Beitrag von Jugend- & Kulturprojekt e.V. (JKPeV)

"Museums have continually developed since their creation. Today's museum landscape offers various interest groups a variety of points of contact. For those concerned with history and education, museum exhibitions serve an important educational role. Feminist interest in museums lies in their potential to present the past and present in an inclusive manner and to convey a sense of non-territorial cultures or to strengthen transnational identities between states and their people. The former is of particular interest to liberal feminists who criticize the underrepresentation of women and call for reform of socio-political institutions that embody male privilege." Read more about how museums are an important element of (feminist) foreign policy agendas, in this blog written by Neha Khetrapal, Associate Professor at Jindal Institute of Behavioural Sciences (JIBS). Titled 'Can museums be an integrative part of (feminist) foreign policy?', the work is supported by the JGU Research Grant for the Project, “New Ammunitions for the Future: Material Culture and Transitional Justice.

Es ist beschämend, noch einmal deutlich auf eigentlich Selbstverständliches hinweisen zu müssen. Die Remigrationsfantasien einiger weit rechtsaußen stehender für sich genommen sind schon besorgniserregend. Dass nicht ausgeschlossen ist, dass ein Mensch, der rechtssicher als Faschist bezeichnet werden darf, zum Jahresende Ministerpräsident unseres Bundeslandes werden und die Fieberträume einiger ewiggestriger Extremisten Realität werden lassen könnte, macht mir Angst. Wenn ich heute durch Weimar laufe, sehe ich an so vielen Stellen Bereicherung durch Menschen, die augenscheinlich nicht bereits in der unendlichsten Generation “deutsch” sind (was auch immer das überhaupt genau heißen soll). Alleine unser großartiges Team bei Converia GmbH besteht zu einem guten Fünftel aus Menschen, die nicht in Deutschland geboren wurden. Und falls dieser Remigrationswahn bis in die letzte Konsequenz gedacht ist, blieben wohl nur noch einzelne Kolleg:innen am Standort Weimar übrig: Die "Wessis" zurück in den Westen, die Sachsen zurück nach Sachsen und auch ich müsste vermutlich in mein Heimatherzogtum zurück ziehen. Gute Nacht! 🌚 Damit dieser gefährliche Quatsch nicht Wirklichkeit wird, ist das Mindeste, das wir tun können, die Initiative für ein Weltoffenes Thüringen zu unterstützen und wo immer es geht deutlich zu machen, dass die große Mehrheit der Thüringer für die im Grundgesetz verankerten Rechte und Werte von Menschlichkeit, Rechtsstaat und Demokratie einstehen — und dem Rest zu zeigen, wie grau, trist und arm unser Land wäre, wenn wir wieder anfangen würden, Mauern und Zäune um uns herum zu errichten.

Der Jahresbericht 2023 unserer Stiftung für Kulturelle Weiterbildung und Kulturberatung ist da!

Save Oyoun. Protect Artistic Freedom! Over the last days and weeks our work has changed abruptly. Instead of planning and implementing an extensive cultural programme for 2024 and 2025, we are now facing the immediate withdrawal of the €1 million in annual funding, which we need to pay our 32-strong team a salary, and the consequential closure of Oyoun. On 20 November 2023, we only found out by chance, via the livestream of the cultural committee meeting, that Berlin's Senator for Culture Joe Chialo (CDU) was going to close Oyoun and that we would have to vacate our community space in Lucy-Lameck-Str. within five weeks. Our request for access to the files, which was communicated directly after the committee meeting, has remained unanswered to this day and there is a fundamental rejection of constructive dialogue on the part of the Senate of Culture. However, the legal report by Myrsini Laaser (lawyer for criminal and migration law) indicates that our 4-year project funding (2022-2025) is a binding commitment and that the funding will not expire in December 2023. We are confident and will defend ourselves against this arbitrary decision. We are now dependent on your support in order to at least cope with the high legal and court fees that lie ahead of us. Your support not only means supporting the fight for the existence of Oyoun, but also stands for the protection of freedom of expression and artistic freedom in Germany. Every contribution, big or small, makes a difference. The Senate is trying to make an example of us and thus set a long-term negative perspective for future cultural policy. We will challenge this, for all of us, and demand compliance with the law. Together we can show that our #Oyounity as an international community is strong enough to defend itself against the arbitrary decisions of Berlin's cultural policy representatives. Every euro you donate will go directly towards the necessary legal steps we need to take. Let's fight together for the future of Oyoun and make sure that the voices of the many are not silenced. Many of you have asked how you can best help us: Here comes a concrete measure. If you are unable to donate yourself, you can talk to friends and acquaintances about the events, follow our channels and share this campaign. Please find our gofundme and and more background information here: https://lnkd.in/dDk_v5nA Your solidarity means a lot to us - thank you! Warmest, The Oyoun Team

