Hanover August-Kestner- Museum (Exhibition Personaggi / Personalities)

On 26.05.2023, the Ancient History class went on a day trip to the  August Kestner Museum in Hanover, specifically to the exhibition  "Personaggi / Personalities: The Descent of the Girls from the Vases", which had just started and runs until 03.09.2023. The curator, Dr. Anne Viola Siebert, personally guided us through this exhibition as well as through another exhibition about the first female archaeologists entitled " Ein gut Theil Eigenheit. Lebenswege früher Archäologinnen", a traveling exhibition that is currently on display at the August Kestner Museum in Hanover until September 3, 2023.

Ms. Siebert welcomed us with exciting insights into the 'making of' the exhibition. The starting point of the concept was the artistic representation of Attic vases. The artist Linde Burkhardt had the idea of removing women from the vases and reworking them. The artistic result of this idea was that she created oversized vessels. The exhibits created by Linde Burkhardt were brought together with the archaeological finds, on the basis of which viewers can determine what tasks women had in archaic and classical Greece and what was taken away from their contemporaries when women were removed. This combination of art and archaeology invites us to reflect on what happens when women leave the vases, i.e. when they step out of their familiar surroundings. This signals the importance of women both in ancient Greece and today.

It was particularly impressive that the Personaggi exhibition was not boring, despite or perhaps because of the small number of exhibits - there are 30 objects on display. The subsequent discussion round, in which we discussed aspects of the exhibition itself and ancient gender studies in general, also showed that the exhibition was a complete success. At the end of the day, all we can say is that it was a really interesting and informative exhibition that is well worth a visit.