Question everything

In this session, through an activity inspired by an exhibition from 2017, we will show how the same objects can be differently perceived. We will describe two objects and compare our answers with the answers of the people who participated in the exhibition in 2017. The conclusions will be connected to an unsettling issue in social sciences, namely, that knowledge is more or less a collection of subjective opinions on the same subject/object.

Although Austria is commonly not considered a colonial power overseas, it was involved in colonization processes through political connections. For instance, parts of the large collections of the Natural History Museum (NHM) Vienna were acquired in colonial contexts. Our interactive talk will present the results of a citizen science project that aimed to study how this past is dealt within the museum. Additionally, we will invite the public to reflect on the current consequences of colonialism that concern societies and each one of us still nowadays.