Ich freue mich, dass die Deutsche Nationalbibliothek Teil der Kampagne #WeiterWissen des Deutscher Bibliotheksverband e.V. (dbv) ist. Besser als Gaul Jens-Peter kann man es kaum formulieren „Wissenschaftliche Bibliotheken sind Motor für eine offene Wissenschaft und Gesellschaft. Gemeinsam stellen sie die zentralen Informationsinfrastrukturen der Wissenschaft und treiben diese kontinuierlich voran. Die Themen Open Access, Forschungsdatenmanagement, Kulturelles Erbe oder digitale Langzeitarchivierung sind ohne die verlässlichen Leistungen der wissenschaftlichen Bibliotheken nicht zu gestalten. Und gerade in Zeiten, in denen gesellschaftliche Verunsicherungen und Desinformationsversuche zunehmen, sind Bibliotheken Garanten des freien Zugangs zu unabhängig geprüftem und faktenbasiertem Wissen. Sie gewährleisten somit freie Wissenschaft, Bildung und Kultur.“ https://lnkd.in/et-UkNYM

Subotic, J. (2023). Scholars and the politics of international art restitution. Contemporary European History, 32(1), 33-37. Extract: Almost every week brings news of another major European museum agreeing to return looted art. Since the 2000s we have grown somewhat accustomed to the headlines describing a ceremonial return to its original owners of a painting looted in the Holocaust, a process that took decades to develop and was initially met with considerable resistance in the art world and in the countries where this art was displayed. In the past few years, however, building in part on the perceived success of Holocaust art restitution but also on the increased visibility and impact of national and global social movements demanding racial justice and institutional decolonization, major international museums have come under ever stronger pressure to return art looted as part of colonial occupations. Perhaps the most organized of the current campaigns is the campaign to return the so-called ‘Benin Bronzes’ – a vast collection of various artifacts looted from the Kingdom of Benin (in today's Nigeria) and dispersed across major international museums, most prominently the British Museum in London, the Ethnological Museum in Berlin, and the Musée du quai Branly in Paris, among others. Since 2020, many museums have pledged to return their holdings of Benin Bronzes and restitute them in Nigeria, where a major new museum is being built to display them in Benin City. All of this activity has also reenergized perhaps the most famous case for restitution – the movement to return the Parthenon ‘Elgin’ marbles from the British Museum to the Acropolis in Athens.

Europa verstehen und lieben lernen Das ist der Titel meines neuesten Buches, unter dem Zeitdruck der Europawahlen vorerst nur privat gedruckt und erhältlich. Quintessenz: Wenn sich Europa einen starken Rechtsruck erlaubt, dann hat die EU vor allem auf kultureller Ebene Handlungsbedarf; nur so wird Gemeinsinn und Solidarität entwickelt. Abstract zu dem Buch unter https://lnkd.in/d-dGKdr4 bzw. https://lnkd.in/dYNwTUgS 

