The future of the ethnological museums has been examined and negotiated in workshops and discussion labs. Many of them have stirred up their dust in recent years, opening up and renaming themselves, working to create more transparency and to take part in the debates. But what comes next?
The GRASSI Museum für Völkerkunde zu Leipzig and the Schenkung Sammlung Hoffmann are saying: Don’t stop! We want to question, disrupt and shake up expectations, and above all never stop exploring the past, along with the structures of our thinking, working, collecting and classifying.
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In the context of the GRASSI Museum für Völkerkunde zu Leipzig, the ten selected works from the Schenkung Sammlung Hoffmann take on new meanings. Entered into this unfamiliar environment, they address— some of them with unmistakable clarity—the approachability or else reticence of museums and their collections. They ask: What are the criteria for the in- or exclusion of objects? What are the assessment categories? And how is it that the enquiring mind and the possessive mind tend to coalesce? They direct our attention to the interrelations between possession, property and belonging and to the distinction between what is “one’s own” and what is “foreign”. The object of the dialogue is to strive for a greater permeability and transparency of museum life— the institutions, spaces and categories at work in it. The tension created in the juxtaposition of the artworks opens up questions for discussion. With this dialogue, the museum is taking a further step toward “(Re)inventing Grassi 2023”.
