With the project “Layering Meanings,” the Humboldt Lab Dahlem launched an experiment to radically intensify the connection between the presentation of an object and the presentation of the associated knowledge. This was done with a selection of four objects from the collection inventory, which numbers 500,000 artifacts in all, to be dealt with in depth. Andreas Heller and his exhibition team, with the aid of the curators of the Dahlem museums as well as external academics, succeeded in collating a multifaceted and well-researched body of knowledge about these objects, which were then designated their own individual informational space. A wide range of texts, images and films about the provenance of the objects and their museum history, their aesthetics, and information on their usage is thus made available to the visitor.

You can find a detailed description of the project here.