Project Group Ö: Public Relations, Exhibition

Encounters of Significance

The history of 5000 years of nomadic and sedentary people

Time period for the exhibition: November 17th, 2011 - May 20th, 2012

Press kit for the Exhibition "Brisante Begegnungen" (GER)

The exhibition presents a dual path through the history of relationships of two different ways of life, the nomadic and the sedentary. As every society possesses moments of mobility as well as moments of sedentariness, the opening is concerned with the basic explanation of these two principles. The visitor will be introduced to the different focuses of interaction and encounter by a round tour, leading from the entry to two directions.

The five subjects dealt with in the exhibition are:

• Nomadic and sedentary people
• Systems of organization
• Work and exchange
• Trade, market and hospitality
• Encounter under arduous conditions

Aim of the exhibition and topicality
The thematic focus emanates from the main subject of the Collaborative Research Centre:
The perspective of “difference and integration” asks about the interactions between nomadic and sedentary people, between “mobile” and “place bounded people” as well as about the relationship of ‘own/ the same’ and ‘alien/ the other’. We assume that the relationship of nomadic and sedentary people goes along with the construction of ‘the other’ from the time of the ancient world until now. This process continues to exert an influence even in current political debates, on migration and integration, as an instance.
Therefore, the deconstruction of ‘the other’ will constitute a spotlight of the exhibition. Our concern and strength is the long-term research in a regional and temporal breadth - this enabled us to assemble much information about nomadic everyday life and nomadic interrelations.
Next to real foreignness and distance the exhibitions and the supporting program aim to communicate similarities and particular specifics: as a counterbalance against simplifying,
romanticizing or xenophobe conceptions of ‘the other’. 

Exhibits and display formats
We consider an exhibition with the character of an ‘installation’, which uses museum objects, artistic and concept based forms of expression. Exhibits shall be:

1. Maps, photographs, film sequences, graphics and computer generated models, which present the results of the SFB 586.
2. Archeological an ethnographical artifacts (loans from different collections)
3. Room installations and reconstructions of places of social and economic exchange as well as of supply chains and production process
4. Artworks that are concerned with the subject methodically or thematically