Open Heritage. Exploring Collections, Creating Futures
How does the collection of the Museum für Naturkunde Berlin become a globally accessible knowledge resource for the future? How can we reflect our museum work and scientific practices? How can our work contribute to a new relational ethic? How can we take responsibility for the political histories of the collection and, in doing so, develop collection futures accordingly?
The Open Heritage cluster brings together projects from across the MfN’s research areas that explore, access, and reflect on the collection in global contexts. It contributes to a profound reflection and transformation of the research museum in global contexts through innovative and collaborative research and digitization projects.
The work is based on a multi-perspective, interdisciplinary and cooperative exploration of past and present collecting practices. Our goal is to enable participation in the collection, to expand knowledge about the objects, and to place the collection of the Museum für Naturkunde in new contexts and forums for discussion. Here, Open Heritage also cooperates with the clusters AutoBio and NaturBerlin in order to examine and develop the sociohistorical contexts of biodiversity research and its social relations.