20.04.2023 14:08
Colorful science
The collections of the Goethe University are testing ways of making collections from Africa more globally accessible / Opening of the exhibition “We are happy to see these things” and presentation of the “Open Africoll GU” project on April 27, 2023.
FRANKFURT. The discussion about how to deal with scientific collections from colonial contexts arrived in Germany at the latest with the planning and opening of the Humboldt Forum in Berlin. The strong focus on museums makes one forget that university collections also house objects from all over the world. In the three-way strategy adopted by the federal and state governments for dealing with collections from colonial contexts, transparency and an equal dialogue are the top priorities. At the Goethe University, several projects try to live up to this responsibility with different accents. Two projects funded by the Center for Interdisciplinary African Studies (ZIAF) will be presented on April 27, 2023 as part of an exhibition opening in the Schopenhauer Studio of the Johann Christian Senckenberg University Library.
Ausstellungseröffnung: „We are happy to see these things“
April 27, 2023, beginning at 6:00 p.m
University Library / Central Library – Schopenhauer Studio –
Bockenheimer Landstrasse 134-138, 60325 Frankfurt am Main
Lecture: Dr. Gertrud Boden
Project presentation: Dr. Judith Blume and Sebastian Burger
Duration of the exhibition: April 28 to May 14, 2023.
Organizer: University Library Johann Christian Senckenberg
Oswin-Köhler-Archiv, Institute for African Studies
“We are happy to see these things” – collaborations of the Oswin-Köhler-Archiv with Khwe from Namibia
The Oswin-Köhler-Archive at the Institute for African Studies at the Goethe University preserves and indexes academic legacies in the field of African Studies. A large part of the inventory consists of the research materials on the Khwe that the Africanist Oswin Köhler collected between 1959 and 1992 in what is now Namibia. Köhler’s aim was to document the Khwe culture as comprehensively as possible, which he saw as being threatened with extinction. He recorded thousands of texts for an original-language encyclopedia in book form, as well as films, photos and audio files. He also collected ethnographic objects, plant preparations and drawings. Anthropologist Gertrud Boden has traveled to Namibia several times since 2015 to work on and reflect on Köhler’s materials with members of the community of origin.
Thanks to funding from the ZIAF and the UBUNTU Foundation, it was possible to invite Thaddeus Chedau and Sonner Geria, two representatives of the Khwe, to Frankfurt for three weeks in autumn 2019 and to work with them on the archive’s historical inventory of objects. One result of this visit was an exhibition in the corridors of the Institute for African Studies, developed in cooperation with the collection coordinator Judith Blume. Gertrud Boden transformed the commented object arrangements into a traveling exhibition that was presented and discussed in different Khwe villages at the end of 2022: Which objects represent the “true” Khwe culture? How should objects be dealt with that have only become widespread in the recent past? And why are some central objects missing from Köhler’s collection? “The interest of young and older Khwe in the exhibition and the discussions made it clear to me once again how important Köhler’s documentation is for the cultural self-image of the Khwe,” says Gertrud Boden.
The cooperation will be continued: A DFG-funded project entitled “Potential of a Collection. Reading Traces, Perceiving Relationships and Sharing Together” will run until next year. Another visit by Khwe to Frankfurt is planned for August 2023. Still, there is time to pause. What were the challenges, what results could be achieved and what goals still need to be achieved? An exhibition entitled “We are happy to see these things”, which will be opened with a lecture by Gertrud Boden on April 27, 2023 at 6 p.m., provides insights into previous collaborations and the open questions.
Open Africoll
But how can African scientists and communities of origin even find out which objects are in collections in Europe? In order to come a step closer to the requirement of transparency, the collection coordination of the Goethe University carried out the project “Open Africoll. Collection items from Africa in the collections of the Goethe University”. The aim was to virtually bring together all the bundles of objects that come from or depict the African continent and are now at the Goethe University in one place and make them visible. It was not just about collections from colonial contexts. “Even if collections from colonial contexts require special processing, we are convinced that all other collections should also be made as accessible as possible,” explains Judith Blume.
The result of the six-month project is a website: www.open-africoll-gu.de. Not only are the individual collections presented here, but the bundles are also presented in such a way that a search for regions, people, object types, etc. is possible. “We have only taken the first step here,” says project worker Sebastian Burger. “We hope that many more projects can now be created on this basis.”
Scientific contact person:
dr Judith Blume, Coordinator of the University Collections, JC Senckenberg University Library, Bockenheimer Landstrasse 134-138, 60325 Frankfurt am Main, Tel: +49 (69) 798 39197, email: j.blume@ub.uni-frankfurt.de
dr Gertrud Boden, project assistant at the Oswin-Köhler-Archiv, phone: +49 (69) 798 28263, e-mail: Boden@em.uni-frankfurt.de
Additional Information:
Wirth, Staff Departments Personnel Development and Public Relations of the Library, Tel. +49 (69) 798 39223; Email: pr-team@ub.uni-frankfurt.de
