Program EN
Thursday, June 6th, 2024
Conference language on the first day will be English
09:00 – 09:30
Registration of participants and welcome
09:30 – 09:45
Official welcome by the representatives of the Institut für Museumsforschung (IfM) and the Museum Europäischer Kulturen (MEK)
Patricia Rahemipour and Elisabeth Tietmeyer
09:45 – 10:30
Key Note “Intangible Heritage, Museum and the Scences“
Moderation: Patricia Rahemipour (IfM)
Recent studies into the significance of senses in galleries, libraries, archives and museums reveal that sensory interaction enables meaningful learning experiences, bringing heritage to life and leading to its enhanced understanding. What does this mean for the broad field of intangible cultural heritage and museums?
After all, intangible cultural heritage engages the whole human body. The sensuality of practicing and experiencing intangible heritage is something inseparably connected with it, and intangible cultural heritage cannot exist without sensuality. However, inventorying, documenting and presenting intangible heritage often culminate in representations that are formulated on the basis of a strong visual and auditory bias of knowledge construction and often show a repression of all the senses except for sight and hearing.
In her keynote, Sophie Elpers will explore the question of how the regime of what is traditionally understood as the stronger senses can be overcome in the field of intangible cultural heritage, and what roles museums can play in this. Which methods are advisable, what are the risks and challenges, and what opportunities arise?
10:30 – 12:30
Panel: Practises of Intangible Heritage
Moderation: Judith Schühle (MEK)
This panel aims to focus on practices that emerge from and surround the intangible in the dynamic field of relations between museums and communities of practice. These practices include (different) notions of securing the intangible, but also negotiations about collecting, preserving, presenting and remembering the intangible in museums. The practices also consist of multiple forms of participation, as well as the (implicit and explicit) questioning of dominant structures (of knowledge) when intangible heritage and the knowledge associated with it enter and thus might challenge the museum’s knowledge system.
The paper draws on Pierre Nora’s discussion of sites of memory, or lieux de mémoire, and positions the distinction ‘between memory and history’ (1989) in contemporary approaches to safeguarding intangible heritage (UNESCO 2003). While ‘memory’ reflects modes of knowledge and practice embedded in sensory and embodied experiences of communities transmitted through the generations, ‘history’ becomes a byword for the emergence of modern knowledge categories of preservation, interpretation and representation, often through the rupture between past and present, and the conflation of the former with diverse socio-political ideologies. How can museum and heritage professionals as actors of history and preservation engage and respond to calls for living heritage passed on by communities? What are the practical and ethical implications of safeguarding living heritage in museums and heritage institutions? The paper aims to address these questions by exploring the conceptual framework surrounding discussions on safeguarding living heritage within the UNESCO 2003 Convention for the Safeguarding of Intangible Heritage, and considers ways for working with ‘memory’ from a museological perspective. This presupposes a reorientation of museum work from objects curated by trained specialists to community-based knowledges and practices. The paper discusses cases of museums and other heritage institutions operating within the participatory turn and highlights some of the challenges and opportunities of working at the interface of memory and history.
The definition of a museum has been evolving. In early times, museums served as channels to present the concept of a ’nation,‘ enabling people to learn about their country and showcasing its grand achievements. They also introduced exotic forms and ‚colonial subjects‘ through what I call an ‚authorised narrative’, scripted by those who were in the position to exercise influence. However, in contemporary times, museums are not only about exhibiting objects and cultural artifacts; they have become vital knowledge hubs for addressing the importance of incorporating diverse voices to embrace inclusivity and diversity.
In this presentation, I will discuss the various forms of negotiation and the actors involved in different settings, examining their roles in shaping and transmitting intangible heritage. The settings that will be explored include ’sense‘, ‚memory‘, ‚contested spaces‘, and ‚marginalised‘.
The cases will be examined through the idea of the museum as a space of negotiation and performativity: a place that induces debate rather than conformity. Furthermore, the museum is viewed as a space that does not dictate what or how people should think but rather guides them on what to think, nurturing critical thinking and fostering a sense of goodness in good human being.
Relating the experience of a capacity building workshop devoted to ICH for sustainable development in Florence (Heritage-s. pedagogical approach to the safeguarding of cultural heritage, 2015-16), involving several museums and ecomuseum’s professionals, we analyze some impacts produced by the paradigm of ICH in the minds and practices of the professionals of the heritage sector.
