Conference in Kassel. Lecture hall at the Hessian State Museum
On eye level. Diversity of perspectives on dwarfism in art and cultural history.
May 14th to May 16th, 2025

Artistic engagement with human diversity has always existed. In the Early Modern period, curiosity, spectacle, and the increasing thirst for knowledge also influenced the way people interacted with individuals whose body size somewhat deviated from the norm and did not seem to fit the contemporary understanding of a standard body. Within European court culture, as well as in artistic negotiations, interpretations and approaches to understanding were developed, which found their place, among other things, in the cabinets of curiosities. But how nuanced were the discourses on different corporealities and embodied otherness in the Early Modern period compared to current debates? Can present-day conceptions be applied to the past life world? Or do we find traces of early modern modes of representation in current discussions?

These and other questions will be addressed from different perspectives during the lectures, ranging from Ancient Egypt to the 20th century. The conference is being held in preparation for the upcoming special exhibition of the same name (expected in spring 2027), which is sponsored by the Ernst von Siemens Art Foundation.

Conference Program

The opening lecture is free of charge and open to the public. All further lectures are also free of charge. Registration on site is requested.

Wednesday • May 14, 2025 • 7 PM

• Welcome and evening lecture by Eva Seemann (Paris): Inclusion in the premodern era? Opportunities for action and careers of "court dwarfs" at early modern princely courts.

Thursday • May 15, 2025 • 08:30 am–6:30 pm

Panel 1: Power, Myths & Narratives: Modes of Representation and Reception Histories (Moderator: Malena Rotter)

• Christian Loeben (Hannover): Of Gods and Dancers: Dwarfs in Pharaonic Egypt

• Carolin Schreckenberg (Paderborn): Dwarfs in the Middle Ages. A research field taking shape.

• Hector Ruiz Soto (Paris): The Mirror of Antiquity. On Modern Representations of Ancient Dwarfs

Panel 2: Exhibition or Recognition? Dwarf People at Courts and in Cabinets of Curiosities (Moderator: Justus Lange)

• Verena Suchy (Nuremberg): Precious Miniatures. Representing Short Stature in the Early Modern Kunstkammer

• Marna Schneider (Berlin): Funeral sermon for a court dwarf. Justus Bertram and his role at the Brandenburg court in the early 17th century.

• Silke Herz (Dresden): Dwarf people at the courts of the Saxon royal house. Tradition and media representations.

• Birgit Ulrike Münch (Bonn): The Tattooed Female Dwarf. Images of Otherness and the Juxtaposition of the Old and the So-called New World at European Courts

Friday • May 16, 2025 • 08:30 am–6:00 pm

Panel 3: Objectification or self-determination? Participation and exclusion in modernity (Moderator: Daniel Wolf)

• Nina Eckhoff-Heindl (Cologne): Ambivalences of Attribution between Devaluation and Recognition. Dwarf Artists at Art Academies in the 19th Century.

• Anne Peiter (Saint-Denis, La Réunion): "Dwarfs" and Genocide. The Rwandan Twa in the Mirror of European Colonial Literature and Photography (online)

• Anna Drum (Dresden): "Freaks" by Tod Browning (1932): The freak show as (anti-) cabinet of curiosities of the bourgeoisie. Dwarfism between voyeurism and censorship.

Panel 4: Acceptance or Distance? Diverse Ways of Dealing with it up to the Present (Moderator: Anne Waldschmidt)

• Hiram Kümper (Mannheim): "Considering that we are all imperfect" Dwarfism in the anthropological discourse of the 17th century

• Lisa Hecht (Marburg): Human Parerga - Dwarfism on the Margins?

• Friedrich Becher (Munich): Living wonders - dead people? Concepts of dignity for individuals with dwarfism compared to other individuals in early modern collections of curiosities

• Thomas Kuster (Innsbruck): On an equal footing? Developing an exhibition with sensitive content using the example of "Allowed to look? Diversity of Humans"