Muslim life has been part of European everyday cultures for centuries. But is this also reflected by the artefacts in the Museum Europäischer Kulturen’s (MEK, Museum of European Cultures) collection? What are these objects? What do they say about the people who made and used them, and about those who collected them?

Some of the answers to these questions are addressed in the installation Muslim InVisibilities, a temporary intervention in permanent exhibition Cultural Contacts. Living in Europe. The installation will change twice. More and more things and themes that touch on Muslim life in Europe become visible over time. In addition, an interactive station invites visitors to find and comment on cultural artefacts from the MEK collection that they themselves would choose to exhibit.

First Variation: Protective Things and Protecting Things

8 August – 10 November 2024

As part of the project “Muslim visibility in the museum. Traces of European Muslims in the MEK Collection”, we went in search of objects that have a connection to Muslim people in Europe. A selection of the items we found in storage is now on display. Most of these were brought to the MEK in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. They serve as small windows into the Muslim world of faith and life. All but one of the objects are inscribed or contain a reference to scripture. It seems to have been important to the makers and users of the objects – as an expression of religious or cultural affiliation, and as a means of protection or worthy of protection. In one way or another, many of the objects deal with preservation: protecting things and things that protect. They ask for divine protection of people while protecting other things. They point out that protection and safety are human needs.

Another highlight of the first variation are five short literary texts, each dedicated to one of the objects on display, contributed by political scientist, author and poet Ozan Zakariya Keskinkılıç from Berlin. Taken together, they form a story that sits between the autobiographical and the fictional. The story focuses on memories and rituals, on everyday life and dreams, in order to to look at these objects from a different, literary perspective and to question them about the past, present and future of Muslim life.

Second Variation

13 November 2024 – 26 January 2025

Third Variation

29 January – 13 April 2025

Event Programme

The installation will be accompanied by a series of events.

Curators

The exhibition Muslim InVisibilities. Three Variations of One Installation is curated by Nushin Atmaca and Susanne Boersma, research associates, Museum Europäischer Kulturen.

An intervention of the Museum Europäischer Kulturen – Staatliche Museen zu Berlin