A poster, a flyer, and newspaper ads announce an evening of public discussion. The invited participants of the panel are a heartsurgeon, a canyoning professional, a self-employed architect, and a sociologist, who debate risks, and the concept of risk in their respective activities and fields.

Dominique Noah : Vous m’avez invité en qualité de théoricien de la culture pour discuter du champ
de la culture, de ses représentations et des croyances qui la sous-tendent. Qu’est-ce qui préside à votre intérêt pour toutes ces questions ?

Hinrich Sachs : Voilà une question bien difficile pour commencer. Voyons… depuis des années, mon travail a été guidé par un intérêt pour les codes culturels – le second degré des objets, des images, des formes et des valeurs.

A continuously growing set of watercolour drawings, each of which is drawn after the cover of a primary school book, originating from a variety of the world’s languages.

The exhibition comprised a representative selection of photographs by renowned German photo-journalist and traveller Leonore Mau. Presented next to a 16 minute audio interview with her, conducted by the artist, a reprint of selected magazine contributions by Mau from 1962–92 was featured.

Three audio-guides, made available to the visitors at the Hamburg Museum of Ethnology, in relation to the Oceanian, West-African, and Chinese segments of the collections on display, partly in the languages corresponding with the collections: Indonesian, Ewe and Chinese.