The Biodiversity Museum of Göttingen

A place where knowledge touches hearts

Von Antonia Dopp

Edward O. Wilson once said: „We should preserve every scrap of biodiversity as priceless while we learn to use it and come to understand what it means to humanity.“ This quote is also on the website of the Biodiversity Museum of Göttingen that will be opened on the 2nd floor of the Forum Wissen and I had the chance to talk about this new museum with its designated director and curator Professor Maria Teresa Aguado.

göhört: Hello Professor Aguado, I’m very happy to talk to you about the new museum. But before we turn our attention to the museum itself, let’s delve a little deeper into the subject. What exactly is biodiversity?
Prof. Aguado: Thank you very much for your interest in this interview! What is Biodiversity and how can we define it? Biodiversity is all different forms of life on earth and their interactions. Plants, animals, bacteria, fungi, … and all the interactions they maintain in different ecosystems – one could say that this is biodiversity.

gohört: And why is biodiversity such an important topic these days?
Prof. Aguado: Because biodiversity is threatened, so we are losing biodiversity. We are currently facing a loss in a huge number of different species at different levels and this is something really worrying nowadays. So, the loss of biodiversity is affecting us, since we are part of biodiversity and we depend completely on biodiversity resources.

göhört: What were the reasons to develop a biodiversity museum? How did the idea come up?
Prof. Aguado: Well, there was a museum here in the University of Göttingen, it was the „Zoologisches Museum“ and one of the main aims of this museum was making available one of the wonderful collections this university hosts, that is a zoological collection, for the general public. Furthermore, to provide a scientific context to this collection. This was already here, so the idea was to renewing that museum and to make a new museum with new museological techniques and new approaches. But nowadays we are facing a loss of biodiversity and we thought that this could be the main topic of this new museum.

Planning the exhibition

göhört: And how long have you been planning this?
Prof. Aguado: I came here in 2019 and within that year we began planning. We knew there was going to be a new museum, the renovation of the old one, and we began to think about the concept for this new museum. So already five years.

göhört: The museum will be dedicated to three overarching themes: Biodiversity and Evolution, Biodiversity and Ecosystems and Biodiversity and human impact. What were the challenges in designing and planning the museum?
Prof. Aguado: There were many different challenges, but regarding these three main topics one of the challenges has been connecting everything. We didn’t want three main areas that are separated from each other – we wanted one story. Also, we thought it could work very well to show the exhibition as a trip. Visitors can enter the exhibition and they are traveling – traveling through different concepts, contents, ideas and different places around the world. This was the main idea behind it and at the same time a big challenge.

„We want people to come out of the museum with more questions than they came in.“

Prof. Aguado

göhört: Particularly in the area of „biodiversity and human impact“, I find it difficult to balance the act of: first sharing information that encourages visitors to act through awareness and second avoid giving them a feeling of doom that stops them from acting at all. How did you manage this?
Prof. Aguado: This was another challenge. Since the beginning we knew that we didn’t want people going out of the museum with depression or a feeling of having no solutions. Like: This problem we are facing is so huge that we cannot do anything. We want the opposite. We want people to come out of the museum with more questions than they came in. Having questions is important. We want to share information and point out ways to answer these questions but with a positive feeling. With a feeling that there are a lot of people, majorities in societies, who really want to do something and who really want a better future and a better society. And that is what we want to transmit. And how the museum is created is especially for that.

göhört: The University of Göttingen has a Master’s module in „Science Communication“. In this context, some students have written short stories about various exhibits in the museum. Why is it so important to involve students?
Prof. Aguado: Well, firstly because it’s your future! So, you will be the ones who will maintain this museum, you will be the ones changing things and you will be the ones living with the consequences of what’s happening right now. I think it is super important to involve students and it’s also a lot of luck that this museum belongs to the university. A university has many different collectives interacting and one of these main collectives are the students. In this case this museum can count with students, with students learning, teaching, transmitting and acting. This is wonderful because this is what universities do.

göhört: And shall this be part of the module in the future as well?
Prof. Aguado: Yes, that is the idea. That is a very active participation from the students. We are practicing in the transfer of knowledge, in explaining science to the open public because this is really important nowadays. The museum is one of these platforms – that in this case belongs to the university – through which we can do that.

A look ahead

göhört: Reaching the end of this interview, I would like to know if there is anything in the new museum that you are personally looking forward to?
Prof. Aguado: Many things – opening it of course (she is laughing). One thing I am looking forward to is to see the reaction of people. This is something super interesting in a museum. When one museum is open, people go from one room to another and I am looking forward to seeing their expressions. What do they say? And to see if they are surprised or not. I really hope at some point we are able to provoke a „WOW“-reaction, this „Wow, how wonderful! How beautiful! How interesting!“ – this way of involving people with nature.

göhört: A very important question as well: When will the museum open?
Prof. Aguado: (laughing) We don’t like answering this question, because it is a difficult one. We still do not know. We think at least three years are still for working. We have to continue designing the fine concept as the general concept is designed. But now we have to go room after room and design everything inside, all the different elements and then make some trials and agreements and then finally it will be open. But this will still take some time.

göhört: The Biodiversity Museum will also display parts of our university’s biological collections. Do you have a favorite exhibit among them?
Prof. Aguado: I have many. We have wonderful animals, beautiful! One of my favorites is already there, it’s the sperm whale hanging in the atrium. It is a magnificent specimen and it is so amazing. Everything related to the biology of whales is incredible and there is much to learn. But some of the animals that are not in the exhibition yet that we will try to show then – and I really like them – are for instance the birds of paradise. (Now talking with huge enthusiasm in her voice): Because they are so beautiful, so are the feathers and also their mating behavior is quite complex. They are super interesting!

göhört: Finally, one last question: Do you have a wish for the museum’s future?
Prof. Aguado: I think museums are active players in society and I hope this museum will be an active player improving society. Making it better, creating a better future, really contributing. This is my wish.
göhört: Thank you kindly for this interview.

To give you a little food for thought this article will end with a quote from Georgina Mace: „In its broadest sense, biodiversity could mean all of life on Earth, and everything that is diverse about life – ecosystems, species, genes.“ And now a personal addition: Why shouldn’t we protect all of this?

Das Interview führte Antonia Dopp.