Room A6-0-015

Phone 0441-798-2639

Email sebastian.bollmann@uol.de

I work as a research assistant and doctoral candidate on the research project "New museums of local history as institutions of knowledge production" on the research module "Representational modes and aesthetic processes of representations of local history".

Before I did my Master's degree in "Museum and Exhibition" here at the University of Oldenburg, I studied the Bachelor's degree programme "Literary, Cultural and Media Studies / Visual Studies and Art History" at the University of Siegen. During these studies I was already able to gain experience in museums, including at the Centre for Art and Media Technology in Karlsruhe and at the Edith Ruß House for Media Art here in Oldenburg.

I have now switched from media art to my home country. I was initially surprised by the sheer number of museums of local history in this field - just this much: there are an incredible number. Perhaps that is why I am particularly interested in the significance of concepts such as "Heimat" in our globalised world. How these are spatially represented and conveyed in the new museums of local history is a focus of my research.

In my research work, I focus on analysing interpretative offers, aesthetic procedures and practices, manifested in the permanent exhibitions of the five cooperating museums of the research project "Neue Heimatmuseen als Institutionen der Wissensproduktion". In doing so, I examine modes of representation of "Heimat" on the basis of thematic attributions, contextual classifications and formal realisations in the presentations of the permanent exhibitions and the museums' collections in order to identify patterns of new Heimat museums.

(Scientific approach) I understand the museum presentations to be examined as spatially realised communication offers in different multimedia and spatial compositions. The thematic selection, arrangement and aesthetic procedures of their presentation form an intended spatially arranged overall picture, which always also transports unintended messages. This means that both the materiality of the display and the perception of the exhibited objects are analysed. Museums of local history are not explicitly dedicated to the topic of "homeland", but they create and display images, ideas and interpretations of homelands and are thus involved in the production of knowledge about homelands.

(Research question) How are homelands represented - explicitly and implicitly - in relation to locality and regionality in new museums of local history? Through which themes and contexts, groups of objects and aesthetic processes is knowledge about "Heimat" produced in the museum?

(Material) The materials of my analyses represent thematic, temporal and local orientations in the holdings (on the basis of systematics, inventory documents, concepts and existing objects) and presentation (texts, designated themes, object ensembles and exhibition units, displays and sequences). In addition to the spatial arrangements of the exhibitions as objects of investigation, I include both written and oral sources (in the form of conversations with museum actors and joint tours) in my analyses. I also have access to quantitative data on other comparable museums as comparative material.

(Method) An inventory is applied in addition to a multi-stage, interdisciplinary exhibition analysis. In the first step of the analysis, I examine what is shown and which explicit contexts are thus created. If this analysis step initially directs my attention to the "what" is shown, I then focus on the "how". The content of what is shown is always based on a specific mode of representation; thus both - i.e. what is represented in terms of content and how this content is represented in space - are considered in the analysis.

(Research objective) In doing so, I expect, on the one hand, statements and interpretations about "homelands" today and, on the other hand, about patterns of aesthetic procedures, which not least allow statements about the "new" of the New Homeland Museums and the meanings of "homeland" today.

Studies

- Oct. 2007 to March 2011 Master's programme "Museum and Exhibition" at the University of Oldenburg

Title of the Master's thesis: "Digital heritage video art? The exhibition Record Again! as a question generator for exhibiting and depositing digital artefacts"

- Oct. 2003 to Sept. 2007 Bachelor studies at the University of Siegen in

Title of the bachelor thesis: "Text, poetic figure, relic? On the conception of literary museums"

- Oct. 2002 to Sept. 2003 Art History, Class. Archaeology and Philosophy at the Westfälische Wilhelms University of Münster

Internships

- Dec. 2009 to March 2010 Assistance with media (art) education at the Edith-Ruß-Haus for Media Art Oldenburg for the exhibitions "Guy BenNer - Flying Lessons" and "Record Again - 40 Years of Video Art Part 2"

- July to Oct. 2008 Internship at the ZKM | Centre for Art and Media Karlsruhe for the exhibition "Medium Religion" curated by Boris Groys and Peter Weibel

- Feb. 2006 to April 2006 Internship at MARTa Herford as curatorial assistant for the exhibition "V+W_Design_Matrix" by Berlin designers Vogt and Weizenegger under the artistic direction of Jan Hoet

Exhibitions and end of projects

- Sept. 2009 DAAD-funded study visit and co-operation project "Collecting Yourself" with Seoul Womens University (South Korea), resulting in a group exhibition at the Bahroom Gallery in Seoul and an exhibition catalogue

- Oct. 2008 to Aug. 2009 "Collecting Yourself" a performative exhibition project in public space as part of the event programme "Übermorgenstadt - Oldenburg City of Science 2009"