In a region (Tuscany) with a strong monumental, material and museum-based heritage’s imaginary, the Ecomuseum Casentino – a project involving a network of thematic and little museums, funded by a “Unione dei Comuni” bringing together 17 municipalities in a mountain valley in Tuscany – started in 2018 a process of inventorying ICH. This process launched a mapping and involving Communities, Groups and individuals (CGIs) exercise – making possible to some communities of practices to progressively organize themselves as heritage-communities, with the mediation of the Ecomuseum’s and ICH professionals.
We analyse some key results of this process, at the level of local and community-based narrative and initiatives (the web platform Educational Heritage with the ICH Atlas and the Heritage Communitie’s Pacts), as well as the level of local policies, involving a broad network of stakeholders: policy-makers, educational institutions, local associations, producers and local companies/business through a common tool: the Patto Territoriale (territorial pact).
This talk addresses this question by drawing upon extensive research in Western Canada on decolonizing heritage in relation to the Canadian Truth and Reconciliation’s Calls to Action and the adoption of the United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples. The findings are informed by two UK Arts and Humanities Research Council funded projects, Renewing Relations: Indigenous Heritage Rights and (Re)conciliation in Northwest Coast Canada 2022-24and Namała: The Future of Indigenous Rights and Responsibilities 2023-25, and the ideas inform my new UKRI FLF project 2025-29.
In this talk four practice-based approaches will be considered to illustrate how museums can make a positive contribution to decolonizing tangible and intangible heritage, and professional heritage practice.The first step is to address the power dynamics related to the concept of heritage itself. The colonial history of heritage-making must be acknowledged so that the power of heritage can be recognized, decolonized, and used to support Indigenous rights.
The second step is to consider the processes and practices that can be adopted to create conceptual space for non-western ontologies, epistemologies and axiologies to be spoken, heard, and honoured within and beyond the museum. Practices of care-taking and response-ability can help create safer shared spaces. The third step invites a greater awareness of the relationships between tangible and intangible heritage, bringing a more accountable and connected approach to decolonization. Finally, the talk invites listeners to think beyond today to consider how to address harms that are still unfolding and those yet to come, and to build meaningful, reciprocal decolonial relationships that can enable local reclaiming, repairing, rebuilding, renewing, resilience, and revitalization.
12:30 – 14:00
Lunch at Forschungscampus Dahlem (self-pay)
14:00 – 16:00
Panel: Locations of the Intangible
Moderation: Helmut Groschwitz, Munich, Germany
This panel is dedicated to the places and spaces that constitute the sites of intangible heritage and their influence on the dynamic and transformative relationships between communities of practice, museums, and the intangible itself. We would like to explore the meaning of place for intangible heritage and the role it might play in relation to the living heritage that is preserved, transmitted and presented in museums. We would also like to explore ecomuseums as places and digital museums as spaces for intangible heritage and their interrelationships with living heritage and communities of practice.
With the understanding that ICH is embodied and vitalized by people, its keepers and communities, they therefore play the most crucial roles in shaping and changing the relationships that their living cultural traditions, practices, and expressions have to place – in conceptual and concrete, historical and contemporary, local and transnational, organic and more deliberate (and activist) ways. Through this lens, I explore the shifting dynamics of these relationships, as contextualized with the broader economic, political, sociocultural, and ecological forces – and threats to people’s wellbeing, livelihoods, and their ICH – that are at play. Indeed, with the mounting and interrelated challenges of today, culture keepers may decide to team up with heritage professionals to: bolster the sustainability of their ICH; keep strong its ties to place, however fluid; and raise wider awareness of issues faced. In this light, I also consider ICH through the lens of safeguarding interventions, examining the relationships of ICH to places and spaces in the heritage enterprise, and drawing on approaches of longstanding ecomuseological and U.S. public folklore frameworks. As based on examples from the U.S., I focus attention onto ICH in the archival context, as a place for its collaborative preservation, reclamation, dissemination, and transmission. I conclude with considerations for museological efforts that provide a space for uplifting people’s ICH, one that can be used to explicitly address present problems – deep-seated and lingering, and in need of rooting out.
Places are imbued with meaning and significance through the stories, songs, legends, and other oral expressions shared by their inhabitants. These narratives create a layer of imagination that overlays the geographic and physical world, shaping our understanding of our surroundings and connecting us to our communities. In this talk we present the LU.GAR project that sought to map oral traditions within cultural territories. By listening to and studying old storytellers, the project aimed to transmit traditional stories to new generations and motivate new storytellers to embrace the oral traditions of a Place, creating new experiences through them. The project also has a digital version, which adds virtual places from these cultural territories (an essential dimension in the ICH transmission of practices and celebrations today).
