For Berlin Science Week, the Tieranatomisches Theater (TA T) transforms its historic dome into a night sky — exploring planetary entanglements through art, science, fiction, and cultural heritage on a living stage for collaborative futures.

Event location:
TA T – Tieranatomisches Theater (Zentrum für Kulturtechnik, Humboldt-Universität zu Berlin)
Campus Nord – Haus 3
Philippstr. 13
10115 Berlin

Event details:
Sat 1 – Sat 8 November 2025 | Opening hours: 2pm – 9pm
Monday & Tuesday closed| Free entrance | Wheelchair accessible
Opening: 1 Nov · Installations & performative experiences: 5 Nov · Artist Talks & performative experiences: 6 Nov · Installations & performative experiences: 7 Nov & 8 Nov
Languages: English & German 

Curatorial concept

For over 250 years, the Tieranatomisches Theater (TA T) has offered science an impressive stage. anatomia publica, one of TA T’s core public programmes, reclaims this historic architecture—not to dissect bodies, but to explore the anatomy of research itself.
Instead of a closed academic setting, the Theater becomes a Wissenstheater—a place where knowledge is not only produced but also performed and shared.

As part of Berlin Science Week, anatomia publica present “Night Sky with Open Futures”, a five-day special program that transforms the theater into an immersive stage for cosmological imagination. It invites the public into living, experimental environments where futures are speculated, knowledge is embodied, and science is reoriented toward relational care. Anchored in the 2025 festival theme “Beyond Now,” our focus turns to planetary entanglements — shifting perspective from extractive to collaborative futures.

To look at the sky is never a neutral gesture. Whether through telescopes, stories, or woven patterns, we project futures — and inherit pasts that are still ahead of us. Within this horizon, our program features two interdisciplinary artistic research projects by anatomia publica residents Marcela Moraga and po:era (Lucas Lacerda & Daniel Weyand). Together, their works situate this shared gesture of looking upward, tracing how our ways of seeing through the stars are shaped by science, fiction, and cultural heritage. Under the dome of the Tieranatomisches Theater, the night sky reveals itself as both archive and oracle — a space for listening, speculation, and shared worldbuilding, where stories, data, and memory intersect.

Our title borrows its rhythm from Ocean Vuong’s “Night Sky with Exit Wounds” — a book that looks at the aftermath of violence and survival through language that is both celestial and corporeal. Where Vuong writes from the ruins of inherited histories — colonial, diasporic, and queer — Night Sky with Open Futures turns that wound toward possibility.

Paz Ponce
Curator for Public Programmes & Outreach
TA T – Tieranatomisches Theater

Featured Artistic Research Projects

Marcela Moraga – What Happens in the Sky, Happens on Earth: Cosmology of an Oasis

Marcela Moraga — „What happens in the sky, happens on earth. Cosmology of an oasis“

Location: TA T Rotunda — accessible during opening hours

In her textile-based research station, Marcela Moraga explores how the Lickanantay people of Chile’s Atacama Desert understand the sky and the land as deeply connected. Developed in collaboration with women weavers from Chiu Chiu and with the Lay Lay Indigenous Association in Calama, the project interlaces oral memory, environmental conflict, and sky observation into evolving constellations of knowledge.

At its heart lies a critique of Western extractivism and the dominance of Western scientific worldviews—how mining and modern astronomy have reshaped the desert’s landscapes and cosmologies. Reframing the oasis as a technology of observation and survival, Moraga reflects on how cooperative practices and Indigenous ecological knowledge might inspire alternative relationships between science, land, and care.

Visitors encounter woven constellations, archival materials, and field notes, as well as a playful learning space for children that translates cosmological heritage into accessible and imaginative forms.
The project also resonates with research developed within the Zentrum für Kulturtechnik (ZfK), in particular with Das Technische Bild, whose investigations into instruments of vision and image-based knowledge form a conceptual bridge between laboratory and landscape.

CALADRI – world building project by Po:era (Daniel Weyand & Lucas Lacerda)

po:era (Lucas Lacerda & Daniel Weyand) — CALADRI

Location: TA T’s Historic Auditorium & Library — active from dusk

CALADRI is a speculative research project where astrophysics and fiction converge. Rooted in real scientific data, it imagines a slowly rotating exoplanet where life can survive only within a migrating twilight belt between scorching light and frozen darkness. Within this fragile zone, two societies move in constant adaptation — preserving their knowledge in underground echo chambers that archive climate rhythms and celestial signals to transmit memory across deep time.

