As a supplement to the project “EuropeTest” in November 2014, experts from museums and universities were invited to Berlin-Dahlem to take part in a symposium and comment on the exhibition project’s “European” approaches to the “extra-European” collections.

While the Ethnologisches Museum and the Museum für Asiatische Kunst begin the move to the Humboldt-Forum in Berlin-Mitte in 2017, the Museum Europäischer Kulturen will remain in Berlin-Dahlem. And yet: Europe is embedded in almost every one of the exhibition pieces destined for the Humboldt-Forum, including objects of extra-European origin in the Dahlem museums - not least in terms of their collection history. How can this “implicit” Europe find a narrative in the future Humboldt-Forum?

Or, even more fundamentally: if one begins with the assumption that Europe is merely one narration, a powerfully effective fiction, that can no longer claim its interpretative hegemony: what is Europe saying about itself, by collecting artifacts from all over the world and exhibiting those that are or were felt to be “exotic”? And as a consequence of that: how outmoded are categories like Europe itself or the division between “us” and the “others”?

These were questions the Symposium “EuropeTest – and now?” addressed in November 2014 in Berlin-Dahlem. An introduction into the current stage of planning in the Humboldt-Forum was followed by a presentation of the concept behind the Humboldt Lab Dahlem project “EuropeTest” by the curator Helmut Groschwitz. This was followed by a group tour of the exhibition intervention in the form of six “theme islands.”

One of the most pertinent questions to be asked of the European museums’ ethnological collections is doubtless that of who is speaking, suggested Dr. Bambi Ceuppens from the Royal Museum for Central Africa in Tervuren (Belgium) opening up the discussion. In her talk she was largely positive about the theme island “Europe collected.” Here, in this interposed narrative, the central focus was on processuality and the history behind the collections. The aim was to establish what the collections reveal about the subjective preferences and scientific constructions made by the collectors – in the case of the Dahlem Museums, Adolf Bastian and Rudolf Virchow, as well as about the museums through which they regularly wandered. At the same time Cueppens warned of one danger in connection with other exhibition interventions: concentrating too strongly on revealing European thinking patterns, ethno-romanticism or similar subjective projections in the presentation of extra-European artifacts, could easily lead to a relapse into colonial thinking patterns. The idea that there was nothing primordial in Africa and that everything came externally is certainly not new – and can appear very plausible if, alongside every object, you place a European parallel next to it, in order to suggest vague similarities, but without demonstrating concrete reciprocal influences.

“We have to give the exhibits their dignity back,” was a similar criticism made by Prof. Dr. Monica Juneja from the University of Heidelberg of the theme island “Provincializing Europe.” This juxtaposed the cultural hero Chibinda Ilunga – a central figure for the African Chokwe - with Napoleon Bonaparte in the context of the creation of world trade. “What does this comparison tell us,” she asked. And: “How can we let exhibition pieces speak for themselves and their history, despite the necessary contextualization?” With this position, Juneja explicitly countered those who are convinced one must deconstruct the museum as a 19th century invention or at least expand the collections with pop-cultural artifacts and contemporary art. Just as she argued against those who wish to send collections back to their places of origin or even blow up museums, as Prof. Dr. Klaas Ruitenbeek, the director of the Museum für Asiatische Kunst in Berlin-Dahlem, quipped with a slight melancholy undertone. All in all Juneja praised the initiative of viewing Europe as transcultural and “formed” from the start, and not as the cradle of civilization it was considered to be for so long.

The ethnologist and specialist on ancient America, Prof. Dr. Karoline Noack, from the University of Bonn and director of the Ancient American Collection in Bonn, expressed the wish for a more intensive questioning of “our way of seeing.” She also brought to discussion whether we can really differentiate between “negotiations, subversion, appropriation, as well as references to take-overs and impositions.” As an illustration she talked about material communication systems such as those used in the Andes, which don’t even merit a mention under the “very Eurocentric” label “Schrift und Zeichen Amerikas” (“Script and glyphs of the Americas”). Therefore she appealed for even more intensive “work on the burden of colonialism,” for more transparency, more consideration of historicity and the abolition of categories. With that in mind, she wished for more spatial flexibility for European interventions in the Humboldt-Forum than had been suggested by the exhibition “EuropeTest” - an issue that Prof. Dr. Elisabeth Tietmeyer, the director of the Museum Europäischer Kulturen, took up at the end of the panel discussion.

One major criticism of the exhibition interventions raised during the discussion concerned not the content but the question of who the target audience was. “Not sufficiently targeted,” or “still too encyclopedic,” commented Dr. Schoole Mostafawy from the Badisches Landesmuseum Karlsruhe and Dr. Klas Grinell from Världskulturmuseerna in Göteborg. Schoole Mostafawy advocated “more eye-level” contact with future visitors and, in order to achieve this, the pursuing of more narratives in order to establish increased contemporary relevance and, for example, to enter into a dialog with contemporary art.

Klas Grinell however, felt that instead of an exhibition of a single region or a continent, it would be preferable to find a single specific argument for which one could gather enough examples, and which wouldn’t necessarily have to be presented in a multi-medial form. The issue at hand was the relinquishing of Eurocentric concepts of the world, as expressed in land maps and maritime charts, in favor of new world concepts. Grinell, as well as Mostafawy, reminded us that it was about gaining an audience and having an effect on them. Visitors to the Humboldt-Forum in Berlin-Mitte will be mainly tourists, many of them young and pop-culturally oriented.

A large proportion of Germans play video games every day, Prof. Dr. Wolfgang Kaschuba, from the Humboldt-Universität zu Berlin, reminded the public: “Are you aware of the ethnicizations and stereotypes, used in the Star Wars games, for example?” But how “can a society deal with postcolonial themes, if it is hardly aware of its colonial past?” Bambi Ceuppens was not the only person to ask herself. Only Prof. Dr. Dieter Kramer, from the University of Vienna, saw this as false alarmism. The museum and its staff had their own voice and could raise issues for discussion. The museum as an institution, would continue to address itself not solely to “current visitors” at its new site, but also remain a “public cultural realm” which, as in the past, would continue to seek the “contemplative activity” of a museum visit – even in a world of global challenges that were “as chaotic” as they are today.

Translated from German by Galina Green

Susanne Messmer is editor at the taz, die tageszeitung Berlin.

Link Program Symposium “EuropeTest – and now?”

The symposium “EuropeTest – and now?” took place on November 8, 2014 at the Dahlem Museums as part of the “EuropeTest” project.

Participants:
Bambi Ceuppens (Royal Museum for Central Africa, Tervuren)
Klas Grinell (Världskulturmuseerna, Göteborg)
Helmut Groschwitz (Concept EuropeTest, Berlin)
Martin Heller (Content planning Humboldt-Forum, Berlin)
Monica Juneja (Global Arts Studies, Universität Heidelberg)
Wolfgang Kaschuba (Europäische Ethnologie, Humboldt Universität Berlin)
Dieter Kramer (Völkerkundemuseum Frankfurt)
Léontine Meijer-van Mensch (Museum Europäischer Kulturen, Berlin)
Schoole Mostafawy (Badisches Landesmuseum Karlsruhe)
Karoline Noack (Altamerikanistik und Ethnologie, Universität Bonn)
Bettina Probst (Stabsstelle Humboldt-Forum, Berlin)
Klaas Ruitenbeek (Museum für Asiatische Kunst, Berlin)
Elisabeth Tietmeyer (Museum Europäischer Kulturen, Berlin)

Concept of the symposium: Helmut Groschwitz