The LU.GAR project recognizes that traditional oral expressions are facing challenges in the modern world. In the past, oral tradition was a vibrant part of everyday life. People would gather in the evenings to share stories, passing them down from generation to generation. This was a way of preserving cultural knowledge, values, and beliefs, and also as a form of entertainment and social bonding. In the modern world, traditional ways of sharing oral tradition have declined. People no longer gather around the fire to tell stories. However, these stories are not dying out, but rather transforming and adapting to new times. In recent years, there has been a growing movement to revive oral tradition. This movement is being led by a new generation of storytellers who are committed to keeping this tradition alive. These storytellers are performing in schools, libraries, and other public venues. The LU.GAR project celebrated the transmission of traditional storytellers to contemporary storytellers and the role of these new agents in keeping the traditions alive and ensuring that they continue to be passed down to future generations.
The LU.GAR project, a collaboration between Memória Imaterial (a Portuguese NGO accredited to provide advisory services to the Intergovernmental Committee for the Safeguarding of Intangible Cultural Heritage) traditional storytellers, communities (Alenquer, Melgaço, Monção, Paredes de Coura, Valença, and Vila Nova de Cerveira), artists and the theater company Comédias do Minho, began with a brief mapping of oral traditions in the municipalities and, as a result it created a space for dialogue, creativity, and the sharing of stories. It is a reminder of the power of storytelling to connect us to our past, present, and future.
The definition of intangible cultural heritage (ICH) promoted by the UNESCO 2003 Convention clearly states that it refers to knowledge and skills but also objects and cultural spaces associated therewith, recognized as such by communities, groups and individuals and transmitted for generations.
This presentation explores the concept of emplacement of cultural practices on two different levels. The first one relates to the enactment of the practice, the element of ICH itself. It is analysed in relation to its embodiment. If bodies are instruments for the expression of experience, places are instruments for its sharing. In this sense places make an integral part of the element and are a crucial aspect for ensuring its transmission which relies on social interaction. The second level explored relates to heritage projects and programmes intended as measures for safeguarding ICH. Emplacement in this context is understood as safeguarding measure which ensures the viability of ICH.
Both levels are explored through one case study, that of the Ecomuseum House of batana, UNESCO good safeguarding practice since 2016. Ecomuseum House of batana is a community-based practice and organisation oriented towards safeguarding the maritime heritage (tangible and intangible) of the City of Rovinj-Rovigno, Croatia.
Ecomuseums as heritage management models are based on two basic concepts, community participation and territoriality. Understanding the importance of holistic and people-centred approach to intangible cultural heritage which is enacted by people in a specific environmental context and providing frameworks which rely on these principles, strengthens the impact of safeguarding measures insuring its viability and enjoyment for future generations.
The Dutch Centre for Intangible Cultural Heritage (KIEN) implements the 2003 UNESCO Convention for the Safeguarding of Intangible Cultural Heritage (ICH). One of the main tasks for KIEN is to raise awareness for ICH and to make ICH visible. In this, museums can play a significant role. KIEN itself is part of the Dutch Open Air Museum in Arnhem since 2016. This helps KIEN to give heritage communities an extra stage to show their ICH. Later this year, one of the historic buildings in the museum park will be transformed into a House for ICH. The team of KIEN is currently developing concepts for the exhibition space and how to incorporate this place in the bigger storyline of the museum, which focuses on showing the daily live in a historical perspective. Because ICH is alive, dynamic and often closely connected to a specific environment the exhibition has to do justice to these characteristics. Over the years KIEN gained experience in this by taking part or facilitation several co-creations with museums and heritage communities. For example, an exhibition about the circus culture in the Dutch Open Air Museum; the so-called Crafts Labs in several museums; and, in the Natural History Museum in Rotterdam, an exhibition about the relationship between animals, humans, and ICH. In this presentation I will highlight another project, a co-creation between the Dutch Open Air Museum, KIEN and seventeen children and young adults living in the (super)diverse neighbourhood Presikhaaf in Arnhem. All these youngsters are members of Presikhaaf University, an organization working for equal opportunities for children and young people living in Presikhaaf. From scratch, the partners of this co-creation developed an exhibition and activity program about the (intangible) heritage of neighbourhood that is important for the youngsters. In this panel presentation I will discuss the focus points for museums when they engage in such co-creations and explore the interrelationships between the neighbourhood, its inhabitants, and their living heritage that is showed in the museum. The lessons learned of this co-creation, and the three other projects, are described in the publication Experiences with co-creation. A museological platform for intangible cultural heritage. Tips and recommendations.
