Europe Reloaded / Coordination of the new (semi-)permanent exhibition
Museum Europäischer Kulturen, Berlin, DE
Ongoing process
The Museum Europäischer Kulturen currently presents its collection through different thematic foci in its permanent exhibition ‘Cultural contacts – Living in Europe’. The exhibition touches upon a lot of themes that are relevant today, but leaves out others that have gained attention in previous years. Together with the full team of curatorial staff and educators, I am working towards a new (semi-)permanent exhibition to reflect everyday life in Europe.
Document Scotland: Reflections on a Changing Country
Museum Europäischer Kulturen, Berlin, DE
August 2022 – Nov 2022
For the 18th European Cultural Days, the Museum Europäischer Kulturen presented the country of Scotland. The temporary exhibition offered a window into the nation’s culture and heritage through photographs by the collective ‘Document Scotland’. Scottish-born photographers Sophie Gerrard, Stephen McLaren, Colin McPherson and Jeremy Sutton-Hibbert examine themes of belonging and history, as well as the diversity of community life across the country. Their contemporary photographs reveal both relatively unknown struggles and celebrated traditions.
Motion Detector No. 19: Here to stay or here to go?
Museum Europäischer Kulturen, Berlin, DE
January 2022 – March 2022
In the Motion Detector, the MEK showed objects from the collection as well as loans related to topics that currently move people in Europe. The small exhibition is on display in the museum’s foyer. The 19th Motion Detector dealt with disposable packaging for (hot) drinks and food.
Murcia: In Europe’s Garden
Museum Europäischer Kulturen, Berlin, DE
August 2021 – February 2022
The exhibition Murcia: In Europe’s Garden linked Murcia’s past and present. Documentary photographs of European and non-European immigrants shed light on the subject of migration in Murcia. A joint project with local residents brought forth personal objects that provide insights into everyday life in the region. Students from the University of Murcia created short films to make the area not only visible but audible as well. Historical photographs from the Museum Europäischer Kulturen (MEK) collection and the Ibero-Amerikanisches Institut (IAI, Ibero-American Institute) augmented the exhibition.
Murcia: In Europe’s Garden was created in collaboration with Centre for European Studies (CEEUM) at the University of Murcia and the Sociedad Murciana de Antropología.
What’s wrong with this picture?
AVL Mundo, Rotterdam, NL
September 2018
The group exhibition, ‘What’s wrong with this picture’, put forward the assumptions and prejudice about those who are different from us, while pointing out the seemingly irreversible structures within our society. The artists in this exhibition, Mike Bouchet, Libia Castro & Ólafur Ólafsson, Riley Harmon and Atelier Van Lieshout, highlighted the gap between the dream and the reality of equality, each focusing on different examples of discrepancies between what is and what could be. The combination of these works, both exhibited in one space ánd presented on their own, created a sense of an unreal reality that triggers action rather than words.
Back to the Future?!
AVL Mundo, Rotterdam, NL
February 2018
The exhibition presented different visions for the future, through work by artists Carlijn Kingma, Kasey Short and Atelier Van Lieshout. The exhibition, which contained mostly new work, discussed the current issues regarding migration, religion, political conflict and cultural appropriation. Cultural constructs, such as time and religion, have become part of our past, but the question remains if and in what way they should be part of our collaborative future. Concepts that we consider to be true are questions by the three selected artists. Kasey Short, Carlijn Kingma and Atelier Van Lieshout each drew from their own perspective as they examined these themes and the role of mankind therein.
Sculpture Park Hill Launch
S1 Artspace, Sheffield, UK
September 2017
On Saturday 30th September, S1 Artspace officially launched its second phase at Park Hill with the opening of Sculpture Park Hill. An exhibition was put up for a one-day event with works by Keith Wilson, archival images and video footage of Park Hill.
A diagram of forces
University of Dundee, Dundee, UK
September 2017 – March 2019
This exhibition celebrated the centenary of D’Arcy Thompson’s ‘On Growth and Form’ with works by artist Andy Lomas and research by computational physicist Rastko Sknepnek. Inspired by the shared view on “the perfection of mathematical beauty”, Lomas explored the natural processes of growth creating forms that reveal close relations to the research carried out at the School of Life Sciences. These “spheres of action” visualise growth, much like the active particles that can be seen in the renders by Sknepnek. In the project, Sknepnek was asked to comment on what the forms of Lomas’ works might convey. Thoughts from Sknepnek and D’Arcy Thompson were combined to show the interaction between forces in science as well in as art.
Silent Signal
LifeSpace Science Art Research Gallery, Dundee, UK
September 2016 – November 2016
This exhibition was the result of a project in which artists working with animation were brought together with six biomedical scientists, initiated by Animate Projects. Six video animation artworks represented a more scientific perspective on topics such as immunology, diseases, genetics, cells and sleeplessness, aiming to generate new ways of thinking about the human body. The works by boredomresearch (AfterGlow), Genetic Moo (Battle of Blister), Eric Schockmel (Immunecraft), Samantha Moore (Loop), Charlie Tweed (The Signal and the Noise) and Ellie Land (Sleepless) were created especially for Silent Signal. Their works all take on a very different form of animation art to be sometimes explanatory, while at other times being rather playful or abstract.
Silent Signal was originally devised and produced by Animate Projects with scientist Bentley Crudgington and supported by a Wellcome Trust Large Arts Award and the Garfield Weston Foundation. The exhibition was reconfigured to present the new works next to objects from the museum collection of the University of Dundee.
PrintRoomDundee
Tower Foyer Gallery, University of Dundee, Dundee, UK
September 2016 – October 2016
This exhibition presented work by a new Dundee-based print group, PrintRoomDundee, and is the first one they have staged in their home city.
PrintRoomDundee brings together both well-established and emerging artists, many of whom are graduates from Duncan of Jordanstone College of Art & Design. All of the group’s printmakers use the facilities of the DCA Print Studio, the successor to the original Dundee Printmakers Workshop founded in 1977.
The exhibition showed a wide variety of styles, themes and printmaking techniques, and includes work by Allan Beveridge, Lara Scouller, John Johnstone, Liz Myhill, Bill Taylor, Christine Goodman, Reinhard Behrens, Jean Duncan and many others. You can find out more about the members of PrintRoomDundee and see examples of their work at http://www.printroomdundee.scot
The Nature of Change
Attenborough Arts Centre, Leicester, UK
March 2016 – May 2016
The exhibition brought together sculpture, drawing, sound, poetry and painting to explore change in relation to sustainability, human intervention and the natural life cycle. Works by three artists, Jonjo Elliot, Helen Jayne Gunn and Darren O’Brien, evoke the complex relationship between human experience and the natural world. Their works took us through water and across land, via trees and through mud, to consider the connection between our own immediate surroundings and global environmental concerns.
‘The Nature of Change’ was a collaboration between Fine Art at DeMontfort University and the School of Museum Studies, University of Leicester.
Susanne Boersma | Curator and researcher 