Sustainability - Exhibition small disciplines - great potential

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It is an ancient principle that we should not consume more than what can grow back in the future. The principle of sustainability was first formulated in writing in the 18th century in relation to the process of afforestation in Europe. Dealing with the environment is one of the great challenges of our time. The exhibition “Small disciplines – great potential” presents research from the small disciplines of the humanities in the field of sustainability – from the principle of the circular economy in pre-modern societies to digital methods used to help separate waste in today’s China.

  • Repairing and upcycling - More on the topic of sustainability

    One of the major challenges facing us today is how we deal with our environment. The world is in the Anthropocene age, one when humans are influencing the environment in an unprecedented way. This influence is often negative. An important solution is to use resources sustainably. Most pre-modern societies were based on a circular economy, even if these were often fragile, overstretched and collapsed. The “small disciplines” that take a historical approach deal with the social and economic survival of such societies, and help us to understand better the current challenges of a sustainable economy.

     

    It is an ancient principle that we should not consume more than what can grow back in the future. The principle of sustainability was first formulated in writing in the 18th century in relation to the process of afforestation in Europe. With increasing environmental awareness and the rapidly growing world population, the environment has been a key issue since the 1980s. The exhibition looks at sustainability from two perspectives: sustainability due to scarcity (reusing things), and sustainability as a conscious shaping of the future (conserving or building up resources).

     

    Sustainability due to a shortage of raw materials can be seen in damaged items that can be mended, repaired, reworked or reused in other ways. Another option is to reuse them in their entirety, for example by melting down metal from discarded items. However, material or sentimental value may also play a role in prohibiting an item from being thrown away. This has to some extent developed into a fashion today: namely, upcycling. Different again is using an intact object anew: documents are given a second life when they are copied. In the past, they were copied by hand, and later photographed, photocopied and saved on microfiche; today, they are digitized and can be viewed across the world on the Internet, and saved permanently.

     

    Article from the catalogue for the exhibition “Small disciplines – great potential”

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Bound, soldered, riveted: recycling vessels

Vessels, such as the chamber pot from the cathedral cemetery in Münster, have always been mended. Pre- and protohistoric archaeology shows what “pre-modern recycling” was like.

© Archäologisches Museum der Uni MS (Robert Dylka)

Notes on waste

Papyrus was so valuable in Ancient Egypt that people used clay fragments in everyday life instead. Egyptology shows how people in ancient times reused resources, which is what we call sustainability today.

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Turning old into new

The term “upcycling” is new – but the idea has been around for a long time. The discipline of cultural/European anthropology shows how just a few simple steps can give old objects a new lease of life.

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Using a mobile phone app to separate waste

Separating waste is part of sustainable development. But which waste belongs in which bin? The discipline of sinology shows how a mobile phone app helps the population of Shanghai to separate their household waste.