16:00 – 16:30
Coffee break
16.30 – 17:30
Final round with all panelists
Moderation: Nushin Atmaca (MEK) & Kathrin Grotz (IfM)
18.00 – 19:00
Guided tours and talks in the exhibitions of the MEK
19:30
Reception at the Forschungscampus Dahlem (self-pay)
Friday, June 7th, 2024
Conference language on the second day will be German
08:45 – 09:15
Registration of participants and welcome
09:15 – 10:00
Key Note Lecture
Moderation: Elisabeth Tietmeyer (MEK)
Intangible heritage is a genuinely cultural-political concept that has been diffusing expansively into various fields for several decades, where it has sometimes become a guiding principle for action. This is also indicated by the call for papers for this conference: For museums, “tangible and intangible heritage would form the basis of their work”, it says. The concept of intangible heritage is associated with promises and expectations. Sections of culture are to be preserved or passed on through targeted measures. The culture managed and valorized in this way becomes a resource, it is understood as an expression of lived cultural diversity, as an instrument of cultural education or, for example, as an example of sustainable ways of dealing with nature.
Against this background, the lecture attempts to critically classify intangible heritage as a “slogan concept” (D. Noyes). It examines the mobilizing aspects of the concept, the (unintended) effects of its adoption and places intangible heritage in the context of global processes of changing cultural understandings, from which museum practice remains anything but unaffected. By adopting the concept of cultural heritage, do museums encourage the politicization, instrumentalization or commodification of culture? What effects arise when cultural-political terminologies (e.g. living heritage, carrier groups) find their way into museum representation practices? Does the inevitable didactic reduction in exhibition practice at best create monolithic perspectives on what is understood as intangible heritage in terms of cultural policy? And in turn: how can polyphony, dissonance or conflicting ideas of cultural heritage be depicted? To what extent do museums co-create cultural heritage and what challenges does this pose?
10:00 – 10:15
Trail break
10:15 – 11:15
Project and initiative showcase part I
The “Manufakturelle Schmuckgestaltung” project has its origins in the work of Dr. Gabriele Wohlauf, who opened the “Manufakturelle Schmuckproduktion” exhibition at the German Museum of Technology in 1993. The aim was to show the interplay between man and machine using the example of manufactory production, i.e. production based on the division of labor. The focus was on people’s empirical knowledge. This had to be collected first. To do this, a form had to be found that would make it possible to preserve the collected knowledge. The first steps were written and photographic documentation of the historical machines and work processes. In addition, more than 200 hours of film footage were recorded over the years with jewelry production experts. However, it quickly became clear that this would not be enough. Experiential knowledge must be “experienced”. Important information such as the sound of an object or the color can be distorted depending on the quality of the recording and the playback device, while other information such as the feel or smell cannot be documented at all. A first step towards solving this problem was the training of the demonstrator Manfred Schweiß by experienced experts from Pforzheim.
The knowledge and skills were first secured in the museum and made available to visitors in the form of demonstrations. The next step was to cooperate with colleges and goldsmiths‘ schools in order to secure long-term knowledge. In one-week seminars, prospective jewelry makers were given the opportunity to get to know the historical techniques and machines and to reinterpret them. This was followed by two scholarship programs and the opportunity for trainee jewelry makers to use the machines in an open workshop. This offer is complemented by activities for children and interested laypeople. In 2015, the project was included in the Register of Good Practices, the nationwide list of intangible cultural heritage in Germany. Andrea Grimm, workshop manager of the handcrafted jewelry workshop, and Leonardo Wassermann Pulido, an engraver who got to know the project during his training and also used the open workshop afterwards, discuss the advantages of the museum as a place to teach craft production techniques. What makes the offer so interesting for the sponsoring groups? How do they benefit from it? What is the added value for the museum’s work? The two of them provide answers to all these questions and more.
