inherit. heritage in transformation

‘AI is not a choice; we use it every day without even knowing it’. - Emily Pugh

In May, inherit came together with members of the Getty Research Institute Getty for a full-day workshop to explore how AI is shaping heritage practice and research. 🔍

Key takeaways from the workshop, which was co-organized by research coordinators Yoonha Kim and Elisaveta Ernst:

🗂️ Emily Pugh and Sandra van Ginhoven from the Getty Research Institute highlighted the historical dimensions of data work by using the Getty Provenance Index, a database that provides open access to millions of archival records. The researchers highlighted that although AI is framed as a choice, it's already embedded in the systems we depend on, including how we store, search, and surface cultural memory. The real questions are: Whose knowledge gets centered, what biases get baked in, and what are the ingredients to close the gaps?

🤖 Anthropologist Maxime Le Calvé introduced 'Ethnographic AI', inviting participants to prompt chatbots as if they were interviewing ethnographers. The group worked with a local Large Language Model (LLM), and explored the idea of 'divinatory logics'. This approach emphasizes chance and interpretation over fixed ideas of truth, treating AI outputs as speculative prompts rather than authoritative answers.

🎨 Artist Matías Sauter Morera explored AI as a creative tool for artists, using it to construct speculative historical narratives that address gaps in archives. In his work, AI helps imagine photographic records of q***r life in rural Costa Rica.He described the process behind this work, which became the Getty Museum's first AI-generated acquisition.

Thank you to all speakers as well as the participants for the inspiring day!

We look forward to continuing this exploration of how AI impacts heritage practice and research: attending to its specific models rather than generalising,embracing its playfulness and messiness, while remaining critically aware of its risks, ethical issues, and the complex questions it raises about truth - including the policy and legislative conversations those questions demand.

© inherit
Slide 4: © Maxime Le Calvé

Exciting News! ✨ Congratulations to inherit director Sharon Macdonald on being awarded the Warburg Professorship 2026 at the Aby Warburg Foundation! 🎓

The invitation came as a delightful surprise, especially in the year marking the 100th anniversary of the Warburg House.
The Aby Warburg Foundation in Hamburg funds the Warburg Professorship and hosts conferences, seminars, and lectures at the Warburg Haus, bringing acclaimed researchers in the Humanities and Social Sciences to a wider audience.

Sharon will live and work in Hamburg from mid-October to mid-December 2026 as part of the professorship.

Congratulations, Sharon! 👏

© Philipp Plum

Lecture Series "Inheritance: Heritage in Transformation"
23.06. Farhan Samanani
Inheritance as a Total Social Fact
Chair: Elisaveta Ernst

📅 Tuesday 23 June, 16:00-18:00 c.t.
📍Humboldt-Universität zu Berlin, Main Building, Lecture Hall 3075 (Unter den Linden 6, 10117 Berlin)
🌐 You can also join us online (no registration required) here: https://lnkd.in/d5-z_jgb

🔗 More Information here:
https://lnkd.in/dJ2nA3Y6

"Archive of Divine Possessions" by inherit fellow Bhasha Chakrabarti is open at Tieranatomisches Theater until 11 July. We warmly invite you to come by!

📍 TA T – Tieranatomisches Theater, Rotunda
🎟 Free entry, no registration needed
🕑 Open Tuesday–Saturday, 14:00–18:00

Ever since its celebratory opening in May, the exhibition invites visitors to explore inheritances through an installation and immersive sound piece, tracing movements between personal histories, material transformations, and institutional display.

The opening was part of inherit's lecture series "Inheritance: Heritage in Transformation" and began with a visual walkthrough of the exhibition, exploring its many sensory layers and how they unfold through different notions of care. 👁️

This was followed by a conversation between Bhasha and curator and author Mario D'Souza, who contributed selected texts to the exhibition. From there, visitors moved into the building's rotunda, where inherit director Sharon Macdonald and Felix Sattler, curator at TA T, officially welcomed everyone to the exhibition.

