Since September 2021, the Schwules Museum Board of Directors has been made up of eight members. The Museum has what is known in German as a “Geschäftsführende Vorstand,” meaning that the Board of Directors is the collective executive of the Museum.
Dr. Birgit Bosold, Ben Miller, Brigitte Oytoy, Heiner Schulze, Dr. Birga Meyer, Prof. Carsten Wiewiorra
The Board of Directors can be contacted via vorstand@schwulesmuseum.de.
As laid out in the charter of the Association of Friends of a Gay Museum in Berlin (Verein der Freundinnen und Freunde eines Schwulen Museums in Berlin e.V.), the Board has the following responsibilities. (Please refer to the original German charter for legally binding text).
7.1. The Board consists of 5 persons at minimum and eight at maximum. Only members of the association can be elected to the board. The board of directors makes decisions by majority vote, with a quorum of half its members.
7.2. The Board represents the association judicially and extrajudicially, and can name two of its members to represent the Museum in public.
7.3. The term of office is two years. The Board remains in office until a new Board is elected.
7.4. If a member leaves the Board before their term of office ends, the board of directors can appoint one additional director, who serves until the next members’ meeting. All members of the association must be informed about the addition.
7.5. The board of directors can be recalled and replaced at any time by a two-thirds vote at a members’ meeting.
Birgit Bosold has been a member of the board of the Schwules Museum since 2006. In this function, she is particularly in charge of funding and finances and was/is significantly engaged in the strategic realignment. She was project director and co-curator of major projects such as the exhibition Homosexuality_ies (2015/16) or together with Vera Hofmann of the program Year of the Women* (2018). In 2019, together with Carina Klugbauer, she realized a traveling exhibition on queer history in Germany on behalf of the Goethe-Institut, which has since toured the world and is also available online.
Professionally, she is also active in private banking. After studying and earning her doctorate in literary studies, she worked for various renowned banks for many years and today operates as a freelance consultant in portfolio management for companies, foundations, and private clients, as well as a lecturer and author.
Ben Miller (*1992, Boston, USA) is a historian and author, currently a Doctoral Fellow at the Graduate School of Global Intellectual History at the Free University of Berlin where he focuses on the transatlantic intellectual history of queer identity formation. A member of the Board since 2018, his work concentrates on the expansion, processing, research, and display of the collections. Along these lines he co-curated 100 Objects: An Archive of Feelings (2020), a reexamination of the museum’s collections intended to pave the way for a permanent exhibition fit for the 21st century. Additionally, he works to expand the international network of the museum, helping manage the Critical Friends, the museum’s artistic and academic advisory council. Ben is the author of “Bad Gays: A Homosexual History” (Verso, 2022; based on his hit queer history podcast) and “The New Queer Photography” (Kettler, 2020), as well as a regular contributor to the pages of the New York Times. www.benwritesthings.com/
is a Berlin based social scientist. He studied at Humboldt Universität in Berlin and has done studies and research residencies at the Sorbonne Nouvelle in Paris, the New School of Social Research in New York City and the University of Agder in Kristiansand, Norway. The focus of his research is in social inequality, HIV/AIDS crisis, trauma and memory, as well as queer history and interventions. He organizes events in academic and artistic fields. Being active in educational politics for many years, he increasingly began to engage with queer politics. Following the traditions of the gay movement‘s drag queens and fairies, he can found at demonstrations wearing high heels as well as on the stage as a part of Tuntenkombo. Before being elected as a board member of the Schwules Museum, Schulze was active as a volunteer in the museum library and archive. Based on this experience, he wants to give more attention to the somewhat neglected library and archive and strengthen links to the community and science. Furthermore, he sees the Schwules Museum as an important social space that is brought to life through events and workshops. As a SMU board member, Schulze wants to further stimulate the development of this social space and help other people and groups to fill the space.
Dr. Birga Meyer is a historian and cultural scientist and works as a curator in and for various museums. She mostly designs exhibitions, but also develops museum education programs and event series and has also been involved in setting up a new museum. Coming from New Museology, intersectional, self-reflective, positioned and power-critical museum practices are central to her.
She has been involved with the Schwules Museum since 2017. In the Year of the Women* she showed the exhibition Proudly Perverted together with Kaj Maiwald and in 2020 she curated the exhibition Rosarot in Ost-Berlin with Lotte Thaa. Familiar with the museum work, Birga Meyer now advises the board of the SMU. Above all, she would like to get involved in the exhibition work and, where it is helpful, also provide support with personnel and administrative issues.
Prof. Dipl-Ing. Carsten Wiewiorra is a freelance architect and interior designer in Berlin as well as a university lecturer, member of the Berlin Chamber of Architects and the Association of German Architects. He is a professor in the field of design, construction and materials at the TH-OWL / Detmold School of Architecture and Interior Design. He was already on the board from 2011-2015 and has now joined again since the year 2021. His area of responsibility is in particular the search for a location, the conceptual design of the new rooms and the client representation for the museum.
