Past, present and future: much of what happens in Berlin has an impact on the world. And much of what happens in the world affects Berlin. BERLIN GLOBAL, an exhibition on 4,000 square metres of space at the Humboldt Forum, shows how the city and its people are connected with the world. Visitors start in a room called Thinking the World and move on to an introductory space entitled Berlin Images. Rooms with individual themes then follow: Revolution, Free Space, Boundaries, Entertainment, War, Fashion and Interconnection. These aspects also feature in other metropolises, but the constellation captures the essence of the city.
Rich in variety and full of surprises, the immersive installations and atmospheric presentations invite visitors into these realms and the underlying diversity of Berlin. We let those who know the city speak: residents, experts, artists, initiatives and associations. Their stories, experiences and perspectives energise the exhibition.
The world in Berlin – Berlin in the world. The city has always been part of a multifaceted network that spans the globe.
Cities' names evoke images in our minds. Paris is the city of love, New York never sleeps and Rio de Janeiro stands for carnival. What images do you associate with Berlin?
1848, 1918, 1989. These years mark political revolutions in Berlin. The uprisings called dominant sociopolitical structures into question. Breakthroughs to democracy...
Berlin attracts people who seek to live life as they wish. The city has always been a testing ground and playing field for new lifestyles. But when some people make free space their own, others feel pushed out.
The Wall has long since disappeared. Berlin is known as a city without limits. Yet boundaries run through it, even though they are more evident to some people than others.
Entertainment venues in Berlin are gathering places. People, styles and cultures converge in the city, and also reflect its milieus. Take a journey through time with music, dance and theatre.
Berlin seems like a peaceful place today. But wars of the past have left their mark. And what about wars of the present?
In Berlin you can wear anything you like: designer suits, jogging clothes, hipster outfits, stylish headscarves or practical outdoor attire. But fashion is more than an expression of the city's diversity.
Many of Berlin's residents feel at home in more than one place. Their lives are connected to other parts of the world. How can these interconnections be described?
Create your own exhibition! BERLIN GLOBAL’s Open Spaces provide a place to do it. Three luminous blue areas are ready and waiting for your ideas.
You have now seen, heard and experienced a lot. It is time for a break. The lounge invites you to relax and talk with other visitors. It offers space for coming together and networking.
The WORLD STUDIO offers ways to be creative yourself and take action with others.
Attempts to explore, chart and take possession of the world continue to this day.
The enormous mural by How&Nosm depicts events in the conquest and exploitation of the globe. The artists painted, sprayed and modelled the four walls to highlight colonial divisions of the world, studies of connections between humans and nature, and controversial appropriations of objects from other cultures. Collage-like scenes reveal symbols that stand for conceptualising the world as something shared: clasped hands, broken chains and doves of peace.
How do we want to live together in the world? How does this world influence us? How do we want to shape it? Join in! You can log in and connect with the exhibition. Numerous stations invite you to cast a vote and make a difference. At the end you’ll receive a summary of your choices and have the chance to meet people who share your opinions exactly – or not at all.
Above: © How&Nosm / Kulturprojekte Berlin and Stiftung Stadtmuseum Berlin, photo: Oana Popa-Costea
Cover picture: © Kulturprojekte Berlin and Stiftung Stadtmuseum Berlin, photo: Alexander Schippel
This room provides an unconventional prelude to Berlin – and literally draws you in. Staggered backdrops with large-scale photos show images of the exhibition’s seven themes: Revolution, Free Space, Boundaries, Entertainment, War, Fashion and Interconnection. You’ll walk through these themes as if on a stage and begin to ask whether they are characteristic or simply clichés. The reverse sides of the backdrops suggest other possible perspectives.
Above: © Kulturprojekte Berlin and Stiftung Stadtmuseum Berlin, photo: Oana Popa-Costea
Cover picture: © Kulturprojekte Berlin and Stiftung Stadtmuseum Berlin, photo: Alexander Schippel
Berlin played a central role in Germany’s major revolutions. The country’s uprisings were closely connected with liberation movements in Europe and the world at large. With recordings of revolutionary anthems and chants, this room lets you imagine what revolutions sound like. A dense collection of posters with statements and appeals evokes the charged atmosphere and tension of upheavals. But how were the revolutions launched and what fuelled them? Spin the wheel of history and embark upon a trip back in time! When one of the years snaps into place you’ll be immersed in a striking combination of moving images and sound. Videos with interviews and historical film sequences plus immersive works of art make it clear that revolutions are by no means closed chapters in history but instead reverberate on into the present. Here you can watch and listen to individuals who themselves or whose close associates took part in revolutions.
