Collecting and uncollecting

When does collecting end? Perhaps when a collection is complete, a goal achieved, a profile sufficiently developed? But is that ever the case? Something is always missing. And it is no less disturbing that there is always too much. Something that has accumulated unintentionally, left over from earlier, unachieved goals or insufficiently clearly defined profiles, from the excess that is inherent in every collection. Collecting is not only about accumulating and sorting things, but also about disposing of and sorting out.

The quality of a collection is in constant conflict with its quantity. In practice, however, the process of uncollecting, like collecting, is far more contingent and unregulated than it may appear in theoretical reflections. Some things dispose of themselves by disintegrating, some no longer find a place in overcrowded and expensive to maintain depots. Some may fit well into the collection concept, but have entered the collection illegally, for example as looted art, some are stolen or have to be sold to raise money. And finally: collection concepts change with social values and expectations. Collections never come to rest, and collecting and decollecting prove to be dynamic processes that can never be fully controlled.

Despite all the guidelines and museological recommendations, de-collection is a practice that is rarely implemented in collecting institutions. Institutional collections have to overcome major practical, institutional, legal and cultural hurdles in order to be able to decollect. The procedures for disposal are not always the same and have no universal standards. For example, exchange is also considered to be a form of decollecting, as are assignment, transfer, sale and finally disposal. The forms and phenomena of disposal therefore lead us to consider processes that are as contingent as those inherent in collecting itself. The reasons for disposal are manifold and only partly have to do with the profiling of collections: it can be too expensive to maintain collection segments, objects can be too singular to fit into a collection context, they can deviate too much from the respective collection concept, but conversely the collection concept itself can also have become questionable. The condition of individual objects may be too poor to allow further conservation, their provenance may be questionable or unclear.

The lecture series "ENT-SAMMELN" explores practical experiences and interdisciplinary theoretical versions of the constant movement in institutional collections as well as in pre- or parainstitutional forms of accumulation. By focussing on uncollecting, it focuses on those moments of decision in which the decisiveness of collecting through uncollecting is revealed in its paradoxes and contingencies. For even in decollecting, collecting does not come to an end, but remains in motion.

The further dates of the lecture series can be found in good time on the website of the cooperation project and in the event calendar of the University of Erfurt.