Through sound, video mapping, and narrative fragments, po:era invites visitors to enter an immersive field of perception — part planetarium, part performance.
From dusk onward, the Historic Auditorium transforms into a participatory environment where audiences are invited to listen, speculate, and join worldbuilding sessions exploring coexistence between science and fiction.

In parallel Po:era hosts the fourth edition of the site-specific art festival ONSITE which explores the speculative futures of three cultural sites in Berlin: a museum, cinema, and theatre. Po:era’s world-building project CALADRI – developed in collaboration with Miguel Chaparro as part of their research of Anatomia Publica – will kick off the festival program on 6 November at Tieranatomisches Theater.

Together, these two artistic research positions compose the special programme Night Sky with Open Futures, transforming the Tieranatomisches Theater into a space for listening, speculation, and shared worldbuilding across disciplines.

Visitor Experience

During opening hours (14:00–21:00), visitors are invited to explore the Tieranatomisches Theater as a landscape of observation and imagination.

Marcela Moraga’s research station can be experienced in the Rotunda (ground floor), while po:era’s immersive installation activates from dusk (18:00–21:00) in the Historic Auditorium and Library (first floor).

All spaces are barrier-free and wheelchair accessible.

Information about the artistic research projects is available in German and English.
Please note that the immersive experience CALADRI by po:era is presented in English only, and the Artist Talks are held in English due to the international composition of the guests and audience of Berlin Science Week.

The installations can be experienced independently throughout the week, with moments of artist and curator presence announced in the daily programme below.

Programme Highlights — Night Sky with Open Futures

(within the framework of anatomia publica × Berlin Science Week)

Date: Saturday, November 1 — Opening
Time: 18:00–21:00
The opening evening introduces anatomia publica — Open stage for scientific, aesthetic and social research practices and presents the two featured artistic research projects:

• Marcela Moraga, What happens in the sky, happens on earth. Cosmology of an oasis (Rotunda, ground floor)
• Po:era (Lucas Lacerda & Daniel Weyand), CALADRI (Historic Auditorium & Library, first floor)
  → Artists and anatomia publica curator are present.

Date: Wednesday, November 5 — Open Installations
Time: 14:00–21:00

Both artistic research projects are open for self-guided visits.

→ Public access to Rotunda and Auditorium & Library spaces.

Date: Thursday, November 6 — Artist Talks: Dialogues under the Night Sky
Time: 16:00–17:00 — Artist Talk: Caladri
with po:era (Lucas Lacerda & Daniel Weyand)
Location: Object Lab, Zentrum für Kulturtechnik (HU Berlin)
Part of anatomia publica × Berlin Science Week
Organized by TA T – Tieranatomisches Theater

Caladri is a work in progress by po:era, a duo exploring how fiction can become a research method. Rooted in real astrophysical data, the project imagines the slowly rotating exoplanet Caladri, where life can only exist within a narrow twilight belt between scorching light and frozen darkness. There, two human societies live in constant migration—adapting, communicating, and reimagining coexistence under extreme conditions.

The world of Caladri is not a utopian ideal society, but a speculative space of resonance in which present challenges on Earth—such as climate change, resource distribution, and shifting borders—are seen anew through the lens of another world and another time.
How would humans evolve under extreme climates?
What might a constantly migrating society look like?
How could knowledge travel across centuries?

Taking place in the Object Lab, this artist talk invites scientists and visitors from interrelated fields—such as anthropology, climate research, geography, or astrophysics—to join a shared speculative exercise. The conversation begins with Caladri’s open research questions and an object brought by the artists—a simple material trace that connects their fictional world to the realities of Earth.

From there, invited researchers take the role of respondents—a format borrowed from performing arts and research symposia, where companions from other disciplines offer reflections rather than analyses. Their responses are resonant rather than explanatory, linking scientific perspectives with poetic or imaginative ones.

Together with the audience, the talk unfolds as a kind of science theater—a shared speculative space where knowledge and wonder meet, and where artistic worldbuilding and scientific inquiry might inform one another and become part of the same constellation.
→ Moderated by Paz Ponce (anatomia publica curator) in dialogue with Felix Sattler (TA T head curator).

