2014, 16th-17th June 2015, Hochschule für Bildende Künste, Dresden
Organised by Petra Lange-Berndt & Dietmar Rübel
This conference will seek an overview of current debates and of artistic and curatorial strategies concerning the wunder kammer. The contemporary version of the cabinet of curiosi ties is a machine for alternative world views, because inquiring minds and the thirst for knowledge cannot be tamed. What are the curiosities of the 21st century? Who are the freaks, what the monstrosities and where the mirabilia of the digital age? What are the politics, ideologies and dynamics of today’s Kunst- and Wunderkammer?
Participants: Georges Adéagbo (Cotonou, Hamburg), Gabriele Bäßler (Köln), Nike Bätzner (Halle), Mark Dion (New York), Marion Endt-Jones (Manchester), Nadine Engel (Paris, Genf), Robert Felfe (Hamburg), Matthias Flügge (Berlin, Dresden), Helen Gregory (Western Ontario), Ulrike Grossarth (Dresden), Stephan Köhler (Cotonou, Hamburg), Verena Kuni (Frankfurt am Main), Isabelle Lindermann (Berlin, Dresden), Rosamond Purcell (Cambridge, Mass.), Donna Roberts (Helsinki), Dirk Syndram (Dresden), Bettina Uppenkamp (Dresden), Sarah Wade (London), Jane Wildgoose (London), Robert Williams (Lancester)
Image: Rosamond Purcell: Reconstruction of the Museum Ole Worm Based on Frontispice to His Catalogue, 1655, Museum of History of Science, Harvard University 2004