Venue: Foyer FC Dahlem
Carnival is a central component of everyday regional culture in the Rhineland and the cultural heritage of the region. Lively, colorful, diverse and at times controversial, yet adaptable to a wide variety of needs, the complex of customs is constantly changing. Social change is never ignored, and carnival reacts to it almost seismographically: developments in alternative carnival from stunt sessions to peace demonstrations, discussions about gender aspects or the racist content of costumes are just a few examples. At the same time, for many people, carnival is an anchor of identity and a foil for experiencing positively connoted values such as a sense of community, joie de vivre, voluntary work and creativity. All of these sometimes contradictory aspects – between tradition and innovation, exclusion and inclusion or order and dissolution of boundaries – are representations of the IKE “carnival”. This opens up a field of tension that also triggers lively discussions among the practitioners: What is the right way to do carnival? What is its essence and a ‚legitimate‘ part of its heritage? Rarely is there any reflection on who actually claims the power of interpretation here. Debates about the meaning and nature of carnival intensify in times of anniversaries: Bonn will celebrate “200 years of Bonn Carnival” in the 2025/2026 session. The anniversary is the occasion for a joint project between the Centre for Urban History and Cultures of Remembrance and the LVR Institute for Regional Studies and Regional History (LVR-ILR) and the Bonn Carnival Festival Committee, which organizes and designs the annual carnival activities in Bonn. The aim is to develop an exhibition format that is presented in Bonn’s urban space and incorporates the different positions of those involved in the carnival.
Our conference tandem provides multi-layered insights into this exhibition project and allows different bearers of intangible cultural heritage to have their say using multimedia sources. Audiovisual clips, interview excerpts, but also material testimonies illustrate the heterogeneity of the custom complex, (supposed) contradictions are analytically explored. The focus is always on the immaterial in order to discuss it: How can the intangible be made tangible? Using the example of the Rhenish Carnival, the showcase aims to provide impetus to the question: Is there a need for a paradigm shift in the exhibition of intangible cultural heritage?
Venue: Exploration room
11:15 – 11:30
Trail break
11:30 – 12:30
Project and initiative showcase I (continuation)
abstract (see above), Venue: Foyer FC Dahlem
The tandem project aims to explore the possibilities of digital collaboration. will be explored. How can collaboration be established between the Berlin Phongramm archive and the local representatives be established? Various tasks are relevant for the processing of sound and voice recordings: For example, the provenance of these recordings is an important facet of researching the importance of the recordings for the actors in Germany and México. It is also important to understand the quality of the voice recordings. Are they sensitive recordings and texts, ritual speech, or other types of sound and speech recordings that speak against open access? How should access to the digitized recordings be organized? How can how can these recordings be processed so that the communities of origin can benefit from them? How can these recordings be prepared for the media so that they can possibly be presented to an audience in a museum context?
At the international conference “Inconceivable”, the two indigenous representatives will present their questions and suggestions on how to deal with the recordings and how to process them in a pre-recorded video. Harry Thomaß will act as moderator at the presentation, translate the Spanish, Lacandon and Tsotsil, explain the technical process of processing the language recordings of indigenous languages and outline the possibilities of collaboration in the digital space.
Venue: Exploration room
12:30 – 13:30
Lunch at Forschungscampus Dahlem (self-pay)
13:30 – 14:30
Project and initiative showcase II
We show the connection between school museums and different communities of practice and their respective intangible cultural heritage.
School museums emerged in Europe mostly in the second half of the 19th century to collect and preserve didactic material for teaching and to encourage teachers to create illustrative lessons (cf. Schnitger 1908). With the increase in industrially produced teaching materials and the scientification of pedagogy at universities, the school museum was permanently devalued as a haven for teachers and their intangible cultural heritage. Today’s teachers generally only use school museums to show school history to pupils.
After this paradigm shift, school museums mainly stored the cultural memory (cf. Assmann 1988) of the school as an institution. As a side effect of this storage, school museums also preserved evidence of linguistic and cultural communities of practice, showing the intangible cultural heritage of these communities of practice from a historical, individual and family perspective. The collection of the Research and Documentation Center for the History of Education in South Tyrol is a rich example of this due to its regional location and eventful history. Between generations and different linguistic and cultural communities of practice, such school testimonies can support a multi-perspective culture of remembrance, i.e. be used for questions about and on individual and collective memory. In addition, approaches for the mediation and appropriation of language and culture in the present can be gained from such historical testimonies. School museums can therefore be an important resource for passing on intangible cultural heritage.
On the one hand, the poster focuses on historical communities of practice of teachers, whose immaterial heritage of a lived art of education is largely buried in the material collection objects of school museums. On the other hand, the poster refers to the intangible heritage of local, linguistic-cultural communities of practice, whose historical, linguistic and cultural testimonies are preserved in exercise books and objects in school museums. They are thus available to present and future generations of these communities of practice as reference points for their intangible cultural heritage.
