The KOLK 17 Collection
Collection as a space for knowledge
Today we understand the collection as a large space for knowledge in motion. It is one of our most urgent priorities, to talk about the objects and to let the objects speak for themselves with various voices.
Objects in the KOLK 17 Collection
20,000 International Artefacts
With over 20,000 objects from the field of puppet theatre, KOLK 17 houses one of the five largest collections in Germany and is certainly one of the most important cultural institutions for puppet theatre in Europe. We see the collection as a large space for knowledge which is in perpetual motion and must be accessible to the general public. Therefore, one of our most important goals is to make both the collection and the archive area complete with documents as well as a specialised library available to interested parties via a digital infrastructure. This enables the intercultural and interdisciplinary exchange of knowledge about the most diverse forms of puppet theatre.
Archive / Documents and Graphics / VDP Play Archive
Comprehensive archive on the subject of puppet theatre
Library KOLK 17
Specialist Library
KOLK 17’s specialist library consists mainly of older literature up until around 1980. Recently, however, the library has been systematically supplemented with new publications; gaps are being filled. In 2015 we joined the Common Library Network (GBV) (library code 4009) and entered approx. 3000 titles into the Common Union Catalogue (GVK)
Online Collection
On the way to a digital collection
Since the beginning of 2020, staff from the Collection & Science department have been working intensively on a system that will make the collection, which consists of an amalgamation of approximately 20,000 artefacts, accessible through a pragmatic administration with ‘controlled’ terminologies. The aim is to create a digital research infrastructure that will also be available as an online collection for external international users.
Provenance
How do we want to deal with unclear object Biographies?
The archives of museums are not only places where objects are stored. They are spaces of knowledge and repositories of cultural heritage. We would like to open up the KOLK 17 collection to a diverse range of experts in order to re-examine the ‘stored knowledge’ surrounding the objects in the collection. Especially in the case of objects of ‘non-European provenance’, we would like to critically reflect on previous scholarly knowledge by examining the processes of separation from their cultural context and their subsequent classification . Researching the object biographies is central for us. This includes actively contacting the respective artists or players or their descendants as well as networking with scholars from the respective communities of origin. We work transparently and (self-)critically; disclosing unresolved object provenances and knowledge gaps.
Audio collage: Who’s speaking? © Anna Pfau
Audio-Collage: Wer spricht? © Anna Pfau
Contact
KOLK 17
Puppet theatre & Museum
KOLK 17 gGmbH
Figurentheater & Museum
Possehl-Haus
Beckergrube 38-52
23552 Lübeck
Contact
Puppet Theatre Mobile Office
TheaterFigurenMobil
Kirchhof St. Petri
23552 Lübeck
Executive Director,
Museum Director
Dr. Antonia Napp
museum@kolk17.de
Puppet Theatre Director
Stephan Schlafke
theater@kolk17.de