Radical futures? Museums, collectives and public(s) as places of intervention

In recent years, an increased focus on intervening practices has become visible in art and museum discourse and thus an urgent field to be studied from the perspective of European Ethnology (see the SFB 1512 Intervenierende Künste in Berlin). How can we envision, design, research and participate in radical futures – understood as alternative ways of living – simultaneously intervening in the existing systems of oppression? In this class, we will collectively address this question using theories and methods within the framework of anthropology of time (Chakkalakal), that analyze societal future-making and/as intervening into futures.  We will discuss questions such as: What are radical futures and how are they made? Which powerful social temporal orders exist and how can we conceptualize intervention in this context? How are futures intervened upon, how are they imagined? On the basis of that, we are interested in critical and collective practices which enable a decolonial, feminist form of social coexistence. We will inquire into their multitemporal entanglements of colonial pasts, postcolonial presences, or queer-feminist and decolonial futures. We will also think  about the correlations of engagement/involvement and “the public”. How is “the public” involved in such practices?

To address this, we will look at the basics of the concepts of intervention and future-making from a culture-analytical perspective, identify and examine specific examples of institutions (museums and artistic collectives with publics) which engage in these practices, and critically reflect on them. The working mode will follow a close examination of how these questions and dynamics are dealt with in curatorial practices in Berlin institutional and collective contexts (such as e.g., Museum für Naturkunde, WHW collective, Urania, HKW, Akademie der Künste).

The seminar is aimed at Bachelor students of European Ethnology and Gender Studies. The seminar literature will be reflected and discussed in small working groups to enable close reading of the texts and exchange between students. A common code of conduct will be established for interaction at the beginning of the seminar. Seminar languages will be German and English.