Brigitte Schiffer: Sounds of Exile

Guestroom

Foto aus Brigitte Schiffers Dissertation "Die Oase Siwa und ihre Musik" (1936) – Sechs verschleierte Personen stehen und sitzen um eine Kamera auf einem Tisch vor einer Steinwand.

How do new perspectives on the ‘collections’ of the Ethnological Museum and the Museum of Asian Art emerge? What questions, challenges and insights accompany the multifaceted research surrounding cultural belongings and artistic works? What personal stories lie behind the scientific approaches, and what new horizons and societal questions are opened up by contemporary artistic viewpoints on museum research?

The event format Guestroom amplifies the voices of international fellows and partners from the project CoMuse – The Collaborative Museum. It provides an open space for dialogue between museum teams, research partners and the audience. Through regular discussions, scholars, curators, educators, artists and collaborators share insights into ongoing projects and the complex work behind the scenes. Together, they present preliminary findings and research results, engaging visitors in discussions about the trajectories collaborative research can take.

Guestroom places a strong emphasis on collaboration, knowledge-sharing and mediation. Working in teams, participants explore new contexts, critically examine colonial histories and contexts of injustice, reflect on collection practices and access, and develop participatory approaches to museum practices. A key focus is highlighting the voices and demands of communities connected to the cultural belongings.

Whether through archival discoveries, provenance research, artistic interventions or digital methods, each Guestroom session offers fresh insights and perspectives on what research means today.

This event series is open to anyone interested and encourages active participation. Guestroom is a forum where questions are welcome and perspectives can shift. Be our guest!

The Guestroom is a collaboration with CoMuse – The Collaborative Museum, an initiative of the Ethnological Museum and the Museum of Asian Art.

A conversation between artist Netta Weiser and musicologist Dr. Matthias Pasdzierny, on the life and work of Jewish-German composer Brigitte Schiffer (1909–1986). Together, they will discuss Schiffer’s years of exile in Egypt, queer traces in the archive, entangled histories of migration and practices of listening across cultures.

Brigitte Schiffer studied composition and ethnomusicology in Berlin in the early 1930s. As part of her doctoral research, she conducted fieldwork in Siwa, an isolated oasis in western Egypt. Traveling with a phonograph, she documented a wide range of vocal practices within the local Amazigh community. Among her recordings are rare sonic documents, including a funeral song performed by a children’s choir and a collection of love songs with undertones of queerness sung by agricultural laborers in the oasis gardens

After submitting her dissertation in 1935, Schiffer fled Germany following the rise of the Nazi regime, going into exile in Egypt, where she lived for the next 30 years and became an important figure within the cultural life of cosmopolitan Cairo.

Schiffer’s recordings from Siwa were deposited in the Phonogramm-Archiv, an institution historically embedded in colonial knowledge production and now housed at the Ethnological Museum Berlin. Artist Netta Weiser reactivates Schiffer’s archive in her sound exhibition fuga, currently presented in the Hörraum at the Humboldt Forum.

In this Gästezimmer event, Netta Weiser will be in conversation with musicologist Dr. Matthias Pasdzierny, who has researched Brigitte Schiffer’s life and work for the past decade. Bringing academic and artistic research into dialogue, they will critically reflect on colonial sound archives, the challenges of transcultural research, and the political potential of listening otherwise.

PARTICIPANTS

Netta Weiser

Netta Weiser (b. 1991) is a Berlin-based artist and choreographer working across performance, sound installation, and experimental radio. In 2019, she initiated the long-term artistic research project Radio-Choreography, which explores the transformation of dance into sound, the relationship between live broadcasting and muted histories, and collective listening as a choreographic practice. Her works have been presented internationally, most recently at the KW Institute for Contemporary Art Berlin, Tanzquartier Wien, Onassis Stegi Athens, WDR, Villa Medici Rome, and Badischer Kunstverein Karlsruhe. She is the recipient of fellowships from the Studio for Electroacoustic Music at the Akademie der Künste Berlin and the VALIE EXPORT Center Linz. Alongside her artistic practice, she hosts a monthly radio show on reboot.fm .

Matthias Pasdzierny

Prof. Dr. Matthias Pasdzierny (* 1976 in Goettingen) is a musicologist from Berlin (University of the Arts/Berlin-Brandenburg Academy of Sciences and Humanities). His main research topics are: critical edition of (tape) music, music and migration after 1945, history of techno and electronic dance music; book publications: Wiederaufnahme? Rückkehr aus dem Exil und das westdeutsche Musikleben nach 1945, text + kritik München 2014; Inside the Studio. Spaces of Electronic Music Production Berlin/Cairo, Hatje Cantz Berlin 2025

- Price: free admission

- Duration: 60 Min

- Age: 12 years and older

- Location: Mechanical Arena in the Foyer

- Part of: Guestroom

Next date:

• Date Wednesday, 16/September/2026 17:00
• Venue Humboldt Forum: Mechanische Arena im Foyer, EG
• Address Schloßplatz, 10178 Berlin-Mitte