Funding for project “BINDING BODIES. Perspektiven auf gebundene Füße“
The research and exhibition project “Binding Bodies. Perspektiven auf gebundene Füße” has received generous funding by the Federal Cultural Foundation, the Stiftung Preußische Seehandlung and the Alfred Toepfer Stiftung. We are realising this project in cooperation with MARKK – Museum am Rothenbaum. Kulturen und Künste der Welt in Hamburg and the Kunstuniversität Linz. From 2021 to 2023, an interdisciplinary team at the Hermann von Helmholtz Centre for Cultural Techniques / Tieranatomisches Theater, at the MARKK and at the Kunstuniversität Linz will conduct research in cooperation with further international scientists and artists. The project will culminate in exhibitions that will be shown at MARKK Hamburg (2022) and at the Tieranatomisches Theater (2023).
X-ray of the lotus foot of a 32-year-old woman, taken through the shoe, 1905 © Charité, Centrum für Anatomie, Humboldt-Universität zu Berlin, photograph Barbara Herrenkind
Numerous ethnographic and anatomical collections in Europe contain preparations, casts, X-rays and photographs of so-called “lotus feet”, the bound feet of women in China. The research and exhibition project BINDING BODIES takes these collections as the starting point for research into the discourse history of female body modifications. Already Hans Virchow (1852-1940) and his colleagues draw comparisons to lace dancing, high heels and corsets in their publications. The project attempts an “entangled history” of female body deformations between Europe and China. It examines the complex interactions of perception of self and perception of others, reconstructs exemplary object biographies and contextualises them against the backdrop of colonial, gender, social and scientific history. As such, the project is part of the current controversy surrounding the handling of ethnographic objects and especially human remains in scientific collections.
Curators: Prof. Dr. Jasmin Mersmann (Projektleitung), Dr. Evke Rulffes, Felix Sattler
Projekt lead: Helmholtz-Zentrum für Kulturtechnik, Humboldt-Universität zu Berlin
Partner: Museum am Rothenbaum. Kulturen und Künste der Welt (MARKK), Prof. Dr. Barbara Plankensteiner, Dr. Susanne Knödel, Gabriel Schimmeroth
Funded by the German Federal Cultural Foundation
Additional Funding:
