Humboldt-Universität zu Berlin - Chair for the History of Science

→ Vita

→ Research interests

→ Research projects

→ Publications

Vita

Nataša Jagdhuhn is a museum and cultural theorist. Her research is located at the intersection of (art) history, critical heritage, museum and memory studies. Currently, she investigates the historico-political grounding of the decolonial turn in museum theory and practice, particularly the Non-Aligned Movement’s pivotal role in this process during the global Cold War.

Between 2003 und 2013 she studied visual art, art education and artistic museum studies in Belgrade, Ljubljana, Vienna and Berlin. In 2020 she received her PhD from the Friedrich Schiller University of Jena, where she also worked as research associate (2015–2018) and postdoctoral fellow (2023–2024). Along with her scientific career, she conceptualized exhibitions and curated educational programs in galleries and museums. From 2022–2024 she was co-director of the further-training program “KontextSchule” at the Institute for Art in Context, UdK Berlin.

Her current project “The Non-Aligned Movement and Decolonization of the Museum Field” was launched in 2020 during her stay at the GWZO Leipzig as “EEGA Postdoc Fellow” and will be further developed at the Chair of History of Science at the Humboldt University of Berlin.

Research interests

• History of Museums
• Decolonizing Museums
• Translocation Research
• Cultural Heritage and Conflict
• Memory as a Performative Practice

Research Projects

The Non-Aligned Movement and Decolonization of the Museum Field: Yugoslav Anticolonial Museums (1961-1989)

The recent awakening of academic interest in the legacy of the Non-Aligned Movement (NAM) has coincided with a revival in public and scholarly discussions on the decolonization of the museum sphere. This project, which connects both academic areas, will show how NAM’s cultural diplomacy raised the profile of calls for the decolonization of museum theory and practice during the Cold War. The research focus is on Yugoslavia’s advocacy of decolonization in the field of museum education. This project will analyse such advocacy in the speeches of its dignitaries at the NAM summits, the engagement of its museologists in the United Nations Educational, Scientific, and Cultural Organization (UNESCO) and the International Council of Museums (ICOM), as well as curatorial strategies related to the establishment of two museums: the Museum of African Art in Belgrade and the Gallery for the Art of the Non-Aligned States in Titograd. This project ties together three themes of contemporary relevance: 1) the ongoing discussions on restitution and repatriation practices in Europe, 2) the development of decolonial curating strategies worldwide, and 3) the reevaluation of NAM’s cultural legacy.

Publications

Monography

2022

• Post-Yugoslav Metamuseums: Reframing Second World War Heritage in Postconflict Croatia, Bosnia and Herzegovina, and Serbia. Cham: Palgrave MacMillan.
  • Book reviews: 1) Trajanovski, N. (2023) Sprawy Narodowościowe: Seria nowa (55): https://doi.org/10.11649/sn.3058; 2) Martinov, V. (2023) Rad Muzeja Vojvodine (65), pp. 201–204; 3) Vugdelija, K. (2023): Etnološka tribina (53/46), pp. 303–308.

Book Chapters and Articles in Peer-Reviewed Journals:

forthcoming

• “Post-Yugoslav Metamuseums,” in: Baillie, B., and Saloul, I. (eds.) Palgrave Encyclopedia of Cultural Heritage and Conflict. London: Palgrave Macmillan.
• “Museum Diplomacy of Non-Aligned Socialist Yugoslavia – Exhibition ‘Contemporary Art of Ghana’ at the Museum of African Art (1980),” in: Spieker, S., et al. (eds.) Socialist Exhibition Cultures. Toronto: University of Toronto Press.
• “Towards an Anticolonial, Non-Aligned, Yugoslav Museum – as a Concept, an Institution, and a Meta-Exhibit,” in: Acta Academiae Artium Vilnensis (107).
• “Remembering All-Yugoslav Antifascist Resistance through Performative Practices in (front of) the Post-Yugoslav Metamuseums,” in: Moll, N., Pejaković, I., and Hašimbegović, E. (eds.) Wer ist Walter? Resistance against Nazism in Europe. Sarajevo: Historical Museum of Bosnia and Herzegovina.
• “The Memorial Center Lipa Remembers – From a ‘museum of the people’ to a ‘museum of the community:’ Auto-reflective models for curating public history,” in: Berger, S., Dierks, D., and Kesteloot, C. (eds.) Public History on the Battlefield of Europe. Dealing with Painful Pasts in the 20th Century. De Gruyter.

2023

• “The Yugoslav Heritage-Industry,” in: Voß, Chr., Kralova, K., and Ferhadbegović, S. (eds.) Memory Cultures in Southeast Europe since 1945. Südosteuropa-Jahrbuch (47), pp. 125–138.

2021

• “The Post-Yugoslav Kaleidoscope: Curatorial Tactics in the (Ethno) Nationalization of Second World War Memorial Museums in Croatia, Serbia, and Bosnia and Herzegovina,” in: Badescu, G., Mazzucchelli, F., and Baillie, B. (eds.) Transforming National Heritages in the former Yugoslavia: Synchronous Pasts. Cham: Palgrave MacMillan, pp. 295–322.
• “Yugoslavia’s Window to Africa: The Establishment of the Museum of African Art Belgrade as a Product of the Cultural Politics of Nonalignment,” in: Connections – A Journal for Historians and Area Specialists. Online: https://www.connections.clio-online.net/article/id/artikel-5148 [accessed 1st March 2024].

2017

• “Walking Heritage: Performance as method of transmitting a confiscated memory and identity,” in: Slavković, M., and Đorgović, M. (eds.) Nostalgia on the move. Belgrade: Museum of Yugoslavia, pp. 84–94.
• “The Post-Yugoslav Museumscape: The process of the nationalization of the historical perception of World War II in memorial museums in Serbia, Bosnia and Herzegovina and Croatia,” in: Bojković, S. (ed.) Museum Professionals in Dialogue: Challenges of Permanent Exhibitions. International Association of Museums of History, pp. 29–47.
• “The Yugoslavisation of the museum field,” in: Zbornik Historijskog Muzeja Bosne i Hercegovine (12), pp. 11–19.

2016

• “Museum (Re)public,” in: Radović, S. (ed.) Glasnik Etnografskog instituta (64/1), pp. 105–119. Online: https://doiserbia.nb.rs/img/doi/0350-0861/2016/0350-08611601105J.pdf [accessed 1st March 2024].

Exhibition Catalogues:

2013

• “Grenzen der kollektiven Erinnerung – Museumsanalyse,” in: Madžar, V., Tepavčević, N., and Obrenić, Z. (eds.) Jüdische Identität im sozialistischen Jugoslawien 1945–1952. Berlin: Geschichtswerkstatt Europa, pp. 41–63.

2011

• “If Yugoslav art didn’t exist, we’d have to invent it,” in: Kirn, G., Madžar, V., and Tepavčević, N. (eds.) Unrealized Project: Partisan Revisiting of the Yugoslav Past. Berlin: Universität der Künste Berlin, pp. 21–27.

Book Reviews and Conference Reports:

2021

• Book Review: Videkanić, B.: “Nonaligned modernism: socialist postcolonial aesthetics in Yugoslavia, 1945–1985. Montreal/Kingston/London/Chicago, 2020,” in: Connections – A Journal for Historians and Area Specialists. Online: https://www.connections.clio-online.net/publicationreview/id/reb-50421 [accessed 1st March 2024].

2017

• Workshop Review: “Lost and Found – Heimatlose und Heimatsuchende Museen,” Europäisches Kolleg Jena; Herder-Kolleg der Universität Hildesheim. Online: https://www.hsozkult.de/conferencereport/id/fdkn-125663 [accessed 1st March 2024].

2016

• Workshop-Paper (Review): “Musealisation (following) World War II in Yugoslavia,” in: Seminar Creating understanding of the WWII in the Balkans and Europe – contribution of exhibitions – selected papers. Zagreb: Documenta, pp. 12-21.

2008

• Book Review: With Đorđević, T., and Vujanović, A.: “Prema ludilu (i revoluciji) – čitanje,” in: Teatron (143), pp. 138-143. Online: https://www.teatroslov.mpus.org.rs/publikacije/386.pdf [accessed 1st March 2024].
• Theater Review: “Kreiranje percepcije,” in: Scena (4), Novi Sad, p. 71.
• Theater Review: “Više-manje beskonačno,” in: Danas (26.09.2008).