Unheard stories

Can furniture talk? And if so – what do they talk about? What happens when children give the exhibits at the MK&G a voice? For a whole week, the children of the 4B of the Brüder-Grimm-Schule Hamburg are guests at the museum. They do object yoga, invent cabinet language, play museum thieves, and hide to eavesdrop on visitors’ conversations as well as the whispers of the exhibits. Together with the artists Benjamin van Bebber, Filomena Krause and Leo Hofmann, they produce radio plays in which, for example, “Stuhli”, an exhibited piece of art nouveau furniture, is jealous of the utilitarian piece of furniture “Mülleimer”, because the latter can be touched by visitors and he cannot. In the end, the children really know their way around the museum. The museum guards are happy and the ultimate hiding place for eavesdroppers, a cardboard trash can, is temporarily added to the collection. The children’s families turn up in large numbers and, along with many guests, listen to the audio pieces in the museum, applauding the live scenes on a staged tour. The children’s audio contributions remained in the museum for another week, encouraging visitors to listen for themselves to see if they can hear what the exhibits are telling them.

A cooperation project with the Kulturagenten Hamburg, accompanied by Julia Münz

Video: Martin D'Costa