Grimm Meets Goethe: Mother Hulda Goes to Africa
Comely princesses and modern-day rap: The Brothers Grimm in a portrait by Elisabeth Jerichau Baumann
5 December 2011
Grimm and Goethe signify the German language as much or more than Luther and Duden. Now, even more links the brothers and the cultural institute. But, let’s begin as we should, at the beginning: Once upon a time...
...there lived a world-famous collection of fairy tales. Jacob and Wilhelm Grimm compiled them and the first volume of Children's and Household Taleswas published in 1812. The Frog King, Mother Hulda, Hansel and Gretel, witches, dwarves and wolves, evil stepmothers and beautiful princesses – they were all included and they live happily ever after to make the world’s children – and grown-ups – happy even today.
Worldwide, besides Luther’s Bible, Grimms’ Fairy Tales is the best-known and most widespread book of German cultural history. It has been translated into 160 languages. For the Goethe-Institut, its 200-year anniversary is reason enough to send the legendary stories around the world: The exhibition Märchenwelten, which is opening this week in Munich and Berlin, will go on a world tour in early 2012. Its first stops are in Europe, Northern Africa and North and South America.
The exhibition was designed by the Cologne Krafthaus studio. The backdrop is an enchanted forest. In it, seven topics – such as magic and enchantment, animals and heroines in fairy tales – are highlighted and presented to visitors in different treasure chests. The question repeatedly asked is, how topical are the fairy tales today? We suddenly encounter the evil stepmother as Meryl Streep in her role as the Vogue boss in The Devil Wears Prada. Or we are faced with the question, are anti-aging creams the descendants of magic potions?
An iFairyTale, too
On the trees, visitors find fruit; not forbidden fruit, but ones that can be turned to open up diagrams and texts with further explanations. That’s a real peach, which brings us back to Goethe!The challenge for the designers was mainly a practical one: the exhibition has to be transportable and easily and quickly set up since it will also makes stops at the smaller Goethe-Instituts around the world.
Structured according to modern educational principles, the exhibition contains many elements for listening, seeing and interaction. Visitors with iPads can even help to write an endless fairy tale. As long as the hard drive doesn’t crash, it will grow happily ever after.
-db-
The Märchenwelten exhibition can be seen at the European School Munich until 16 December and from 8 December until 1 January also in the Lichthof of the German Foreign Office in Berlin. Then, starting in February it will begin its international tour, with first stops in Europe, Northern Africa and North and South America.
