Owned by Others: A Map to Possession Island – FALL 2023

Owned by Others: A Map to Possession Island is the published companion and continuation of a series of artistic interventions organized by the Berlin initiative Owned by Others on Museum Island. In autumn 2020, a temporarily rented travel agency specializing in Caribbean travel that had to close due to the pandemic became a new collective meeting place: “Museum Tropicana.” Located just on the other side of the river from the Humboldt Forum, it instantiated a critical and visionary counter-proposal to a reactionary urban planning that has cemented in the heart of Berlin. 

This forthcoming book examines the scope for action of artistic interventions by exploring the interstices of an institutionally-mummified city center. It interrogates Museum Island as a place constituted by layers of authentic locations and objects and narratives accumulated in collections. The publication shows in an exemplary manner that a “revitalization” of the museologized city center also benefits from the relational, lived experience of contemporary artists. As a reflections on themes such as possession, appropriation and belonging, A Map to Possession Island aims to address a broad readership and supports a collective and lively psychogeography and engagement with the past, present, and future of this urban island in the middle of Berlin.