Special exhibitions

Cloudy And Clear

Our Daily Water

Water accompanies us, consciously or unconsciously, in all areas of life. As the most consumed beverage, it keeps people healthy. In its clean form, it is used for hygiene. Industries cannot do without water and it is hard to imagine leisure time without it. The exhibition shows us the manifold importance of water in our everyday lives. At the same time it illustrates how we neglect the “blue gold”. How did humans utilise water? What technical efforts were required to have clean and running tap water available at all times? How does our consumer behaviour affect the scarcity of water as a resource? The exhibition sheds light on these and other topics and thus contributes to the current climate discussion. Hands-on stations, an app and accompanying museum educational programme invite visitors to explore the element of water.

The display was created on behalf of the exhibition network “Alltag – Arbeit – Anstoß – Aufbruch”. A book accompanies the exhibition.

19 March to 3 December 2023, Hessenpark Open Air Museum, Stable Barn from Asterode (Northern Hesse Ensemble)

Especially Everyday!

Transferring the Hessian State Museum Darmstadt’s collection to the Hessenpark Open Air Museum

The collections of the Hessenpark Open Air Museum have been reinforced by a new acquisition. Consisting of around 10,500 objects, the Everyday Culture Collection of the Hessian State Museum Darmstadt has moved into the Hessenpark’s newly built central depot.

The diversity of the collection’s inventory will be illustrated by different subject areas such as housing, advertising, hygiene and war. Twelve chapters ranging from “Particularly Clean?” to “Particularly Unique!” will provide visitors access to selected individual pieces such as artistically painted Easter eggs, a toilet bowl or a cooking box. The presentation deliberately breaks with the impression of being surrounded merely by products of daily use. Presented like works of art, the exhibits appear in a completely different light. This creates an atmosphere of specialness and enables visitors to gain a new perspective on the everyday.

Against this background, the overriding goal of the exhibition is to express the cultural value of those objects and at the same time illustrate the significance of everyday life. Moreover, children can also become active and help decide in which chapter they would like to classify familiar everyday objects.

At the same time, the exhibition exemplifies the close cooperation between the two museums, driven by the intention to make Hessen’s everyday cultural heritage accessible to research and the public at the Hessenpark Open Air Museum.

29 April to 3 December 2023, House from Gemünden (Wohra)
every Wednesday, Friday, Saturday, Sunday and Holiday from 10 am to 5 pm

Nikon F – The SLR Icon Of The 1960s

The Nikon F is the iconic camera of 1960s reportage photography. To this day, it has played a decisive role in shaping our image of this era. Photographs that captured moments of world events in magazines such as Stern were taken with the Nikon F. The robust camera with a variety of expansion options and a comprehensive range of lenses was popular with many photographers in different fields.
The Hessenpark Open Air Museum has put essential parts of a large Nikon F-collection on show: In addition to cameras, lenses and accessories, this exhibition also features photographs taken with the Nikon F. The renowned Stern photographer Volker Hinz worked with the Nikon F in the 1960s and 1970s and was best known for his photographs of political events

16 April to 3 December 2023, Hessenpark Open Air Museum, House of Photo and Film History

A new building for our museum administration

Numerous people with very different areas of responsibility work in our museum. Colleagues from the areas of management, accounting, human resources, science, communication and marketing, education and outreach, construction, crafts and agriculture are currently housed across several buildings. A new administration building should make it possible to work together as a team in modern offices. For this purpose, the state of Hesse launched an architectural competition. The brief was to design a building using the particularly sustainable straw bale construction method. The building should fit in with our museum and the plot provided for it near the entrance building. Energy efficiency, consideration for the surrounding historic buildings and functionality are all important to us. You can see the competition entries from 16 architectural in our new exhibition.

7 September 2023 to 1 April 2024, Barn from Sand

Living Variety. Biodiversity at Hessenpark

The term biodiversity represents the variety of life. This variety doesn’t just secure what we eat, but is the very basis for our well-being, our health and ultimately our survival here on Earth. It’s the result of natural processes of evolution, but also the targeted breeding of farm animals and plants by humans.

This exhibition explores the diversity of the animals, plants and habitats at Hessenpark. It showcases the key role of agriculture as well as what we can all do to preserve diversity in our cultural landscape.

From June 12, Fortified House from Ransbach

Archive Special Exhibitions

Figur einer Wissenschaftlerin

2022