Ethnologisches Museum

Please note: From Monday, 5 May up to and including Wednesday, 7 May and from Monday, 12 May up to and including Friday, 16 May 2025, the exhibition areas of the Ethnologisches Museum on the 2nd floor of the Humboldt Forum will be closed due to maintenance work. The exhibition areas will be open from Thursday, 8 May up to and including Sunday, 11 May 2025.

Ethnologisches Museum

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Research partners at the storage facility in Berlin: Julia Binter, Jonathan Fine, Nehoa Kautondokwa and Cynthia Schimming with Uaṱunua in the Ethnologisches Museum storage facility in Berlin, film still from “Tracing Namibian-German Collaborations”, a film by Moritz Fehr © Staatliche Museen zu Berlin / Moritz Fehr
Research partners at the storage facility in Berlin: Julia Binter, Jonathan Fine, Nehoa Kautondokwa and Cynthia Schimming with Uaṱunua in the Ethnologisches Museum storage facility in Berlin, film still from “Tracing Namibian-German Collaborations”, © Staatliche Museen zu Berlin / Moritz Fehr
Projectiles belonging to Hassan bin Omari, ca. 1895. Inv. no. III E 4661 © Staatliche Museen zu Berlin Ethnologisches Museum / scan: Hendryk Ortlieb
Projectiles belonging to Hassan bin Omari, ca. 1895. Inv. no. III E 4661 © Staatliche Museen zu Berlin Ethnologisches Museum / scan: Hendryk Ortlieb
Index card of the “Mask of a Bird Monster”, ca. 1900. Recto of the historical object index card with the “Mask of a Bird Monster”, paper, inv. no. IV A 893 © Staatlichen Museen zu Berlin, Ethnologisches Museum / Scan: Annette Hlawa
Index card of the “Mask of a Bird Monster”, ca. 1900. Recto of the historical object index card with the “Mask of a Bird Monster”, paper, inv. no. IV A 893 © Staatlichen Museen zu Berlin, Ethnologisches Museum / scan: Annette Hlawa
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​​​​​​Postcolonial Provenance Research at the Humboldt Forum

Museum collections are the result of relationships. Provenance research makes the origins and relational histories behind the objects visible, and scrutinises the unequal power relationships that existed when the objects were acquired.

Bought, plundered, exchanged, donated, extorted, looted: the objects in the collections of the Ethnologischen Museums and the Museum für Asiatische Kunst  were acquired and appropriated in a whole range of ways. Accompanied by a booklet, both collections at the Humboldt Forum explore the objects, people and events to tell the stories that have shaped the relationships between human kind and objects.

Provenance research itself also builds relationships. Collaborative research and dialogue with people from the regions from which the objects originate can change our ideas about our shared past. Collectively confronting histories that are often violent can also create new ways of dealing with the objects in the future and new paths for postcolonial provenance research.

Monograph

power II relations. Postcolonial provenance research at the Humboldt Forum
© Staatlichen Museen zu Berlin, Humboldt Forum

power II relations. Postcolonial provenance research at the Humboldt Forum

Individual Objects at the Humboldt Forum

The following content is so far only available in German. A translation into English is in progress.

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