Queering the museum? – An anthropological toolkit for intersectional relation-building in the arts

• Applicant: Dr. Isabel Bredenbröker
• Subject Area: African, American and Oceania Studies ; Social and Cultural Anthropology and Ethnology
• Term: since 2022
• Project identifier: Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft (DFG) - Project number 497230234

This project seeks to develop theoretical and applied approaches informed by the anthropology of art and kindship, queer studies and museum studies in order to understand and co-create queer (non-normative) relations around ancestor-like objects in the Africa collection of the Berlin Ethnological Museum. Taking an approach that combines theoretical reflection from anthropology with artistic and curatorial practice, this project will formulate a queer methodology that informs and instructs the analysis and the creation of new relations around artworks and ‘ethnographic’ objects, queer here relating to non-normative kinds of relations that are of vital importance for decolonization in the arts and the museum. My study provides a toolkit for making and analysing queer relations around ethnographic and art objects – relations that subvert established categories and create intersectional conversations. The result offers an alternative transfer-format in the light of highly politicized questions around ethnographic collections. One element of this toolkit consists of in-depth engagement with theories. I will develop a new methodology based on queer theory and anthropological thought, especially the work of anthropologist Alfred Gell. Another element of the toolkit consists of observation and practice as a combined way of doing research and creating artworks / exhibitions. In line with a current shift away from clear-cut roles in research, participant observation as the classic anthropological method is augmented by collaborative participation and observation with curatorial and artistic practitioners. Possible outcomes may be an exhibition, artworks, interviews, podcasts, film or other related formats of science communication and transfer. These formats can be tested at a smaller scale during these two years and be taken to a bigger scale in the follow-up period. The project seeks to foster an active dialogue with curatorial and artistic practitioners and to understand and test out their agency in creating new ways of engaging with artworks. With these objectives, the project develops a novel approach on an interdisciplinary level and will be of use for engaged artistic practitioners and institutions who aim to decolonize and reconfigure the relations they are enmeshed within. As a research project rooted in academic discourse and engagement with theory, it will result in several articles that speak to an interdisciplinary audience and academics and formulates the methodological background. The long-term perspective is to write a collaborative monograph with other participants of the project. The theoretical and written work will bring the largely unconnected fields of queer theory and the anthropology of art in conversation and further thought beyond disciplinary lines.

• DFG Programme: WBP Position