Above: © Hanaa El Degham / Kulturprojekte Berlin and Stadtmuseum Berlin, photo: Alexander Schippel
Cover picture: © Focke-Museum, Bremer Landesmuseum für Kunst und Kulturgeschichte / Lars Lorisch / Kulturprojekte Berlin and Stiftung Stadtmuseum Berlin, photo: Alexander Schippel
Berlin is known for diversity, tolerance and freedom of expression. Think of the many abandoned spaces and empty buildings after the fall of the Wall, and the way residents typically put them to provisional use.
Berlin offers opportunities for all manner of new uses and ideas – although limited in time, because the city is constantly changing and its free spaces appear and disappear. This room’s photographic projections will lead you to Potsdamer Platz, which changed extraordinarily rapidly after the Wall fell. You’ll feel surrounded by walls that move towards you and then away. Spaces will seem larger and then smaller, and you’ll sense contraction and expansion. You’ll also smell some of the city’s typical aromas, such as its earth, lavender, grasses and dog faeces.
Above: © David Mesguich / Yasha Young / DOT DOT DOT / Kulturprojekte Berlin and Stiftung Stadtmuseum Berlin, photo: Alexander Schippel
Cover picture: © Kulturprojekte Berlin and Stiftung Stadtmuseum Berlin, photo: Alexander Schippel
The illuminated map on the floor shows Berlin’s roads and waterways. Tall glass cases containing remarkable historical objects stand on the map: they indicate boundaries that surrounded, divided and were determined in Berlin in the past. Media stations in the form of surveying instruments also stand on the map. Their screens show you something about boundaries in Berlin today. Videos, animations and illustrations tell of racist exclusion, of places like the TV tower’s viewing platform that cannot be accessed by wheelchair users, and of parts of the city where residents can no longer afford to live.
Above: © Kulturprojekte Berlin and Stiftung Stadtmuseum Berlin, photo: Alexander Rentsch
Cover picture: © Kulturprojekte Berlin and Stiftung Stadtmuseum Berlin, photo: Alexander Schippel
Entertainment cultures have thrived on international influences since the 19th century. Explore the wooden kaiserpanorama that delighted viewers 120 years ago with its 3D scenes of cities, landscapes and events in faraway places. For a high-volume experience, take a headset, enter the disco sphere and dance to the beats of Berlin. They will transport you to musical cultures of the past century, from foxtrot to hip-hop. Today global music corporations are headquartered in Berlin. In the early 20th century companies like Lindström AG popularised jazz, tango and samba in the city. You can play songs from old shellac records on a converted portable player. Four sparkling copper walk-in spheres present different aspects of entertainment culture. The displays also take you behind scenes and onto fine lines between entertainment and exclusion: who can enjoy what where, and who is not allowed in? And who decides what is entertainment and what is not?
Cover picture: © Kulturprojekte Berlin and Stiftung Stadtmuseum Berlin, photo: Alexander Schippel
Berlin unleashed wars of conquest that shaped the 20th century. Wars in the German colonies and the First World War were launched from Berlin. The Second World War started here and ended in the destruction of large parts of the city as well as of the world. The walls of this room contain illuminated glass cases set in a restless pattern of protruding and receding grey felt squares. The objects, audio recordings and videos tell of war, violence and captivity. Digital stations show some of the traces of war in Berlin, such as street names and the number of pavement “stumbling stones” that recall individuals persecuted and murdered by the Nazis from 1933 to 1945. What are the signs of today’s wars? LED displays also show updated numbers of new refugees in the city.
Above: © Kulturprojekte Berlin and Stiftung Stadtmuseum Berlin, photo: David von Becker
Cover picture: © Kulturprojekte Berlin and Stiftung Stadtmuseum Berlin, photo: Alexander Schippel
A large display window shows typical women’s outfits in Berlin today, compiled by students at Berlin’s School of Fashion, against a photographic backdrop of women in everyday outfits from 1900 to the present. You can listen to women describing their choice of clothing. But where do the clothes come from? You’ll find that out by looking behind the display window.
An extensive infographic places the history of Berlin’s fashion industry into a global context. Where did the cotton come from in the 18th century? Who cut, sewed and ironed garments in the 19th century and who does that today? A digital loom prompts discussion of how to bring fairer conditions to the global fashion industry. On six screens, activists and NGO representatives describe what they consider key to overcoming abuses in the garment business. The pattern of colours on the digital carpet shows how visitors respond to their statements.
