Discover everyday culture and share your stories.
Our platform gives the general public a chance to comment on the objects in our collection and different theme worlds. Everyone can contribute their stories, memories and photographs on all aspects of everyday culture in the GDR. Your stories help us present history.
The platform
This digital platform is an initiative of the Museum of Utopia and Daily Life. The museum combines the Documentation Centre of Everyday Culture of the GDR in Eisenhüttenstadt with the Beeskow Art Archive. The platform provides insight into the collections. We offer a virtual space that makes the objects and the knowledge attached to them accessible, not just to specialists. The aim is to enhance the collections with personal memories and stories. Based on that input of memories, we not only intend to encourage general social engagement with history and the present day; working with your input also makes it possible to gain new perspectives on the cultural heritage of the GDR.
The digital presence of the Museum of Utopia and Daily Life was developed as part of the initiative “dive in. Programm für digitale Interaktionen” organised by the German Federal Cultural Foundation, with funding from the Federal Government Commissioner for Culture and the Media (BKM) within the programme NEUSTART KULTUR.
A Citizen Science project
Our work is always based on the idea of a “democratic museum”: anyone interested has the chance to contribute to this archive of social, cultural and collective memory. In digitising our collection and above all by presenting it to everyone on our new platform, we are giving you the opportunity to tell your own story and pass on your memories to others. We hope for a lively exchange, also among yourselves. Furthermore, the historical collection developed on this platform is a valuable addition and inspiration for academic historical research. Today, civic participation has a firm place in historical studies. Far-reaching data collection in recent centuries would have been impossible without the collaboration of volunteers. We are therefore grateful for your interest and trust.