Verschwindende Vermächtnisse

Kuratorische Interventionen im Zoologischen Museum des Centrums für Naturkunde (CeNak), Hamburg

Abstract

What happens when different exhibition regimes meet in one curatorial space? In 2017, the exhibition Disappearing Legacies – The World as a Forest inserted thirteen positions by contemporary artists dealing with the destruction of tropical habitats in the Anthropocene into the Permanent Collection of the Zoological Museum Hamburg at the Centrum für Naturkunde (CeNak). This case study investigates the diverging mechanisms of agency in such a joint venture and examines the moments of contact in which the different narratives and scientific orderings of collection presentation on the one hand and temporary exhibition on the other intersect. The exhibition’s re-configuration of objects and discourses allows visitors to re-read both the exhibits and the archives and reveal – like clues in a forensic investigation – the colonial, historical, and political entanglements of the objects, and thereby to question established display strategies.