Short Abstract

Moving objects change their contexts and meanings. Their mobilisation brings up new societal perspectives. The panel examines how mobility impacts the objects’ value and redefines their meaning. The focus is on objects that enable mobility, are mobilised, or move on their own.

Long Abstract

When things are set in motion or are moved, these things, their contexts and the ways of appreciation change. The mobility of things – or, precisely, their mobilisation – is an indicator of shifting societal perspectives on these things.

Building on Stephen Greenblatt’s manifesto *Cultural Mobility* (2009) and the anthology edited by Hans Peter Hahn and Hadas Weiss *Itineraries of Things* (2011), this panel aims to describe the changes in the value and evaluation of objects trough mobility.

At first glance, the central hypothesis of this panel appears to contradict conventional assumptions from history, art history and anthropology about the significance of material objects across cultural boundaries and eras. Contrary to the notion that material goods from other parts of the world or from other eras can function as witnesses to information and appreciation, the aim here is to discuss what changes have arisen in terms of information and appreciation as a result of the mobility of objects. Taken to its logical extreme, this thesis implies that cultures arise from the mobility of material goods in the first place.

Practical applications relate to trade goods as well as to collections both within and outside museums, which generally bear witness to earlier impulses towards mobilisation. In this context, the focus may equally be on objects that enable human mobility, on objects that have been mobilised by humans, and, thirdly, on the movement of objects occurring independently of humans. In all cases, the focus should be on the transformation of objects.