Annual exhibition of the Francke Foundations 2020

Photos by the Canadian Edward Burtynsky, sounds by Dominik Eulberg and over 250 rarely shown objects from unique collections invite you to take an exciting journey through the discovery of geological time with a glimpse into the present.

In our annual exhibition we present one of the great events of the early modern era: the discovery of the Earth's time. For this purpose, the curators put a magnifying glass on the Hall of scholars of the 18th century with the pietistic Hallesches orphanage and the Brandenburg-Prussian Friedrichs University. This early enlightenment center is located in the middle between the geologically most diverse low mountain range in Germany, the Harz Mountains, and the Bergakademie in Freiberg (founded in 1765 as the fifth in a series of global mining science educational institutions).

The exhibition designers from the Formikat agency have designed an emotional and excitingly staged exhibition tour from the prehistory of geology to the development of modern geosciences in the 19th century with an excursion to the present that focuses on the sensual and emotional experience. Object texts can only be found in the free booklet accompanying the tour. "We were particularly interested in what motivated people to deal with inanimate nature," explains Dr. Claus Veltmann, curator and with Tom Gärtig curator of the exhibition, this exhibition approach. For this they were able to use the unique estate of the geological self-taught Christian Keferstein (1784–1866)work, who went down in history as the creator of the first geological map of Germany. 300 geological maps, almost 600 letters and a 2000 volume specialist library are included in the collection that is now kept in the archive and library of the Francke Foundations.