Talking about the Schwules Museum

The Goethe-Institut Cyprus invited Birgit Bosold from the Schwules Museum Berlin to Cyprus. As the co-curator of Queer as German Folk and board member of the Schwules Museum since 2006, she will give an overview of this museum.

How did the Schwules Museum start? What is its strategy? What are its challenges? What are the differences to Cyprus and what are the similarities, if any? Can we learn from the experience of the Schwules Museum?

Birgit Bosold will give an overview about the Schwules Museum, followed by a discussion, while being surrounded by the works of the resident archivists participating in the nono, bad timing! process-based exhibition, and material from Queer as German Folk, which can be visited in its entirety at the Goethe-Institut in Nicosia (until 26/10) and the Marseille-based archive of Mémoire des sexualités.

Birgit Bosold

Birgit Bosold has been the first "female" member of the board of the Schwules Museum Berlin (SMU) since 2006. With a focus on strategy, programming, finance and fundraising, she has been instrumental in the dynamic development of the SMU over the past 15 years, including as (co-)curator of strategically relevant projects such as Homosexualities (Deutsches Historisches Museum Berlin 2015, LWL-Museum of Art and Culture Münster 2016), Sexuality, Holocaust, Stigma (2017), Year of Women (2018), Queer as German Folk (commissioned by the Goethe-Institut 2019), Queering the Crip, Cripping the Queer (2022/23) and most recently Coming to Terms with the Past: Sexual Violence against Children and Adolescents in the Name of Emancipation (2023/24). Her political socialization in the radical lesbian-feminist activism of the 1980s was a valuable resource in the programmatic transformation of SMU. After completing her studies and doctorate in literature, she made a career change to the financial industry, working for renowned banks. Today, she works as an independent financial planner and investment expert for institutional and private mandates, as well as a specialist lecturer and author. Her experience and skills in dealing with economic concepts have proven to be extremely helpful in managing the non-profit company SMU.

The exhibition and parallel programme are funded through the Franco-German Cultural Fund.