Museum of Alternate History 
Paulina Heinz

Supervisors_ Prof. Axel Kufus, Prof. Dr. Sophia Prinz, Anja Lapatsch

BA Graduation Project_  Paulina Heinz

What if European culture had not developed in the context of the patriarchy, but of a matriarchy instead? What stories would historic artefacts tell? What would they look like and which actions would they support? Would they have a disorienting effect on us? …Or would they inspire us to critically re-evaluate our every day life, our society, our history, culture, politics and possibly also our visions for the future?
Therefore, chewing gum, like other plastic products, is not easily biodegradable (demonstrably needing several years).

“Cyborg writing is about the power to survive, not on the basis of original innocence, but on the basis of seizing the tools to mark the world that marked them as other. The tools are often stories, retold stories, versions that reverse and displace the hierarchical dualisms of naturalized identities.“ (Donna Haraway)

The Museum of Alternate History combines feminist and gender theories with a speculative design approach in the alternate history scenario of a European matriarchy. In doing so it comments on the the strict patriarchal divide of bodies into two genders and the submission and regulation of female and non-heteronormative bodies in our society. Six objects and their descriptive texts transform critical though into materiality and – quite literally – open up the room for discussion and reflection.