In everyday life, we constantly sort the people around us into “pigeonholes” – for example according to gender, age, social class or performance. Skin color, clothing, language or physical characteristics shape our impressions and lead us to create differences. However, the “types of people” that emerge in this way are not simply given or natural: they are created through active sorting work and are stabilized or changed by social norms, structures and cultural negotiation processes. Some we don’t even notice, others we fight over. Some are dropped over time.
With the exhibition “Menschen Sort[ier]en”, the Collaborative Research Center (CRC) 1482 “Human Differentiation” at Johannes Gutenberg University Mainz (JGU), funded by the German Research Foundation (DFG), aims to address these “sorting processes”. The deliberately ambiguous title of the exhibition refers to the fact that so-called “human varieties” are only created through sorting itself. Visitors to the exhibition are invited to view differentiation from new perspectives through spatial stagings, interactive offers and practical examples.
The exhibition “Menschen Sort[ier]en” will be on display at the Schule des Sehens on the Gutenberg campus from June 23 to July 17, 2025 and is usually open Monday to Thursday from 12 noon to 4 pm. In addition, the exhibition can be visited on Open University Day on June 26, 2025 from 9 a.m. to 3 p.m. or at other times by appointment.
Accompanying program:
- Short guided tours during the lunch break
- on June 23, June 30, July 7 and July 14, 2025, from 2:30 p.m. each day
- Live recording of a podcast episode “Sone & Such” with Prof. Dr. Tobias Boll at the Schule des Sehens
- Thursday, June 26, 2025, 11:00 a.m.
- Lecture “Transpacific Biotic Exchanges: Japanese Insect and Plant Migration and Border Control” by Jeannie Shinozuka (Washington State University):
- Monday, June 30, 2025, 6:15 p.m.
- “Aesthetics of differentiation” workshop with artist and inclusion activist Lilian Korner
- Wednesday, July 2, 2025, 4:00 p.m.
The Collaborative Research Center “Human Differentiation” offers more on this topic on the following website: https: //humandifferenzierung.uni-mainz.de/event/menschen-sortieren. And also in the podcast “Sone & Solche” at https://www.ub.uni-mainz.de/de/remix/podcasts/sone-solche.
