Round Table: New Ways of Collecting – Future Prospects for Museums

Venue: Caring Space

Museums operate according to a logic of growth: they preserve important artistic positions for future generations. This is reflected in the continuous expansion of their collections. But why do institutions collect? What is collected, how and for whom? And are there perhaps alternatives to this growth-orientated form of collecting?

Museums are faced with the challenge of questioning their traditional collection strategies and developing a more responsible approach. It is not only about redefining the decision-making processes in relation to collection acquisitions, but also about how these collections can be actively utilised and made accessible to the public.

The roundtable will provide a space for dialogue and reflection: participants will discuss how institutions can transform their collection practices towards more inclusion and participation, ecological responsibility, social justice and decolonisation based on current examples and their own practice. The practical hurdles of ensuring public access to the collected objects, guaranteeing optimal conservation conditions and exploring alternative forms of presentation will also be addressed.

Audience members are also invited to join in the discussion: An ‘open seat’ format allows the public to participate in the discussion with their questions and input.

A conversation with:

• Gabriele Knapstein (Deputy Director and Head of Collections at Hamburger Bahnhof – Nationalgalerie der Gegenwart)
• Yvette Mutumba (Co-Founder and Director of Contemporary And (C&), Curator-at-Large at the Stedelijk Museum until 2024)
• Severin Rüegg (Head of the SKKG Collection, Stiftung für Kunst Kultur und Geschichte)
• Nadia Schneider Willen (Co-director Museum – Collection, Migros Museum für Gegenwartskunst)

Moderation:

• Tasnim Baghdadi (Co-director Museum – Programmes, Migros Museum für Gegenwartskunst)

Yvette Mutumba is co-founder and director of the art platform Contemporary And (C&), which was founded in 2013. Since 2019, she has also been a lecturer at the Institute for Art in Context at the Berlin University of the Arts. From 2020 to 2024 she was Curator-at-Large at the Stedelijk Museum in Amsterdam. Yvette was a member of the curatorial team for the 10th Berlin Biennale and held a guest professorship for Global Discourses at the Academy of Media Arts Cologne. From 2012 to 2016, she worked as a collection custodian and curator at the Weltkulturen Museum, Frankfurt am Main. As an author and editor, she has published numerous texts and books on contemporary art and art history. Yvette studied art history at the Freie Universität Berlin and completed her doctorate at Birkbeck, University of London.

Gabriele Knapstein is an art historian and curator and has been Deputy Director and Head of Collections at Hamburger Bahnhof - Nationalgalerie der Gegenwart since 2022. After studying art history, history and philosophy in Freiburg im Breisgau, Bochum and Berlin, she completed her doctorate in Kassel in 1999 with a dissertation on the event scores of Fluxus artist George Brecht. Since 2003, she has worked as a research assistant, since 2012 as exhibition director and since 2016 as director of the Hamburger Bahnhof, for which she has conceived numerous special exhibitions and collection presentations, including ‘Black Mountain. An Interdisciplinary Experiment 1933-1957’ (2015), ‘moving is in every direction. Environments – Installations – Narrative Spaces’ (2017), ‘Hello World. Revising a Collection’ (2018), ‘under construction. New Acquisitions for the Nationalgalerie’s Collection’ (2022) ‘Museum in motion. A Collection for the 21st Century’ (2024).

Since 2020, Severin Rüegg has headed the reappraisal of the collection of the SKKG (Stiftung für Kunst Kultur und Geschichte), which was very extensive, heterogeneous and neglected for decades. He previously worked as a freelance historian and curator. He is the father of two children and lives with his family in Zurich.

Nadia Schneider Willen is co-director of the Migros Museum für Gegenwartskunst and is responsible for the collection. From 2015 to 2023, she worked as a collection curator at the same institution. She previously worked as a curator for modern and contemporary art at the Musée d'art et d'histoire in Geneva and as director of the Kunsthaus Glarus, among other positions, and has curated numerous exhibitions with international and Swiss artists. She was a member of the Federal Art Commission for many years, later becoming its president. She studied French literature and linguistics and art history at the University of Zurich.

• No registration required
• The event is free of charge
• In German