On Display - with Friedrich von Bose

How does the act of displaying items allow us to reassess our connection to the past and guide us towards new futures? In this episode, we will explore the concept of display, which includes the showcasing of images, objects, ideas, and bodies in museums and beyond. Our guest is Dr. Friedrich von Bose, Director of the Museum der Kulturen Basel, who merges imaginative approaches with scholarly research and curatorial practice. His academic and curatorial work has primarily focused on the political implications of display concerning colonialism, racism, and the future of anthropology museums. As a cultural anthropologist and former curator at the Humboldt Forum, von Bose has also served as a Senior Researcher and Lecturer at the Institute of Social Anthropology and Empirical Cultural Studies at the University of Zurich, concentrating on the History and Theory of Museum Ethics since 2023. Before this, he oversaw research and exhibitions at the three ethnological museums of the State Ethnographic Collections of Saxony (State Art Collections Dresden): the Grassi Museum of Ethnology in Leipzig, the Museum of Ethnology Dresden, and the Ethnology Museum Herrnhut, where he was responsible for the long-term strategic development of research and exhibition programs. 

von Bose’s publications include:

Researching Colonial Provenances. Final Report of the Project “Provenance of Colonial-Era Collections from Togo in the Museum für Völkerkunde Dresden and the GRASSI Museum für Völkerkunde zu Leipzig”, (2024)

“Concerning curatorial practice in ethnological museums. An epistemology of postcolonial debate” in: Conal McCarthy, Philipp Schorch (Eds.): Curatopia. Museums and the future of curatorship (2019)

Das Humboldt-Forum. Eine Ethnografie seiner Planung  (2016) 

“The making of Berlin‘s Humboldt-Forum. Negotiating history and the cultural politics of place” (2013)

Host: George Paul Meiu, Professor of Anthropology and Chair of the Institute of Social Anthropology at the University of Basel.

Production: Zainabu Jallo (Institute of Social Anthropology) in

collaboration with the New Media Center at the University of Basel.