The Natural History Museum Berlin is currently digitizing its entire holdings, 30 million objects. In the newly established Bureau du Triage des Objects (object inspection office) a three-member tribunal convenes to decide, if their physical counterparts

> remain in the archives and museums
> have to be re-contextualized
> have to be destroyed immediately

The tribunal consists of the director of a Natural History Museum, the curator of a Museum of World Cultures and the theorist of a Post-Revolutionary Museum, who exchange arguments.

Director: The dodo used to symbolize the greatness of the European conquest of the world and the science that ordered it. After the critical turn in the museum, the dodo now tells us of the violence of the colonial enterprise and the extinction of its species. The long history of violence is embodied in the taxidermy itself, it does not only tell history, it is a part and also a victim of this history. Taxidermized animals are moral authorities. And they are witnesses. The animal must be preserved in the museum as a memorial.

Theorist: We have to tell the presence of colonialism, not only its past. The dodo is the first known total extinction of a species through human impact, in this case, the Dutch. The present sixth great extinction of species was triggered by European expansion. The specimen testifies to a systematic destruction of planetary proportions. But the dodo keeps being exhibited, the visitors enjoy the catastrophe, and the museum thinks that we can learn from the past. The bird is a monument of annihilation. It is unfit for an ethical debate on the future of the museum. We should overthrow it.

Curator: The dodo is neither a memorial, nor a monument. The dodo holds a sign that reads: Ceci n’est pas un dodo! Not only does no dodo exist, no stuffed dodo exists anymore, anywhere. The dodo here before us, like all dodos, is not a taxidermy, but a plaster sculpture decorated with foreign feathers, pasted over with remains of other, related animals. A spare part storage. A shattered biography. A Franken-Dodo. We have to create an awareness of its fabricated, unfinished state. It is a creature that shimmers, a chimera that needs a space of imagination and not a classificatory system, no museum vitrine, and certainly no pedestal from which it can later be toppled.

TRIAGE (Fr.: trier=to sort)

Triage is a procedure for prioritizing medical assistance in the event of a shortage of resources. In the current pandemic, it emerged as a scandal of democratic principles of equality. It designates a procedure for prioritizing medical assistance in the event of a shortage of resources.

But in fact, the term triage originated from archival practice. The Bureau du Triage des Titres (title inspection office) was established shortly after the victory of the French Revolution to reorganize the pre-revolutionary heritage in the archives. The Bureau was to fast-track decisions as to which documents and archival records after the revolution: 1. should remain in the archives due to administrative relevance, 2. should be kept as historic documents of a future historiography, 3. must be destroyed immediately because they are either useless, unwelcome or dangerous in the post-revolutionary state.

Since 2021, the practice of triage provides a procedure for sorting out objects in the overcrowded storages of European museums. The progressive digitization of collections, the growing criticism regarding the massive amounts of energy required to conserve museum objects as well as worldwide claims of restitution and repatriation have raised fundamental doubts about the legitimacy of the museum as an institution. Demands to clear out museum archives bring the option of the empty museum into focus.

The dodo is a ground nesting, frugivorous, flightless bird; height about 80cm; weight about 20kg. First European description in 1589 by Dutch sailors on Mauritius, 100 years later extinct. Its last recorded sighting is a hunting scene from 1662. There is no true-to-original animal preservation of any dodo worldwide.

The animal is classified as follows:

Species:   Dodo or Dronte, also Dodaars, Fat- or Lazy-Ass  (Raphus cucullatus)

Kingdom:   Animalia

Phylum:   Chordata

Class:   Aves

Order:   Columbiformes

Family:   Columbidae

Genus:   Raphus (extinct)

Origin:   Mauritius, Indian Ocean

Taxidermist:   Ingo Kopmann, Brieselang

Material:   Styrofoam, plaster, glue, emu skin, emu feathers, laughing gull feathers, soft tissue remains, horn, bird feet (origin unknown), glass eye, modelling clay, lacquer color, spray paint

Design:   In classic taxidermy, animals are depicted in either neutral or dramatic poses. The usual way of depicting dodos in museums is neutral: the animal remains in a waiting position, has accepted death and is waiting for the end of all times. The New Dodo is a drama: it is in attack mode, its liveliness denies death, for it time has only been stopped, it will come again

Script:
Marian Kaiser und Hannah Hurtzig

Speakers:
Assaf Gruber, Jelena Kuljic-Knauer, Susanne Sachsse, Promona Sengupta, Haytham el Wardany

Directors:
Hannah Hurtzig und Susanne Sachsse

Camera:
Ginan Seidl

Editor:
Bettina Blickwede

Recording and audio:
Boris Wilsdorf

Sound:
Hanna Prenzel

Lighting:
Irene Izquierdo, Svea Immel

Color grading:
Ben Brix

Taxidermist:
Ingo Kopmann

Management:
Franz Hempel

Illustrations:
Claudia Basrawi

Illustrations by Claudia Basrawi