My fellow art lovers: do you agree that the story of Sir Mark Jones, the former interim director of The British Museum, proposing paid entry to the museum for 'foreigners,' is just another case of the media trolling the public with outrageous ideas? Basically, in a recent interview (https://shorturl.at/5pAkB), 'Sir Mark' proposed a £20 entry fee for foreign visitors to the Museum (as well as to the National Gallery and Science Museum). The entry would still be free for Brits and for under 25 years old. The proposal was raised in the context of the discussion on the need to carry out a major refurbishment of the Museum, with estimated to cost between £400 - £500 million. The real kicker: this money would supposedly fund a partnership with Greece over the Parthenon Marbles! I have been pretty outraged by this morally reprehensible proposal. I admit I was fuming. First, many artefacts in the British Museum were acquired through colonial exploitation or looting - from the Marbles to the Benin Bronzes. Charging descendants of those cultures to view their own heritage is like charging someone to visit the storage unit where their stolen property is kept. It adds insult to injury. Also, no idea how would such a scheme be enforced. How would museum staff determine who's "foreign" and who's not?  There is no national ID card in the UK and the country doesn't require people to carry an ID. It would create a huge scope for discrimination. But since the British Museum was not behind this idea, I started to wonder whether Sir Mark was just playing the media game. And that instead of a genuine attempt at solving the museum's finances, this was a calculated move to keep the British Museum in the public eye. The media love a good controversy, and what could be more controversial than charging foreigners to see artefacts that were stolen in the first place? The timing of the interview was suspiciously convenient too. With ongoing debates about the repatriation of artefacts and the museum's funding sources (hello, BP donation controversy!), this could be a clever distraction tactic. Get everyone arguing about entry fees, and suddenly the bigger issues fade into the background. Perhaps that is the problem, not the attention-grabbing proposal. It distracts from the real issues at hand - issues of ethics, education, inclusivity, and cultural responsibility. Instead of asking who should pay the entry fees, we should ask questions such as: how should a major cultural institution in the UK - such as the British Museum - evolve to meet the challenges of the 21st century? How can it address the colonial past while shaping a more equitable future? How can it truly serve as a "museum of the world and for the world," as it claims to be? These are the topics I would like the media to ask people like Sir Mark! Everything else is just noise. #UK #media #trolling #art #culture #artisticexpression #accesstoart #controversy #BritishMuseum #freespeech

For a long time, I believed Germany had no significant colonial past, unlike the US, Britain, France or Portugal. Living here, my belief was reinforced by the culture of 'ownership of past' I'd admired and which seemed uniquely German, a stark contrast to the America I grew up in. It seemed there was no colonial history. It seemed, at least with this, Germany’s hands were clean. But there are always lessons, wisdom and clarity in our histories, when we look deep enough. Today, November 15, marks 139 years since the Berlin Conference of 1884–1885, where the great European powers and the US, under Chancellor Otto von Bismarck's leadership, divided the African continent. This resulted in 90% of Africa being under European control by 1901, up from just 10% in 1870, and positioned Germany as the third-largest colonial power on the continent by the onset of World War I. There’s more. During this time, German Carl Hagenbeck pioneered the inhumane 'human zoos’, exhibiting Africans alongside wild animals. These exhibitions, starting in Hamburg, became an exceedingly successful enterprise across Europe and the US, drawing audiences in the hundreds of thousands. Today, Tierpark Hagenbeck in Hamburg still stands as an official monument of the city. Germany's colonial impact extended to the development of concentration camps as early as 1904 in Africa. 'Shark Island' in present-day Namibia was also where German scientists conducted medical experiments on native Africans, a precursor to the horrors of the Holocaust. Germany played no small role in colonial times. As the diplomatic scale bearer, overseer of 14 million Africans and ‘media house’ for how the average European perceived Africa, I’d call Germany’s position one of *significant* influence. Why does this matter now? Recognizing and understanding Germany's significant colonial role is not merely about correcting the record; it's essential for confronting and remedying the enduring inequalities and biases in our world, and specifically within Germany and its relation and responsibility to Africa today. As we approach the 140th anniversary of the Berlin Conference, I envision a new convening, not to divide, but to heal. This gathering could bring together leaders from Africa and Europe, historians, activists, and descendants of those affected by colonialism. Its agenda could focus on acknowledging historical truths, discussing reparations and fostering cultural and educational exchanges aimed at healing the wounds of the past. Such a convening would not only symbolize reconciliation but also lay the groundwork for tangible actions (e.g. scholarship programs, cultural initiatives, policy reforms) that honor Germany and Africa’s shared history and pave the way for a future that is deeply empathic of where we have come from. Image credit: Africa's many nations before and after the scramble for Africa. 'Somebody500 - Own work, CC BY-SA 4.0'

Ein Plan mit Ideen