Gender Equality in Museums: Exploring the Transformation of Female Religious Spaces and Objects into Modern Museum Contexts

This project examines the historical transformation of female religious spaces and objects into modern museum contexts.

In the 18th and 19th centuries, numerous female monasteries in Europe were abolished during secularization, leading to the reinvention of their spaces as museums and the incorporation of sacred objects into exhibitions. As a result, the cultural memory of these spaces as women's convents faded away.

The project's aim is to uncover how the historical dispossession of female ownership of monasteries and sacred objects is evident in contemporary museum displays.

Drawing inspiration from ""decolonize museums"" methodologies, it seeks to propose innovative solutions for addressing gender challenges in modern museum collections.To achieve this goal, the project employs a case study approach with a primary focus on the Essen Cathedral Treasury in Germany. This marks the first transdisciplinary examination of the Treasury from a gendered perspective.

The research delves deeply into how gender binaries have historically influenced the representation of this collection, their persistence in current exhibitions, and subsequently, the development of strategies to transform these representations, which can be applied to similar collections.