Time: 18:30–19:30 — Artist Talk: What happens in the sky, happens on earth. Cosmology of an oasis
with guest artist-researcher Marcela Moraga and astronomer Basilio Solís Castillo
Location: Object Lab, Zentrum für Kulturtechnik (HU Berlin)
Part of anatomia publica × Berlin Science Week
Organized by TA T – Tieranatomisches Theater

In this artist talk, Marcela Moraga continues her research on the cosmology of the Lickanantay oasis culture in Chile’s Atacama Desert, where observation of the sky, weaving, and care for the land form a single system of knowledge.
Astrophysicist Basilio Solís Castillo, himself a member of the Lickanantay community, introduces this worldview and the ways in which illuminated and dark zones of the heavens mirror earthly life. Their dialogue asks how an academic astronomer encounters vernacular astronomy and whether the oasis can be understood as a technology of observation and survival.

Linking artistic, scientific, and heritage perspectives within the transdisciplinary environment of the Zentrum für Kulturtechnik, the discussion expands to the role of instruments that mediate vision, drawing on publications from Das Technische Bild (Imagination des Himmels, Instrumente des Sehens, Scientific Fiction) as a material bridge between laboratory and landscape.

Extending this dialogue, artistic researchers from ZfK are invited as respondents—resonant voices who open the exchange toward questions of decentring the West, technological mediation, and wayfinding systems and their representational models, situating the discussion within broader reflections on heritage as a dynamic and transformative practice.

Together with the audience, the talk invites reflection on forms of seeing, knowing, and imagining—between sky and earth, fabulation and fact.

→ Moderated by Paz Ponce (anatomia publica curator) in dialogue with Felix Sattler (TA T head curator).

Time: 18:00–21:00 — po:era immersive participatory installation
Historic Auditorium & Library, Tieranatomisches Theater
→ Artists present.

Time: 19:30–21:00 — Marcela Moraga textile-based research station
Rotunda, Tieranatomisches Theater
Following the talk, visitors are invited to continue the conversation through the material traces of Marcela Moraga’s installation—a textile-based research station where oral memory, environmental conflict, and sky observation are interwoven into evolving constellations.
→ Artist present.

Date: Friday, November 7 — Open Installations
Time: 14:00–21:00
Both projects remain accessible for self-guided visits.
Time: 18:00–21:00 — po:era immersive installation (Auditorium & Library).
→ Self-guided visit; no artist presence.

Date: Saturday, November 8 — Marcela Moraga Research Display
Time: 14:00–18:00
The final day of Night Sky with Open Futures focuses on Marcela Moraga’s research station in the Rotunda.
Visitors are invited for individual exploration and reflection.
→ Artist is present.

Der Beitrag <h6>TA T’s Mediation program for Berlin Science Week 2025</h6><h3> Tieranatomisches Theater (TA T) presents: Night Sky with Open Futures</h3><h5>In the frame of anatomia publica — Open stage for scientific, aesthetic and social research practices </h5><h5>1-8 November 2025 with guest artist-researchers Marcela Moraga and po:era (Lucas Lacerda & Daniel Weyand)</h5> erschien zuerst auf TA T.

In September, the Tieranatomisches Theater places cultural heritage at the center and presents a program that connects past, present, and future.

On Heritage Day (Saturday, 13 September 2025), architect Dr. Jens-Oliver Kempf invites audiences to join special city walks: from the newly restored St. Hedwig’s Cathedral – the first Catholic church built after the Reformation – via Schinkel’s visionary Altes Museum to the unique Tieranatomisches Theater, an outstanding example of Enlightenment knowledge architecture. These three domed buildings are all linked by the ancient model of the Pantheon in Rome. The walk brings Berlin’s reception of the Pantheon vividly to life and is accompanied by an exhibition.

Yet heritage is not only built: it also consists of memories, communities, and stories. With Community macht Archiv, artist Juana Awad, Fellow at inherit. heritage in transformation (Käte Hamburger Kolleg at Humboldt-Universität zu Berlin), invites participants from Thursday 11 to Saturday 13 September 2025 to jointly explore and reframe the traces of the Werkstatt der Kulturen.

