Design ausstellen: Von den Dingen in Museen

Design objects—everyday items, things, products—are in most cases designed for use. In museums, however, they are removed from their original context and presented behind glass cases, under covers, or on pedestals. How can the history of design, production, and use be made visible in exhibitions? What narratives open up in the museum's approach to design?

Viktoria Lea Heinrich talks about how design exhibitions are conceived and how (design) objects can be researched, narrated, and discussed in museums.

Viktoria Lea Heinrich is a design historian and curator. As head of the Arts and Crafts and Design Collection at the MK&G Hamburg, she curated exhibitions including “Zinn. Von der Mine ins Museum” (2025) and “Hello Image. Die Inszenierung der Dinge” (2025/26). Her work focuses on design history since 1950 and the study of networks. In her dissertation at the Institute for Cultural Studies at Humboldt University in Berlin, she is conducting research on the designer and university lecturer Hans Roericht. She previously gained curatorial experience at the MAK – Museum of Applied Arts in Vienna and the HfG Archive in Ulm, among others.

The Max Planck Institute for Empirical Aesthetics investigates why and how people create art and how they perform, experience, and evaluate it. The Institute’s focus is on music, but we also engage with other performing arts such as dance and film.