
Global Entanglements in the Collections of the University of Bonn
18.10.2024 – 30.09.2025
Photo by Julia Binter, 2024.
By Jun.-Prof. Dr. Julia Binter
The Exhibition ‘Global Entanglements in the Collections of the University of Bonn’ is the inaugural exhibition in the new exhibition space of the Global Heritage Lab at P26. It was curated in the summer semester of 2024 in the course ‘Curating in Practice’ under the direction of Jun.-Prof. Dr. Julia Binter. The aim of the course was to strengthen research into the histories of collecting and knowledge creation and to link historical phenomena with pressing matters of the present.
Co-curators: Dana Dierks, Jule Finke, Maximilian Heeb, Raquel Cortés Mora, Irina Pompé, Luisa Runden, Cihan Simsek, Lisa Wolf, Leonie Cecilia Pietrovicci, Hanna Bölck.

Curatorial Statement The University of Bonn has been global since it was founded. Its collections make the spatial and temporal entanglements particularly visible. The collections tell of the Cold War and the transatlantic enslavement trade. They fundamentally question our relationship to nature – from the naming of plants to the extraction of resources and its consequences for people and the environment. They invite us to reflect on how knowledge is created – from the excavation of dinosaurs in the 1820s to their representation in 3D today. How did ideas of the world and of the Self and the Other emerge in Europe? What stories can materials tell? The exhibition, curated with students, uses five collection items to scrutinise the European point of view expressed in the collections. It opens up the discussion to global perspectives and forms of knowledge. Join the discussion!

With Special Thanks to
Alma Hannig, Collection Coordinator of the University of Bonn
Prof. Dr. Karoline Noack, TRA Present Pasts, BASA-Museum
Dr. Daniel Grana-Behrens, BASA-Museum
Dr. Georg Heumann, Goldfuß Museum
Dr. Cornelia Löhne, Botanic Gardens
Prof. Dr. Harald Wolter-von dem Knesebeck, Paul-Clemen-Museum
Dr. Anne Zacke, Mineralogical Museum
Emilia Fernengel, Global Heritage Lab
Eleonora Grammatikou, Global Heritage Lab
Dr. Alejandro Mora Motta, Global Heritage Lab
Aline Rose Barbosa Pereira, Global Heritage Lab
Dr. John Kelechi Ugwuanyi, Global Heritage Lab
Helen Siegburg, Global Heritage Lab
Dr. Tobias Skowronek, Global Heritage Lab, Deutsches Bergbau-Museum Bochum
Nana Tsiklauri, Global Heritage Lab
Bonn Centre for Digital Humanities