Since December 2023, 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, Dr. Eugen Januschke, Dr. Ben Miller, Brigitte Oytoy, Heiner Schulze, Christian Tillmans, Jiayi Lukáš Song
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.
HIV and AIDS hold significant biographical significance for him since he arrived in Berlin in 1988. In that year, he first encountered the Schwules Museum as a guest when it was still located as a sublet within Friedrichstrasse, affiliated with AHA e.V. For over 10 years, his passion has been devoted to preserving AIDS history and commemorative policies. From 2017 to 2020, he served as a research associate for a project on AIDS history in Germany at Humboldt University in Berlin. As a collaborative effort between HU and SMU, the Berlin AIDS Oral History Collection emerged. Additionally, he contributed to curating the exhibition arcHIV. eine Spurensuche.
Continuing his voluntary work in the SMU archives, alongside archival duties, his work on the board will primarily focus on program planning and developing a Code of Conduct for the SMU.
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/
Brigitte Oytoy (*1988) is a Berlin-based political Tunte (drag performer & community organizier) from the Tunte drag tradition of Waldschlösschen. Since of 2018 she’s a member of the board (3rd term in office). She studied Historically Oriented Cultural Sciences and Sustainable Development in Saarbrücken. For over fifteen years, she has been organizing actions within the community and facilitating opening processes within organizations. Initially involved in regional youth group activities in Saarland, then involved in establishing the first Queer Department within the Student Union (AStA) at Saarland University from a group of LGBTQ+ students, and recently, engaged in nationwide networking as the Federal Coordinator of the Conference of gay, lesbian, and queer university student union departments and groups (formerly known as Schwulenreferatetreffen, the Meeting of Gay Student Departments).
At Saarland University, she gained experience in various committees, serving for four years as an elected member of the Student Parliament, as a secretary in the Parliament’s board, in various committees, and as a deputy Senate member. In Berlin, she also organizes shows and other events with the collective Rat der Ranzigen.
Within the board of the Schwules Museum, she aims to contribute particularly to topics concerning structural transformation, association and members, and ongoing opening processes.
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.
Christian Tillmans – banking and business graduate – spent his professional life at one of Europe’s leading aviation companies. There, he gained management and leadership experience in roles such as sales, revenue management, commercial management, human resources, and executive development.
He completed coaching training and supported the establishment and development of an in-house LGBTQI network.
In September ’23, he concluded his management role and has since been volunteering, including as a coach at “startsocial e.V.” and in job mentoring with “jobs4refugees gGmbH” and “Ulme 35 Interkulturanstalten e.V.”
As a board member, he aims to support the management with his expertise and practical knowledge to further professionalize the SMU’s economic, administrative, and organizational structures and processes. This includes collaborating with the management to devise measures to further enhance the museum’s attractiveness and increase visitor numbers.
Jiayi Lukáš Song (he/him) recently completed his Master’s degree at Humboldt University in Berlin, specializing in social economics with a particular focus on diversity and inclusion. In his master’s thesis entitled “Born This Pay”, he investigated how sexual orientation affects the income of male and female employees in Germany. The work was recently published by the European Committee for LGBTQ Economics.
Originally from the Czech Republic with Chinese roots, he moved to Berlin seven years ago. He currently works as a Creative Project Manager in the fashion industry, where he works to increase diversity in a corporation. As a member of the SMU, Jiayi Lukáš is delighted to be joining the board. He wants to bring a fresh, younger perspective to current issues and actively participate in decision-making processes. He is particularly keen to implement the visibility and affiliation of BIPoC+ in the long term.
