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Owned by Others: Decolonizing Berlin’s Museum Island
By Clara Tang
Installation view of ARIJIT BHATTACHARYYA’s Pirates, Prawns & Invaders, 2020, lecture performance projected on the bridge across Kupfergraben of the Spree, as a part of "Owned by Others" in Berlin, 2021. All images courtesy Owned by Others.
Berlin’s Museum Island is hailed as one of the most prestigious cultural hotspots in Europe. Located at the very heart of the city’s historical center, it is home to five institutions—the Pergamon Museum, the Old and New Museums, the Old National Gallery, and the Bode-Museum—housing precious state collections, including of ancient Egyptian artifacts, Islamic art, and 19th-century European paintings. Last year, the Unesco World Heritage Site welcomed a major addition in its immediate vicinity: the Humboldt Forum, which, heralded as the city’s new hub for transcultural research and discourse, now holds the public Asian, African, and South American collections that were previously located in Berlin’s less frequented district of Dahlem.