And finally, we experience how cultural heritage continues to resonate in the present: Iranian composer and tar virtuoso Elshan Ghasimi presents the premiere of her song cycle Tasneef on Friday, 12 September 2025, weaving together classical and contemporary Persian songs and texts into an amalgam spanning centuries.

At the Tieranatomisches Theater, three perspectives thus come together: the history of the city, the remembrance of communities, and the living transmission of music and culture. Whether you are a heritage enthusiast, researcher, artist, or simply curious – there is something for everyone this week.

Heritage Day · City Walks with Dr. Jens-Oliver Kempf

Porcelain bowl with the motif of the dome painting of the Tieranatomisches Theater. @Jens Kempf, Kathrin Schleicher

The highlight of the September week is the program for Heritage Day, which has been held nationwide since 1993 as part of the European Heritage Days. On Saturday, 13 September 2025, architect Dr. Jens-Oliver Kempf will lead city walks from the newly restored St. Hedwig’s Cathedral via Schinkel’s visionary Altes Museum to the Tieranatomisches Theater, an outstanding example of Enlightenment knowledge architecture.

Three domed buildings, connected by the ancient model of the Pantheon in Rome, make Berlin’s reception of this classical archetype tangible. The walks are accompanied by an exhibition.

The Tieranatomisches Theater is itself a listed building that has undergone significant restoration in recent years thanks to the support of the German Foundation for Monument Protection – most recently its façade. On Heritage Day, the Berlin Ortskuratorium of the Foundation will be present with an information stand in the building to share about its work.

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Walks

• • Date: Saturday, 13 September 2025, 10:00 and 14:00

  • Meeting point: St. Hedwig’s Cathedral, Bebelplatz

  • Language: German

  • The Tieranatomisches Theater will be open on 13 September from 11:00–18:00.

Reading Tip
Jens-Oliver Kempf is the author of the monograph Die königliche Tierarzneischule in Berlin von Carl Gotthard Langhans. Eine baugeschichtliche Gebäudemonographie (Gebr. Mann Verlag 2008). The book is available in major libraries and through antiquarian bookshops.

Community Macht Archiv · Juana Awad

From 11 to 13 September 2025, artist Juana Awad, Fellow at inherit. heritage in transformation (Käte Hamburger Kolleg at Humboldt-Universität zu Berlin), invites the public to open archive sessions at the Tieranatomisches Theater.

Community Macht Archiv is conceived as an ongoing process that began in July 2025 and now continues in September. At its center are the materials of the Werkstatt der Kulturen (WdK) – a total of 187 boxes left behind after the institution closed in 2019. As part of the seminar Archiving Werkstatt der Kulturen: (Post)Migrant Histories in Berlin Arts in the program Teaching and Learning with Society, 31 students have already worked through more than 130 boxes, cataloguing, classifying, and analyzing them.

For Awad, this work is more than a technical archiving process. She approaches it as artistic research that raises fundamental questions of memory, representation, and belonging:
Which stories can be reconstructed from the documents – and which remain invisible? Who has the authority to remember, who to represent? What happens to the voices of communities when an archive is institutionalized?

The Community Sessions offer insight into this open process. Visitors can directly experience how artistic research collaborates with communities to reframe heritage.

The project is part of Awad’s artistic-curatorial research Transcultural Heritage. Curating Time-based Arts, the Werkstatt der Kulturen and the Making of the Postmigrant Nation and is developed in cooperation with inherit. heritage in transformation, a BMBF-funded Käte Hamburger Kolleg at Humboldt-Universität zu Berlin. Within this collaboration, the Tieranatomisches Theater provides two rooms for artistic research and public formats of the fellows.

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Community Sessions

• • • Dates: 11, 12, 13 September 2025, 14:00–18:00

    • Venue: Tieranatomisches Theater, 2nd floor

    • Languages: German and English

    • Accessibility: Elevator available

Premiere · Tasneef by Elshan Ghasimi

On Friday, 12 September 2025, 18:00, Iranian composer, tar virtuoso, and singer Elshan Ghasimi will present the premiere of her song cycle Tasneef in the lecture hall of the Tieranatomisches Theater.

The cycle combines classical and contemporary Persian songs and texts, woven by the artist into an amalgam spanning centuries. Ghasimi’s interpretation opens up a panorama of Persian music and poetry, brought to new life through newly composed overtures and arrangements.

