Participation, Provenance, Presentation

Each LAB prepares a presentation that is shown in the form of small exhibitions in the LAB room on the first floor or in the permanent exhibitions.

Like many ethnological museums, the Linden-Museum is undergoing a process of transformation. In an increasingly diverse society, we must renegotiate the role and relevance of ethnological museums. The support provided through the Initiative for Ethnological Collections enables us to experimentally develop the basis for a new orientation. Following the principle of the laboratory, we develop and test new forms of museum knowledge production, mediation, and presentation in eight LindenLABs.

Selected collections and objects help us to address different aspects of social inequality and the effects of (post-)colonial structures in museums. Some of the LABs work on questions using a regional example, others focus on the work behind the scenes. All LABs deal with overarching themes: practices of ethnographic collecting, colonial structures and their aftermath in the present, the distribution of authority for interpretation in museums, and the role of ethnological museums today. For this purpose, we combine participatory formats with research on the origin of the collections in order to reveal and reflect on their entanglements. In this way, an innovative and experimental space is created in the museum, which enables an intensive exchange with actors - representatives of the source communities, members of the diverse urban society of Stuttgart, scientists, artists and designers.

Together we question existing structures from within and create multi-voiced presentations. This experimental and procedural approach also means that any conclusions reached can change over the course of the project, as we repeatedly review and advance what we have learnt and experienced. The process and results will be presented from spring 2020 onwards. Ultimately, the results will also be incorporated into new permanent exhibitions. They form the basis for the new museum concept in a future new building.


The following LAB exhibitions are currently on view:

LAB 1: Museums and indigenous communities: New forms of cooperation
Focus: Kayan/Kayaw (Myanmar)
since 26 February 2020 in the permanent exhibition South/Southeast Asia

LAB 3: Across Time, Place and People
Whakawhānaungatanga – Connecting taonga Māori
11 December 2022 - 25 June 2023 in the LAB room

LAB 6: Trails from the Storage. Searching Histories’ Futures
Focus: Cameroon, Bertram Collection
1 July 2022 - 25 June 2023 in the LAB room

LAB 7: El "buen vivir" mapuche - What is a "good life"?
9 December 2022 - 25 June 2023 in the LAB room

LAB 8: What remains?
Insights for the Future of the Linden-Museum
11 December 2022 - 25 June 2023 at various locations in the permanent exhibitions


Past projects within the framework of the LindenLAB:

LAB 2: New ways to mediate provenance research
Exemplified by the collection areas selected for the LABs
26 June 2020 - 30 January 2022

LAB 4: Entangled: Stuttgart - Afghanistan
Relationships in the past and present
30 March 2021 - 16 October 2022

LAB 5: (in) relationships
challenging / (un)learning / breaking open
30 March 2021 - 16 October 2022

International Conference "The New Museum"
28/29 February 2020
An insight into the public conference is provided by the conference report and recordings of individual contributions on our Youtube channel.


Further information on www.lindenlab.de

The LindenLAB is funded by the Ethnological Collections Initiative of the German Federal Cultural Foundation.