Research and teaching in Transcultural Art History at Leuphana University encompass the realms of artistic exchanges, transcultural dynamics, and processes of artistic transfer. Both are characterized by a critique of Eurocentric canons and approaches, while striving towards “new relational ethics” (Sarr/Savoy 2018) within the fields of art history, critical museology,  and critical heritage studies. We study present pasts and the historical depths of the modern and contemporary world, intersections between the precolonial, colonial, and postcolonial, as well as decolonial perspectives.

In both research and teaching, we investigate visual and material culture and the built environment as well as artistic dynamics across media and materials with a particular focus on transcultural interactions. What kind of stories do images (from panel painting to photography and video art), objects (of the most diverse materials, from metalwork to textiles), and buildings (both permanent and ephemeral) tell us about past and present transcultural entanglements? In which ways have elements of visual and material culture been shaped by complex intersections between connectivity and resistance? And how can transcultural dynamics in the arts be put on display in museums and other exhibition formats for a wider public?

Seeking to overcome traditional notions of periphery and center in the discipline of art history, we analyze the images and objects themselves, but also engage with theories of transculturation and postcolonial frameworks. We pay special attention to issues around contested heritage, epistemologies of connectivity, resistance, and resilience, historiographic, archival and counter-archival practices, and social and epistemic justice. Equally of relevance are notions of materiality, restitution, reparation, and repair.

Transcultural Art History at Leuphana University is in close dialogue with the environmental humanities and the digital humanities. We discuss issues related to (un-)natural history; ecologies, collections, and intersections between cultural and natural heritage in a transcultural perspective; relationships between the human and more-than-human and posthumanism; we engage critically with the concept of the Anthropocene (Yusoff 2018); drawing on concepts of the planetary (Mbembe 2021) and the patchwork (Tsing 2005). Collaborations with contemporary artists who critically intervene in museum spaces or negotiate issues related to transcultural dynamics in their work are a central part of teaching and research projects.