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Concert Details

• Date: Friday, 12 September 2025, 18:00

• Duration: approx. 1 hour (starts punctually)

• Venue: Lecture Hall, Tieranatomisches Theater

• Accessibility: The stage of the lecture hall is wheelchair accessible; elevator available (2nd floor).

Der Beitrag <h6>September highlight:</h6><h3>Culture heritage in focus</h3> erschien zuerst auf TA T.

The TA T – Tieranatomisches Theater is embarking on an exciting new research prospect. With DEEP_ABILITIES. Curating Multisensory Access and Empowerment with and for the Blind and Visually Impaired, TA T moves beyond the conventional goals of accessibility to empower blind and visually impaired individuals as equal research collaborators in curatorial and scientific work. Rather than designing for inclusion, the project curates with it—recognizing diverse perceptual abilities as crucial resources for knowledge-making.

At its core, DEEP_ABILITIES explores the deep sea—a realm where light disappears and visual dominance gives way to other modes of sensing. Focusing on historical deep-sea specimens held at the Humboldt-Universität zu Berlin and the Museum für Naturkunde Berlin, the project responds to global shifts in ocean research that increasingly include perspectives from previously marginalized communities.
Over four years, DEEP_ABILITIES will establish transdisciplinary, multisensory laboratories where blind, visually impaired, and sighted participants develop new experimental approaches to marine knowledge. These labs draw on expertise from biology, art, and curating to devise inclusive research and mediation formats that decentralize sight as the primary epistemological tool.

The initiative marks a paradigm shift: from viewing disability as a challenge to be accommodated, toward embracing distinct perceptual worlds as drivers of innovation. Museum visitors will not only encounter new ways of experiencing deep-sea life; they will engage with knowledge shaped by those for whom non-visual perception is foundational. This shift challenges dominant cultural images of the deep sea as an alien darkness and instead proposes it as a space of multisensory richness.

DEEP_ABILITIES also aims to transform institutional structures. By embedding inclusive design and curatorial participation from the outset, it fosters sustainable change within museum operations. The project will culminate in an accessible and participatory multisensory deep-sea archive and a best-practice guide for inclusive museum work with natural science collections.

Ultimately, DEEP_ABILITIES redefines what it means to know, sense, and curate. It invites museums to treat disability not as a limitation, but as deep ability—one that can expand the very foundations of how knowledge is produced and shared.

Project lead: Felix Sattler, Head Curator TA T

Der Beitrag <h6>Current Research</h6><h3>From Inclusion to Co-Creation: DEEP_ABILITIES Reimagines Curatorial Practice with Blind and Seeing-Impaired Collaborators</h3> erschien zuerst auf TA T.

Afrikanische Graupapageien bei der Mahlzeit auf Ölpalmen. © PTCA

With
Nick Byaba (Parrot Tree Caretakers Association), Kampala, Uganda
Maria Leena Räihälä & Manuel Bonik (Morgenvogel Real Estate), Berlin

Moderator: Felix Sattler, TA T

Event details
Date: March 25, 2025
Time: 6–8 pm
Language: English
Admission: free

The TA T – Tieranatomisches Theater invites you to an evening of dialogue and presentations on the preservation of bird habitats through activism and visual art. Featuring conservationist and activist Nick Byaba (Parrot Tree Caretakers Association, Uganda) and artist duo Maria Leena Räihälä & Manuel Bonik (Morgenvogel Real Estate, Germany/Finland), the event explores the intersections of interspecies care and the shared agency of birds and humans in urban and rural environments.

The event is part of the exhibition Hörner/Antlfinger: Parrot Terristories (on view at TA T until March 29) by artists Ute Hörner and Mathias Antlfinger in collaboration with Nick Byaba and CMUK.

While operating in distinct contexts—Uganda’s tropical forests and European urban landscapes—both initiatives reflect a commitment to birds as valued co-inhabitants.

Morgenvogel-Häuser für eine Spatzen-Kolonie, im Auftrag von Grün Berlin, Kartoffelhalle im Erweiterungsbereich des Mauerparks in Berlin-Mitte, 25.02.2019. © Morgenvogel

While operating in distinct contexts—Uganda’s tropical forests and European urban landscapes—both initiatives reflect a commitment to birds as valued co-inhabitants.

