomenology, and anthropology. This symposium opens up discussions around alterity from the field between art and anthropology.  

CARMAH Research Encounter:

CARMAH Research Encounter #1

The research encounter features presentations on the three key areas of: Media, Affordances, and the Digital, Participation, Engagement, Activism & Collections, Colonialism, and the Curatorial. The event takes place at Berlin-Brandenburgische Akademie der Wissenschaften, Berlin 

Exhibition and Conference:

Dead Images. Facing the History, Ethics and Politics of European Skull Collections

On 28 June, the “Dead Images” exhibition opens with a conversation, facilitated by Sam Alberti (National Museums Scotland), between Tal Adler (Humboldt University of Berlin) and Charlotte Roberts (University of Durham). This will be followed by a one-day international conference on 29 June that brings together individuals concerned with collections of human skulls, including artists, archaeologists, historians, and anthropologists. 

Discussion:

On Common Grounds: Rethinking (Islamic) Heritage in Europe

This event uses the motto of the European Cultural Heritage Year 2018 – Sharing Heritage – to critically explore the role of “Islam” in discourses about Europe’s heritage. Discussions will involve the motivations and practices that shape and are shaped by these discourses. 

Department seminar series:

Conjunctures and Creations: Anthropological Transformations / Transforming Anthropology

This upcoming semester, CARMAH is hosting the department seminar series jointly with the Institute of European Ethnology. The series is organised by Jonas Tinius, Tahani Nadim, Sharon Macdonald and features a set of international speakers as well as roundtables, panels, masterclasses, and evening lectures on transformations of anthropology and anthropological transformations. Feel free to join on Tuesdays, 12:15 - 1:45 p.m. 

Public dialogue:

Gallery Reflection #4 Protesting Identities

Jonas Tinius, public discussion series "Gallery Reflections", #4 Protesting Identities with Dr Azadeh Sharifi (theatre scholar, LMU Munich), Natasha Ginwala (curator, Berlin), N.N. (tbc), and Dr Jonas Tinius (CARMAH, HU Berlin).  

Workshop:

Digital Memories

The workshop was a collaboration between CARMAH (Humboldt-Universität zu Berlin) and the Ludwig-Uhland-Institut für Empirische Kulturwissenschaft der Universität Tübingen. 

Workshop:

Dealing with Islam in Berlin's Museum Context

Organised by Katarzyna Puzon and Christine Gerbich, the workshop brought together researchers and practitioners to discuss and reflect upon the ways in which Islam is represented in different museum contexts. 

2017

Workshop:

Heritage, Religion, Authenticity, and Difference

Organized by Duane Jethro (CARMAH) and Abdoulaye Sounaye (ZMO), the workshop brought into conversation scholars working in different disciplines and a number of projects engaged with questions of material culture, religion, heritage and difference. 

Workshop:

TRACES Midterm Meeting

The meeting brought together all eleven TRACES partners to think through the concepts of “Contentious Heritage” and “Reflexive Europeanisation” as well as discuss the progress of each Creative Co-production and work package. 

Workshop:

Museums and Islam

One-day workshop at CARMAH, organised with the research team of the project "Museological Framings of Islam in Europe" (University of Gothenburg). 

2016