Chapter 2

Installation view, University of Hamburg 2015. Photo: Paula Pohle

Installation view, University of Hamburg 2015. Photo: Paula Pohle

ParaMuseum by Farbod Fakharzadeh (Aalto University Helsinki) and Nancy Odufona (HFBK Hamburg) deals with the Ethnographic Museum and its basic problematic of being established in the context of colonialism and rassism. Which role can Ethnographic Museums play today? Could it establish a critical apporach to its own past in exchange with current (post-) colonial studies? Refusing the concept of the museum as a place for knowledge production ParaMuseum offers a “contact zone” (James Clifford) for discussions, reflections, and emotions around the Ethnographic Museum and its colonial past.