Parrot Tree Caretakers Association (PTCA)
Founded in 2020 by Nick Byaba, the PTCA is a community-based organization dedicated to conserving grey parrots and their habitats. Through tree-planting initiatives, educational outreach, and scientific monitoring, the PTCA works with local farmers and conservationists to ensure the survival of this endangered species. Key achievements include planting over 6,000 indigenous trees, monitoring parrot flyways, and integrating rehabilitated parrots back into their original habitats.

The PTCA also runs educational programs for children, fostering a new generation of conservationists who advocate for the protection of parrots and their ecosystems. Looking ahead, the PTCA aims to establish the world’s first Grey Parrot Museum in Uganda, serving as a hub for education, research, and awareness. greyparrotmuseum-uganda.org

The exhibition Hörner/Antlfinger: Parrot Terristories includes the joint work SEEDS by Hörner/Antlfinger and Nick Byaba.

Entwurf eines Kindes für das Graupapageienmuseum, Zeichnung von Ronald Ajuna. © PTCA/Ronald Ajuna

Rose Kembabazi, eine lokale Farmerin, in der Nähe ihrer Ölpalme, ein stolzes Mitglied der Parrot Tree Caretakers Association. © PTCA

Morgenvogel Real Estate
Morgenvogel Real Estate (M0RE) is a long-term artistic initiative by Maria Leena Räihälä and Manuel Bonik, addressing the loss of nesting opportunities for urban birds in the wake of urban redevelopment. For over a decade, the Berlin-based art project Morgenvogel has engaged in ecological urban interventions by producing and distributing handcrafted birdhouses tailored for species like tits, sparrows, and pied flycatchers.

With support from conservation foundations, Morgenvogel has placed over 1,000 nesting boxes across Berlin and other European Cities, often accompanying installations with art events such as BirdChurch, Avanti Natura!, and BirdTalks.

Beyond Morgenvogel Real Estate, Maria Leena Räihälä and Manuel Bonik have been engaged in landscape restoration, most recently by their MAJAVA project (2021–2024), an initiative inspired by beavers as ecosystem engineers (Majava is the Finnish word for beaver). Through dam-building and water filtration structures, Morgenvogel seeks to counteract environmental degradation in Finnish wetland and forest areas. morgenvogel.net

Der Beitrag <h6>Discussion</h6><h3> Protecting Trees – Crafting Houses</h3><h5>Parrot Tree Caretakers Association meets Morgenvogel Real Estate</h5><h5>March 25, 2025 6–8 pm</h5> erschien zuerst auf TA T.

Workshop by Klasse Klima with Anne Hölck

As part of the exhibition PARROT TERRISTORIES by Hörner/Antlfinger

The Klasse Klima of the UdK Berlin invites you to immerse yourself in the perspectives of urban pigeons in the DOVE DIARIES workshop. Inspired by the working methods of the interspecies art collective CMUK of the artists Hörner/Antlfinger with gray parrots, we will use various creative methods to explore whether humans and pigeon birds could also become an artist collective. Today, most pigeons live freely in urban spaces and we encounter them in Berlin every day. Despite the millennia-old history of the Columba livia domestica, little is known about the origins of its first domestication. The first records are found among the Mesopotamians, for whom they were a valuable sign of fertility. Throughout their history, humans have used them as protein-rich meals, religious offerings, homing pigeons and pets. Today they are often called “rats with wings” and are considered invasive. They are poisoned and shot to remove them from our cities. But how would our animal co-inhabitants in the cities tell their own stories? Participants will try out artistic, performative and documentary approaches to storytelling with us at different stations, in order to immerse themselves in the perspectives of urban pigeons and discover the references to the stories of parrots in the exhibition.

Tuesday, December 17, 204, 3 – 6 p.m.

The Workshop is free of charge.

Please register via e-mail here: dove-diaries@klasseklima.org

Accessibility information:
Language: spoken English & German
There is no audio description and no sign language interpretation
Room accessible at ground level

Contact us if you have any questions or needs and we can support you!
dove-diaries@klasseklima.org

A cooperation of Klasse Klima / Studium Planetare, University of the Arts Berlin (https://klasseklima.org/) with scenographer and researcher in the field of Artistic Human Animal Studies Anne Hölck (www.hoelcka.de)

Der Beitrag <h6>Workshop</h6><h3>DOVE DIARIES</h3> erschien zuerst auf TA T.

