Global Entanglements in the Collections of the University of Bonn

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.

Part of the exhibition ‘Global Entanglements in the Collections of the University of Bonn’. Photo: Julia Binter, 2024.




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!

Preparing the exhibition room. Photo by Aline R. Barbosa Pereira, 2024

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