Participants: Prof Dr Karen Ellwanger, Dr Andrea Hauser, Gerda Engelbracht, Laura Schibbe

Period: 10/2008-12/2011

Funding: Pro*Niedersachsen foundation (Lower Saxony MWK)

Co-operations: Bomann Museum Celle, Museum for the Principality of Lüneburg, Museum Village Hösseringen, Rundlingsmuseum Wendlandhof Lübeln

The project was carried out at the Seminar for Material and Visual Culture in co-operation with four regional museums. 'Traditional costumes' are considered a classic topic of material culture research. The intention was to take a new look at 'traditional costumes' from a perspective that includes the interweaving of constructions of nation, region and gender. At the centre were extensive and partly unprocessed collections of rural clothing, which were included as 'traditional costume' in the cooperating museums. In addition to working on specific objects, the focus was on collection strategies, organisational patterns and networks of the museum actors involved in the Heimat movement around 1900. The aim was to trace gender constructions and their impact on the material heritage and cultural memory of the region.