Venue: Foyer FC Dahlem
Wickerwork is an intangible cultural heritage (IKE) in Germany. Just a few decades ago it was of considerable economic importance – today it is looking for new ways. The task of the Center of European Braiding Culture (ZEF) is to promote and publicize the craft of braiding. The aim is to document knowledge and provide impetus for a possible future. Germany’s only vocational college for wickerwork design has a key role to play in the future of the craft. Here in Lichtenfels, the traditional knowledge and skills of the IKE are passed on. Within Europe, there is a strong desire for exchange and networking between the braiding cultures. This is exactly what living craftsmanship needs!
The ZEF organizes the most important annual international wickerwork culture festival in Lichtenfels (OFr.), the German wickerwork town. International and regional exhibitors show new works there. Exhibitions, the short film festival “Weaving Culture”, workshops and a specialist conference are the core elements of an attractive offer for professional exchange. There is also an excellently attended special market with economic significance. The “World Festival of Wicker and Weaving Culture” takes place in Poland every four years. ZEF plans and organizes the presentation of Germany’s wickerwork culture. In 2023, the wicker town of Lichtenfels, graduates of the vocational school, the Federal Guild Association and the Museum of European Cultures were represented as partners. These festivals are important interfaces of the immaterial, between living cultural heritage and the preserving activities of a museum.
With the exhibition “ALL HANDS ON: Braiding”, the Museum of European Cultures (MEK) has brought treasures from the depot to light. Conceived as a participatory exhibition involving contemporary weavers, it pays tribute to the craft of weaving. Inspiration came from the braiding festivals in Nowy Tomyśl and Lichtenfels, from which the collaboration with the ZEF developed. A vocational school teacher from Lichtenfels came to the MEK to analyze objects. The exhibition uses modern media, especially films, to make hidden knowledge visible. The exhibition’s residency program brings living wickerwork to life in Berlin. Exhibitions are a way of understanding the abstract, not easily communicable dimension of the immaterial and making it accessible.
Venue: Exploration room
14:30 – 14:45
Trail break
14:45 – 15:45
Project and initiative showcase II (continuation)
Presentation – The workshop “Manufactory and Research: The Gipsformerei of the Staatliche Museen zu Berlin” is based on the description of two unique arts and crafts professions: Plaster mold makers and sculpture painters, who were already active in places of artistic production in the 19th century. The resulting handicraft objects and the traditional knowledge about their production are exceptional examples of both tangible and intangible cultural heritage.
During the workshop, we will illustrate the mutual influence of tangible and intangible culture in the craft sector and address important questions regarding the preservation of these culture-preserving professions for future generations. Finally, the possibilities for the protection of intangible cultural heritage will be discussed.
Venue : Foyer FC Dahlem
Do museums play a role in the preservation of intangible cultural heritage? The example of the LWL-Freilichtmuseum Detmold and the Heimatverein Nieheim shows how important and successful cooperation between practitioners from the region and museums can be.
Venue: Exploration Room
15:45 – 16:00
Trail break
16:00 – 16:30
“Plenary Meeting” with all initiative showcases
Moderation: Patricia Rahemipour (IfM)
Dr. Lisa Maubach studied Folklore/European Ethnology at the Westfälische Wilhelms-Universität Münster. She completed her doctorate in folklore/cultural history at the Friedrich Schiller University in Jena on an aspect of leisure behavior in the GDR. She worked for many years as a freelancer in the museum sector in the areas of exhibition, inventory and mediation. From 2011 to 2021, she was a scientific officer at the LWL Open-Air Museum in Hagen. There she built up the Competence Center Craft and Technology as a platform for research on the intangible cultural heritage of craftsmanship and its technology in Westphalia-Lippe. She developed audiovisual methods to research, document and communicate the intangible in material culture. Since November 2021, she has been head of the Department of Everyday Culture and Language at the LVR Institute for Regional Studies and Regional History. Craft and technology as well as working environments are also areas of research there, including in ethnographic film. She thus remains true to her research interest in the connection between immaterial and material culture with a focus on people. Lisa Maubach is a member of the German Society for Empirical Cultural Studies, the Commission for Everyday Culture Research in Westphalia, the Interdisciplinary Working Group on Craft Sources at the German Confederation of Skilled Crafts and the association WAM! Women in arts and media.