Muslim InVisibilities

Muslim life has been part of European everyday cultures for centuries. But is this also reflected by the artefacts in MEK’s collection? What are these objects? What do they tell us about the people who made and used them, and about those who collected them?

Some of the answers to these questions are addressed in the installation Muslim InVisibilities, a temporary intervention in the permanent exhibition Cultural Contacts. Life in Europe. The installation will change twice. More and more things and themes that touch on Muslim life in Europe will be made visible over time. In addition, an interactive station invites visitors to find and comment on cultural artefacts from the MEK collection that they would like to exhibit themselves.

First Variation: Protective Things and Protecting Things

08.08.2024 to 10.11.2024

As part of the project “Muslim visibility in the museum. Traces of European Muslims in the MEK Collection”, we went in search of objects connected to Muslim people in Europe. A selection of the items we found in the depots is now on display. Most of these were brought to the MEK at the end of the nineteenth and the beginning of the twentieth century. They serve as small windows into the Muslim world of faith and life. All but one of the objects are inscribed or contain a reference to scripture. It seems to have been important to the makers and users of the objects: as an expression of religious or cultural affiliation, and as a means of protection or worthy of protection. In one way or another, many of the objects deal with preservation: protecting things and things that protect. They ask for divine protection of people, and they protect other things. They point to protection and safety as a human need.

Another highlight of the first variation are five short literary texts, each dedicated to one of the objects on display, contributed by political scientist, author and poet Ozan Zakariya Keskinkılıç from Berlin. Taken together, the chapters make up a story that sits between the autobiographical and the fictional. The story offers insight into memories and rituals, the familial everyday and dreams, whilst proposing a different, literary perspective. At the same time, it questions the objects about the history, present and future of Muslim life.

Second Variation

13.11.2024 to 26.01.2025

Third Variation

29.01.2025 to 13.04.2025

Event Programme

The installation will be accompanied by a series of events.

Curators

The exhibition Muslim InVisibilities. Three Variations of One Installation is curated by Nushin Atmaca and Susanne Boersma, Research Associates, Museum Europäischer Kulturen.

An intervention of the Museum Europäischer Kulturen der Staatlichen Museen zu Berlin