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On Water: WasserWissen in Berlin
Free show in the Humboldt Lab pairing Berlin University Alliance water research with artistic takes on water and the climate crisis.
More in Berlin
In 1967, East Germany had part of a coral reef off Cuba taken apart and shipped to Berlin's Museum für Naturkunde. Those corals now sit in a free room on the Humboldt Forum's first floor, along with a stuffed king penguin, one of the few pieces left from Berlin's Museum für Meereskunde, destroyed in 1945.
The route runs from the seabed to the stars, through zones for the coast, the city, bathtubs, puddles and drought. Each shows research by some of the more than fifty scientists from the Berlin University Alliance, alongside work by six artists. You walk past an 1889 wave bathtub, a dried puddle pressed onto film and a draft law giving the Spree its own rights, while an audio track has researchers explaining why water is worth listening to. Berlin, it turns out, has more than one puddle researcher.
Entry is free and step-free, in German and English, and it leans more science than art. The Humboldt Lab is open 10:30 to 18:30, closed Tuesdays.
Look for
The Cuban corals
Look for coral from a reef at Arroyo Bermejo on Cuba's north coast, dismantled in 1967 and shipped to East Berlin for display.
The king penguin
A mounted king penguin and a four-fluke boat anchor, rare survivors of the Museum für Meereskunde, once one of Berlin's most popular museums.
Carl Dittmann's wave bathtub
A Berlin plumber's patented tub with a curved bottom, so bathers could rock themselves and bring the surf into their own bathroom.
The SpreeBerlin Buoy
Jakob Kukula's buoy measures water quality, flashes lights to warn of pollution and releases oxygen in hot months so the river can breathe.
Sap Score
Andreas Greiner wired trees in and around Berlin with sensitive microphones, so you hear water rising through them as a many-voiced concert.
Good for
- Cheap Culture
- Nerding Out
- Rainy Days
Skip if
You came for art: this is mainly university research, with work by six artists alongside.
With kids
The Humboldt Lab runs a guided family tour, a WaterCreatures creative workshop for families and a poetry slam workshop for children.
Also at Humboldt Forum
On now nearby
Nearby
Image credits
9
- On Water: WasserWissen in BerlinStiftung Humboldt Forum im Berliner Schloss, Foto: AI generated, Observism
- A Country in a Container – The Disposal of East German State SymbolsCourtesy of DDR Museum
- Founded on Antiquity: Berlin's First MuseumPhoto: Johannes Laurentius
- Nature and German History. Faith – Biology – PowerCourtesy of Deutsches Historisches Museum
- Humboldt ForumMike Peel / Wikimedia Commons, CC BY-SA 4.0
- DDR MuseumAndreas Praefcke / Wikimedia Commons, CC BY 3.0
- Altes MuseumJean-Pierre Dalbéra / Wikimedia Commons, CC BY 2.0
- Deutsches Historisches MuseumAvda / Wikimedia Commons, CC BY-SA 3.0
- Alte NationalgalerieManfred Brückels / Wikimedia Commons, Public domain