From our joint experience in transdisciplinary work environments across institutions and knowledge production fields, our capacity to impact far beyond the university and the academic community thrives in creating synergies out of unconventional collaborations. We see our contribution to economic growth driven by innovation, excellence and sustainable development as a result of a process of investment, and as a reflection of Berlin’s own attractiveness as a diverse hub where future-oriented perspectives meet.

Acknowledging the mutual interdependencies between these factors is key towards understanding to which extent the current sparing plan without a vision for investment undermines Berlin’s capacity to compete nationally and internationally in the coming years.

Der Beitrag Statement of solidarity in relation to the current cuts in culture, science and education erschien zuerst auf TA T.

12.12.2024

6 – 8.15 p.m.

With
Nancy Jacobs, Brown University, Providence, USA
Katja Kaiser, Museum for Natural History, Berlin
André Krebber, University of Kassel
Munyaradzi Elton Sagiya, Bindura University, Zimbabwe and Humboldt-Universität zu Berlin

In conversation with
Ute Hörner and Mathias Antlfinger

Moderated by Felix Sattler, TA T

5 pm Tour of the exhibition with artists Ute Hörner and Mathias Antlfinger
6 – 8.15 pm Round table

The transdisciplinary roundtable, which is part of Hörner/Antlfinger: Parrot Terristories exhibition at TA T – Tieranatomisches Theater, investigates intersections of more-than-human global history, animal agency, conservation, care, and colonial legacies. The panel examines how African grey parrots make culture in freedom—expressing complex social behaviors, cognition, and adaptability—and how captivity disrupts these processes. This commodification of parrots serves as a lens for broader histories of exploitation and the ethical challenges of conservation. The roundtable further explores the role of indigenous knowledge and practices in rethinking conservation and highlights the need to decolonize approaches that reflect interconnected human and nonhuman histories. By critiquing the colonial provenance of natural history collections, the discussion reveals how power dynamics have shaped preservation ethics and interpretation. Linking these perspectives, the roundtable envisions equitable conservation and museum practices that emphasize shared responsibilities across species and cultures.

The event will be held in English.                      

Venue: TA T — Tieranatomisches Theater, Zentrum für Kulturtechnik, HU Berlin Campus Nord, Philippstraße 13/Haus 3

Participants

Nancy Jacobs, Brown University, Providence, is a historian and author of the book The Global Grey Parrot: The Worldwide History of a Charismatic African Animal https://www.mpiwg-berlin.mpg.de/research/projects/global-grey-parrot-worldwide-history-charismatic-african-animal https://www.brown.edu/news/2024-02-29/grey-parrots She is very much concerned with animals as historical actors and parrots as political, cultural, and world-making creatures. She is also interested in human efforts to improve life for parrots in captivity and to conserve the birds’ existence in their native forests.

Katja Kaiser, Museum for Natural History Berlin, Research associate in the project “Guidelines for the handling of natural history collections from colonial contexts”. Katja Kaiser collaborated with Ute Hörner and Mathias Antlfinger on their work “One of Thirtysix” that traces the provenance of single grey parrot specimen from the museum’s collection https://www.museumfuernaturkunde.berlin/en/about/team/katja.kaiser

André Krebber, guest fellow in cultural history and theory at LeipzigLab at Leipzig University and adjunct lecturer at the University of Kassel. André’s interested in knowledge cultures and how they shape and are shaped by human-nature relations with a particular focus on the role of nonhuman animals therein to respond to the current environmental crisis. In his forthcoming book The Forgotten Animal, he proposes an aesthetic practice of animal remembrance that makes the recognition of animal self-determination the foundation for overcoming appropriating relations to nature. https://www.uni-kassel.de/fb05/fachgruppen-und-institute/geschichte/lehrgebiet/sozial-und-kulturgeschichte-human-animal-studies/dr-andre-krebber

Munyaradzi Elton Sagiya, Lecturer, Culture and Heritage Studies (CHS) at Bindura University, Zimbawe and Research Fellow at inherit. heritage in transformation at the Humboldt-Universität zu Berlin. His research interests include decolonising heritage conservation practices, African archeology, and museology. https://inherit.hu-berlin.de/fellows/munyaradzi-elton-sagiya

Ute Hörner and Mathias Antlfinger are professors of multispecies storytelling at the Academy of Media Arts Cologne and have been living together in a multispecies household with grey parrots for over 20 years. Their installations, videos and sculptures deal with relationships between humans, animals and machines and open up critical perspectives on changeable social constructs as well as utopian visions of equal interaction. Their communal living with non-human animals is characterised by shared social actions and how these produce a shared space. In 2014, Hörner/Antlfinger founded the interspecies collective CMUK with the grey parrots Clara and Karl, who are also contributing artistic works to the current exhibition.