🔗 More information here:
https://inherit.hu-berlin.de/events/bhasha-chakrabarti-archive-of-divine-possessions

Can a city ever be fully known? 👁️

Dive into life in São Paulo through the lens of inherit fellow Simone Toji. Her latest article, featured in “City”, is now available as an open-access publication: ‘Unknowing São Paulo: life beyond capture in the economies of small clothing businesses and the fragility of the urban’.

Inspired by her Portuguese language student’s comment that the first thing he saw upon arriving in São Paulo was mist, Simone traces the notion that a city can never be fully seen or grasped in its entirety.

Simone’s article draws on her work as an ethnographer, engaging with people in São Paulo’s small-scale garment industries. It highlights uncertainty as a fundamental part of (urban) life. Simone ultimately reminds us ‘that cities are not static entities but ever-evolving assemblages of relationships, practices, and affects.’ 🏙️

🔗 To learn more about life, work and kinship in São Paulo’s small clothing business industry, read the full article here: https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/13604813.2026.2635249

Cover image © City, 2026

🎤 Lecture Series "Inheritance: Heritage in Transformation"

02.06. Nile Davies
Blood, Bone and Spit: Genetics, Platforms, Personhood
Chair: Sharon Macdonald

📅 Tuesday 2 June, 16:00-18:00 c.t.
📍Humboldt-Universität zu Berlin, Main Building, Lecture Hall 3075 (Unter den Linden 6, 10117 Berlin)
🌐 You can also join us online (no registration required) here: https://lnkd.in/d5-z_jgb

How does inheritance move through blood, borders, and digital platforms?

inherit's lecture series "Inheritance: Heritage in Transformation" continues every Tuesday from 16:00–18:00, with fellows and invited contributors examining what we pass on, and what might be gained or lost along the way.
The remaining sessions question inheritance across genetics, social relations, repatriation debates, hydraulic borders, and artistic practice.

Contributors to the lecture series include artists and researchers from Anthropology, Art History, History, Literature, Philosophy, Political Sciences, and Sociology.

📅 Every Tuesday until 14 July 2026, 16:00–18:00 c.t.
📍 Humboldt-Universität zu Berlin zu Berlin, Main Building, Lecture Hall 3075 (Unter den Linden 6, 10117 Berlin)
🏛️ On 7 July, the session will take place at Tieranatomisches Theater (Campus Nord, Haus 3, Philippstraße 13, 10115 Berlin)
🌐 Join on-site or online, no registration required.
More information here: https://inherit.hu-berlin.de/events/lecture-series-summer-2026

What do the prison letters of writer and political theorist Antonio Gramsci reveal about fascism–in the past and in the present?

Join inherit fellow Saskia Kroonenberg at the symposium "100 Years of Gramsci’s Prison Letters and Notebooks: Fascism Now and Then, Here and There" on 21 May 2026. Hosted by the Department for Social Sciences and Theory of Politics at Humboldt-Universität zu Berlin, Saskia will analyze how Gramsci’s legacy has travelled the world, shifting through different lenses, while staying rooted in his lived experiences.

Saskia will present her recent article, which interrogates the physical remains of Gramsci’s contemporaries alongside his written accounts of prison life.

The event will feature a scenic reading by poet அவ்ரீனா Avrina, engaging in themes of journeys, the prison cell, everyday objects, food, health, and relations; and inviting reflection on how Gramsci’s lived experiences might resonate with suffering, writing, and loving bodies in the present.

More information here: https://www.sowi.hu-berlin.de/en/research-and-teaching-areas/political-theory/events/symposium-2026-100-years-of-gramscis-prison-letters-and-notebooks-fascism-now-and-then-here-and-there

⚠️ Lecture Series "Inheritance: Heritage in Transformation" // Postponed

We are sorry to inform you that the following lecture will be postponed due to illness. We apologize for the inconvenience.

19.05. Resto Cruz
Rethinking Inheritance, Askance: Siblings and the Complex Lives of Bequests
Chair: Habiba Insaf