Objects from Borneo in the Cabinet of Artefacts and Natural Curiosities of the Francke Foundations Halle
Third-party funded project
Objekte im Borneo Schrank der Kunst- und Naturalienkammer
Markus Scholz
The Cabinet of Artefacts and Natural Curiosities of the Francke Foundations was conceived and designed in the years 1736-41. It can be visited today in its original location in the lower part of the mansard roof of the Historic Orphanage. The Cabinet is important for the history of the museum as it is the only surviving cabinet of curiosities of civil origin from the early modern era, complete with its setting of objects, cabinets, historical inventories, and instructions. Following on the Pietist missionary activities in eighteenth-century South India, the Francke Foundations director Hermann Agathon Niemeyer (1802-1851) decided to send Heinrich Julius Berger (1800-1845) and Johann Michael Carl Hupe (1818-1861) to Borneo as missionaries via the Rheinische Missionswerk. Part of their mission was to acquire objects and send them back to Halle, following the practice of collecting artefacts and natural objects by Halle missionaries in South India during the eighteenth century. The intention was to exhibit these as publicly visible testimony of the continuation of missionary activities in the ensemble of the Cabinet of Artefacts and Natural Curiosities. For this purpose, a new display cabinet was made to hold the objects. Approximately 110 objects from Borneo were sent to Halle during the 1840s. They were (and are) displayed in the cabinet itself and on the outside walls. From the very beginning, the Cabinet of Artefacts and Natural Curiosities has been open to visitors and was accessible as museum.
The project, funded by the German Lost Art Foundation, is part of the research field ›Knowledge and Objects from Colonial Contexts‹ from the period before 1884. It aims to contribute to the historical deep structure of the relations between colonialism, missionary activities, and collecting practices; and will focus on connections between the corresponding activities of the eighteenth century and the institutional continuity in the nineteenth century. The project will study the provenance of the objects, determine their original purposes, examine and expand information on them, and describe the use and reinterpretation of these objects in Halle. In addition, the presentation of the societies of origin will be studied as well as the question of whether the people of Borneo themselves had their say, whether their voice was heard and, if so, in what form and in what style. Cooperation with several institutions, particularly in the Sarawak region, is planned. The project will result in a digital exhibition that makes the research results transparent, understandable, and multilingual freely accessible.
Announcement »Digital workshop on the Borneo project in the Cabinet of Artefacts and Natural Curiosities«
April 2, 2025, 9 a.m.
The public and international workshop will bring together experts and knowledge from various institutes in Germany, England and Borneo. Individual topics and questions about collection objects will be discussed with regard to their original meaning and use as well as their relevance to the history of Borneo's collections.
Please register with Giulia Speciale.
Contact: speciale(at)francke-halle.de
Presentation at the 13th EuroSEAS Conference (July 23-25, 2024, Universiteit van Amsterdam)
In a lecture entitled »Exploring the cultural heritage of Borneo through objects from the Cabinet of Artefacts and Natural Curiosities of the Francke Foundations in Germany«, Giulia Speciale and Jutta Kelling (FernUni Hagen) presented the provenance research project on objects from Borneo in the Cabinet of Artefacts and Natural Curiosities, which was launched in November 2023.
The panel »Memories, objects, art: disrupting colonial narratives on Borneo's cultural heritage« brought together experts from a wide range of institutes who reported on collections and exhibits from Borneo. The EuroSEAS association, founded in 1992, organizes an international conference every two years that gathers together Southeast Asia experts from a wide range of disciplines.
Interdisciplinary kick-off workshop at the Francke Foundations on February 1, 2024
The research project »Objects from Borneo in the Francke Foundations' Chamber of Art and Natural History«, which was launched in December 2023, kicked off with an interdisciplinary workshop that brought together experts from the Friedenstein Castle Foundation (Gotha), the Weltkulturen Museum (Frankfurt am Main), the Archive and Museum Foundation of the United Evangelical Mission (Wuppertal), the University of Hagen and various research institutions in Halle for an initial exchange. Discussions focused on perspectives, current concepts, experiences and networking on the topic.
Concept and direction: Jutta Kelling, Giulia Speciale and Holger Zaunstöck