Felix Sattler is head and curator of the TA T – Exhibition Research Space at the Centre for Cultural Techniques, Humboldt-Universität zu Berlin. His curatorial strategy aims to foster dialogue between a variety of communities. Felix Sattler’s projects have addressed topics as diverse as the art and design history of unicellular algae, an archaeology of the multiple past, and the postcolonial controversies surrounding museums and human remains.

Der Beitrag <h6>Roundtable Discussion</h6><h5>Parrot Terristories: Rethinking More-than-Human History, Conservation, Care, and Colonial Legacies</h5> erschien zuerst auf TA T.

Photo: Philipp Plum

E-mail:
lilli.maxine.ebert@hu-berlin.de

Phone:
+49 (0) 30 2093 12865

Postal address:
Humboldt-Universität zu Berlin
Helmholtz-Zentrum für Kulturtechnik
Unter den Linden 6
10099 Berlin

Office:
Humboldt-Universität zu Berlin
Campus Nord, Philippstraße 13
Haus 3 (Gerlachbau), Room 208
10115 Berlin

Der Beitrag <h3>Lilli Maxine Ebert</h3><h5>Project Management</h5> erschien zuerst auf TA T.

Antonia Willisch. Foto: Private

Project Management

E-mail:
antonia.willisch@hu-berlin.de

Phone:
+49 (0) 30 2093 128702

Postal address:
Humboldt-Universität zu Berlin
Helmholtz-Zentrum für Kulturtechnik
Unter den Linden 6
10099 Berlin

Office:
Humboldt-Universität zu Berlin
Campus Nord, Philippstraße 13
Haus 3 (Gerlachbau), Room 208
10115 Berlin

Antonia Willisch completed her Bachelor’s degree in Art History at Goldsmiths University in London, followed by a Master’s degree in Collection Management and Curating at the London Metropolitan University in collaboration with the Whitechapel Gallery.
Having worked at international auction houses, galleries and institutions, her experience lies in the organisation of cultural events and exhibition projects.
With a strong interest in Latin American art, she has promoted artists from this area, as well as contributing to numerous publications.
Since September 2022, Antonia Willisch has been working as a project manager at the Tieranatomischens Theater.

Der Beitrag Antonia Willisch (on leave of absence) erschien zuerst auf TA T.

MAREJESHO-Exhibition

7 p.m.: Short guided tour of the MAREJESHO exhibition (in the exhibition, in English, 15 minutes)

7.45 p.m.: Extended tour of the MAREJESHO exhibition (in the exhibition, in English, 45 minutes)

5 & 9 p.m.: Kurzführungen durch die Ausstellung MAREJESHO (in the exhibition, in German, 15 minutes)

5.45 & 9.45 p.m.: Ausführliche Rundgänge durch die Ausstellung MAREJESHO (in the exhibition, in German, 45 minutes)

6 – 10 p.m.: Offenes Tischgespräch zu Restitution mit den Machern der Ausstellung MAREJESHO (in the exhibition, in German)

In cooperation with FG Agrarökologie

7 p.m.: Agritecture: a walk to the buildings and trees of Campus Nord (meets at the TA T Info Desk, in English)

5 p.m.: Agritecture: Führungen zu Bauten und Bäumen auf dem Campus Nord (meets at the TA T Info Desk, 30 minutes, in German)

5 p.m. – midnight: BioVitro – Bio von Anfang an! (Café at TA T)

6 – 10.30 p.m.: Agritecture: Von der Seidenstraße zur Maulbeeralleen – transmediale und musikalische Installation (anatomy theatre)

Der Beitrag Long Night of Science – June 22, 2024 erschien zuerst auf TA T.