Humboldt Forum celebrates ‘Five Years Open’
News from 06/24/2026
The directors of the four institutions involved in the Humboldt Forum have given a positive assessment of the first five years – a major anniversary celebration featuring five days of events from 27 June to 19 July
On 20 July 2021, the Humboldt Forum began the phased opening of its programme with the first of several stages. Since then, the Humboldt Forum in Berlin’s Mitte district has continued to evolve, not only as an urban space but as an open venue that continually reviews and refines its work through dialogue with the public, international collaborations and the interplay between the four participating institutions. Historical responsibility, global interconnections and contemporary debates, restitution, colonial legacy and the present, cultural appropriation, politics of memory – all these issues are addressed at the Humboldt Forum.
Marion Ackermann, President of the Prussian Cultural Heritage Foundation: “The Humboldt Forum can only be successful if it remains constantly in motion, seeking and forging new paths. Our museums have reinvented themselves there; they found themselves at the centre of the debate on how to deal with objects from a colonial context and have grown as a result. They have invited the world to collaborate, thereby establishing joint research and substantive and curatorial cooperation as the benchmark for transcultural museum work. The task now is to place greater emphasis on the major questions within the building alongside these numerous micro-stories, to take Europe into account and to build a bridge to Museum Island. The museums, whose collections make it possible to tell all these stories, play a central role in this.”
Five years open – five days of events: 27 June–4 July 2026
To mark its fifth anniversary, the four partners of the Humboldt Forum are inviting visitors to discover the museum from new perspectives through a varied programme of special events. Five days of events will offer unusual glimpses behind the scenes, bring current research into direct dialogue with the public, transform the Schlüterhof into a festival, cater specifically for families and provide accessible entry points to the exhibitions. What all these events have in common is the aim of bringing the Humboldt Forum to life as a vibrant place for encounter, participation and shared discovery – in short, more than just a museum.