Mind The Gap!

The second lab Mind The Gap! deals with the topic of collections, and particularly with what is missing from them. In every collection, and in every museum, there are missing objects as well as missing narratives – smaller or bigger gaps. The DOMiD collections also have such gaps: one of them is the lack of LGBTIQA+ perspectives. This raises the following questions: How can DOMiD's planned migration museum deal with gaps (in terms of design) in its permanent exhibition? In which ways can the LGBTIQA+ stories from within the migration society be told?

Thanks to the support and networks of SOFRA – Queer Migrants e.V., rubicon e.V. with baraka – a place for international queers and Integrationshaus e.V. with Spektrum Queer Group, enthusiastic participants could be found. Adrian Flaksbaum Moll, Akshay Kapadia and Elizaveta Khan joined the freelance curator Niko Wahl (Vienna) to form this lab’s curator-collective. They were accompanied in their work by the DOMiD project team. The design elements and formats were developed in collaboration with the exhibition builders from StiftungFREIZEIT.

The curator-collective met regularly to discuss and exchange on personal as well as societal LGBTIQA+ narratives and topics. Based on these exchanges, the team then developed and tested design elements and formats that translated the notion of “gap” both visually and spatially.

The work of the curator-collective concludes with an exhibition, Mind The Gap! Narratives and Questions from LGBTIQA+ Migrants, which will be hosted by the Kulturbunker Köln-Mülheim.

The Lab team has agreed on using the term LGBTIQA+ as an abbreviation for lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, intersex, queer, asexual and + for further diverse sexual orientations and gender identities. The German translation of the term is LSBTIQA+, standing for: Lesben, Schwule, Bisexuelle, trans* Personen, inter Personen, queere Personen, asexuelle Personen and + for further sexual and gender identities.

Thinking differently, creating something new, coming together, finding answers, creating networks, sharing knowledge. In this way, StiftungFREIZEIT recodes spaces and processes, ironizes them, and devises new formats for living together. With their actions, they repeatedly ask themselves the questions: How does a communicative space come into being? Can design be used to create structures that generate a commitment to participation and make knowledge visible?

Their interventions promote a reflexive or discursive engagement of the actors for society and lead to joint knowledge making in a constant process - a new form of public sphere. Knowledge - whether learned through practical experience or experienced sensually - is regarded on an equal footing.

This form of knowledge transfer opens up new possibilities of publicity for museums as well. If social interactions are developed through interests, individual and collective experiences are gathered, and perspectives are shifted, the exhibition space is also transformed. It is no longer a static moment, but an ongoing process of socio-cultural exchange. We is more!