Above: © Kulturprojekte Berlin and Stiftung Stadtmuseum Berlin, photo: Oana Popa-Costea
Cover picture: © Kulturprojekte Berlin and Stiftung Stadtmuseum Berlin, photo: Oana Popa-Costea
The visuals of this room are dominated by a multicoloured sculpture suspended from the ceiling. It was inspired by 15 sound portraits of Berliners who were born here, chose the city as their home, fled here or ended up here by chance. The portraits tell of Berlin and of very different connections to other parts of the world. Take a headset and sit down on a long bench to hear their stories and examine details of the sculpture. A collection of objects illustrates these Berliners’ relationships to places they love or miss. The room also features a media station that lets you display your own interconnections with the world.
Above: © Tape That / Kulturprojekte Berlin and Stiftung Stadtmuseum Berlin, photo: Oana Popa-Costea
Cover picture: © Tape That / Kulturprojekte Berlin and Stiftung Stadtmuseum Berlin, photo: Alexander Schippel
On BERLIN GLOBAL’s three Open Spaces, we invite initiatives, organisations and groups to work with us to create their own exhibitions. We are looking for projects that make visible unknown, underappreciated or activist topics and perspectives. We provide the budget and other museum resources. Currently the Open Spaces application is closed. The next call for submissions will begin in fall 2022.
For further information and the online application form, please visit the >> Open Space website.
Above: © Kulturprojekte Berlin und Stiftung Stadtmuseum Berlin, Foto: Oana Popa-Costea
Cover picture: © Kulturprojekte Berlin und Stiftung Stadtmuseum Berlin, Foto: Oana Popa-Costea
A sculpture reminiscent of large woody vines offers numerous places to sit. It reflects the exhibition’s leitmotif that everything is connected. Before taking a seat, you’ll return your chip wristband and receive an individual summary of your tour. You can also view composite results of visitors’ choices and opinions on monitors. You’ll meet people who share your opinions exactly – or not at all. The lounge offers many opportunities for discussion. Perhaps some of these encounters will lead to actions that change something in Berlin and shape the world together.
Cover picture: © Ursprungskonzept: Stammpunkt / Kulturprojekte Berlin and Stiftung Stadtmuseum Berlin, photo: Alexander Schippel
The WORLD STUDIO invites everyone to put shared ideas for Berlin and the world into action. This is the place for information, workshops, respite, reflection and simply deciding to join in. Here you can rethink conventional ways of showing the world, and design new maps with your own ideas – three unusual “cartographers” stand ready to help. Individual maps and the discussions they bring open up new ways of seeing the world.
Above: © Stadtmuseum Berlin, photo: Alexander Schippel
Cover picture: © Kulturprojekte Berlin and Stiftung Stadtmuseum Berlin, Foto: Oana Popa-Costea
Many parts of the exhibition reveal or make reference to two previous stages of history at the site, namely the Berlin Palace and the Palace of the Republic. Both addressed in a number of displays.
The check-in stations are set up in the first room entitled "Thinking the World". Visitors can log in and embark upon individual interactive trips through the exhibition. Many stations allow them to actively engage with the displays, to cast votes and make decisions.
© Kulturprojekte Berlin and Stiftung Stadtmuseum Berlin, photo: Oana Popa-Costea
By urban artists How & Nosm.
© How and Nosm / Kulturprojekte Berlin and Stiftung Stadtmuseum Berlin, Photo: Alexander Schippel
These elements display texts in simple language as well as in Braille and provide a tactile experience not only to vision-impaired visitors. Accessible features also include audio texts, a tactile high-contrast floor guidance system and translations of selected content into twelve languages including German Sign Language (DGS).
© Kulturprojekte Berlin and Stiftung Stadtmuseum Berlin, photo: Oana Popa-Costea
Construction of a walk-through table of contents.
Photo: @ Kulturprojekte Berlin and Stiftung Stadtmuseum Berlin, Photo: Oana Popa-Costea
Comics by artist Ali Fitzgerald
Installation showing boundaries in Berlin
Photo: © Kulturprojekte Berlin and Stiftung Stadtmuseum Berlin, Photo: Alexander Schippel
From workshop to exhibition space
Photo: @ Kulturprojekte Berlin and Stiftung Stadtmuseum Berlin, Photo: Oana Popa-Costea
Graphics and text panels are mounted
Photo: @ Kulturprojekte Berlin and Stiftung Stadtmuseum Berlin, Photo: Oana Popa-Costea
Students from Berlin’s School of Fashion went out into the city and then designed apparel that reflects some of Berlin's major fashion trends. The outfits are displayed in the Fashion room against a backdrop of black-and-white photos from the past of women in typical attire in Berlin.
New sculpture by Tape That.
