Who is old when and where? “Grey is the New Pink,” a multimedia exhibition in Frankfurt, seeks to answer the question. DW talked to the curator.
Alice Pawlik: From a biological point of view, ageing is the same all over the world, but every generation in every culture ages differently. Desires and needs change. Medical, technological and cultural aspects add to the fact that growing old is different in different cultures. Mainly, it’s about how society sees old age.
Have you found a society where people age particularly well?
No, and I wasn’t out to find it. The exhibition isn’t aimed at presenting any one region or society as ideal. After all, the subtitle is “moments of ageing.” It’s not about finding definitions or explanations but about showing the diversity.
Why is the Cultures of the World Museum the right venue?
Our museum has a collection from regions all over the world. Ethnologists always try to initiate a back-and-forth between the “other” and oneself. We want to present as many perspectives to our visitors as possible.
The title is reminiscent of a popular series on Netflix. Does an exhibition need a sensationalistic title?
I don’t feel it’s sensationalistic. We wanted to point out a change of perspective, that it’s about something you don’t see at first glance.
What’s the concept of this exhibition?
You see an interaction of various moments and positions. We felt it was important not to just accentuate one position, be it artistic or scientific. So we also appealed to people worldwide to send us pictures of ageing: photos, drawings, short mobile phone films. We asked them for a visual answer to the question: How do you see old age?
Did you reach people via social media?
We sent out our request to more than 5,000 addresses. In the end, 350 people participated. They had three months, from January to March this year. We chose 165 contributions that we added to photos from the visual anthropology archives to create a major installation that’s a central part of the exhibition.
There are multiple perspectives. For one thing, artists present their view of the various topics. Then, for example, there is Lars Krutaks, a US anthropologist who focused on tattoos. He travels around the world and takes impressive photos.
We also cooperated with young students who developed medical design prototypes of products that might be useful in aiding the elderly in the future.
For more read the full of article at The Dw