Tape That erschaffen neue Skulptur. Im Raum „Verflechtung“ teilen verschiedenen Berliner*innen ihre Verbindungen zu Berlin und anderen Orten in der Welt. Mit „verflochtene Leben“ greifen die Tape-Künstler Tape That diese Geschichten auf und verwandeln sie in ein raumgreifendes Vernetzungskunstwerk.
A memorial arrives.
© Kulturprojekte Berlin and Stiftung Stadtmuseum Berlin, Photo: Louisa Marie Summer
A heavyweight enters the exhibition.
© Private property Dimitri Hegemann / Kulturprojekte Berlin and Stiftung Stadtmuseum Berlin, David von Becker
In the last room visitors can analyse and reflect on what they have experienced in the exhibition. There is still more to be built and sewn here. But soon a sculptured set of seating elements in the shape of a woody vine will wind its way through the room. A metaphor for Berlin's connections with the world, it invites visitors to relax and connect with other people.
© Kulturprojekte Berlin and Stiftung Stadtmuseum Berlin, photo: Oana Popa-Costea
© Kulturprojekte Berlin and Stiftung Stadtmuseum Berlin, Oana Popa-Costea
Berlin Exhibition in the Humboldt Forum
Schlossplatz, 10178 Berlin
City railway and underground (S+U): Alexanderplatz
Underground: Rotes Rathaus, Museumsinsel
Bus: Lustgarten, Berliner Schloss
Parking: Schlossplatz
The safety guidelines in BERLIN GLOBAL are the same as those of the Humboldt Forum.
Website Humboldt ForumMonday | 10am – 8pm |
---|---|
Tuesday | closed |
Wednesday | 10am – 8pm |
Thursday | 10am – 8pm |
Friday | 10am – 10pm |
Saturday | 10am – 10pm |
Sunday | 10am – 8pm |
…a visa for the Ukraine or the valid student identification for a Ukranian university and a visa for residence in Germany – this also still applies to everyone carrying an electrical residency permit (eAT). We look forward to greeting you!
Ласкаво просимо
Всі, хто має український паспорт, візу для України або дійсне студентське посвідчення українського університету та візу на проживання в Німеччині, можуть безкоштовно відвідувати всі наші локації; це також стосується всіх, хто має дозвіл на проживання в електронному вигляді (eAT ). Ми з нетерпінням чекаємо на Вас!
Starting on January 2nd, 2022, we invite you to visit the BERLIN GLOBAL exhibition at the Humboldt Forum free of charge on the first Sunday of each month. Tickets for the BERLIN GLOBAL exhibition are available in advance (max. 7 days in advance) at the box office and on the day of the event. Online tickets are only available from the Museum Sunday shop. It is not possible to reserve tickets by telephone.
Log in, spin the wheel of history, immerse yourself in the city’s stories. BERLIN GLOBAL invites you to explore vibrant complexes of topics. You’ll feel, discover and join in. You’ll hear sound portraits, engage with revolutions and dance to the beats of Berlin. Chip wristbands available at the entrance let you connect even more. Numerous stations invite you to take a stand and cast a vote. At the end you’ll receive a summary of your choices and have the chance to meet people who share your opinions exactly – or not at all.
The exhibition offers everyone a wealth of experience. Much of the content is conveyed in twelve languages (Arabic, Chinese, English, French, German, German Sign Language (GSL), Italian, Japanese, Polish, Russian, Spanish and Turkish), in some of the exhibition media and to a greater extent in the media guide. All areas are accessible to prams, wheelchairs and wheeled walkers. A tactile, high-contrast floor guidance system provides orientation. A visitor guide with audio description is also on offer. The main thing is simply for you to be here!
The texts of the BERLIN GLOBAL exhibition media are available in Arabic, Chinese, English, French, German, German Sign Language (DGS), Italian, Japanese, Polish, Russian, Spanish and Turkish via the BERLIN GLOBAL App.
You can only access the BERLIN GLOBAL App on site via the media guide, a device that you can borrow at the information counter in the main foyer of the Humboldt Forum. The rental fee is 3 Euro and must be paid at the cash desk. There you get a voucher to pick up the device at the information counter. You find the main foyer with cash desk and information counter on the ground floor.
On the media guide you will also find the Humboldt Forum app offering tours in the entire building and further information. The available languages here are Chinese, English, French, German, German Sign Language (DGS), Italian and Spanish. There is also a BERLIN GLOBAL tour that gives you brief information on the individual rooms and selected objects in the exhibition as an alternative to the more detailed BERLIN GLOBAL App. The Humboldt Forum App and all tours are available online free of charge at any time.
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