The museum

Museum Selma sees itself as a place for everyone - without mental or spatial barriers. Do you have a migrant background, your roots in Germany or both? Are you 99 years old or Gen Alpha? Are you a resident of Cologne-Kalk, an international museum fan or something in between? Come on in. Everyone is invited to experience immigration society in a new way at the Museum Selma.

Museum Selma sees itself as a new type of museum. To put it plainly, we are serious when we say that we want to be an open museum centred on the people of the migration society with their individual and collective experiences and memories. 

We preserve memories: from the life-saving lifebuoy to the mocha pot from Baba's village, from the first visa stamp to the letter to a familiar faraway place. We have already collected over 150,000 contemporary testimonies and the number is growing. The Museum Selma tells them to you - and it wants to hear your story too.

Museum Selma brings migration history(ies) to life: many of the experiences of migrants and their descendants still go unnoticed by mainstream society today. The aim of Museum Selma is to make previously unheard voices heard.

The perspectives of many people have played a subordinate or no role at all in German history to date. The Museum Selma is changing that. We see historiography as a joint project that cannot be complete without the perspective of migration - because migration is a natural part of human history.

The Museum Selma tells German history from a variety of perspectives, focussing on migration as a key driver of social development. We want to contribute to de-dramatising the discourse on migration in this country. 

Participation is the guiding principle of Museum Selma. We want to learn from you and you from us. From years of preliminary work in laboratories for participatory museum design, we know how we can put people and their individual and collective experiences at the centre.

Want to stay up to date on how you can get involved? Subscribe to our newsletter.

The Museum Selma is being built in the unique atmosphere of a former industrial hall that itself breathes migration history. The tender for the architecture and exhibition design is currently underway - so we will soon know exactly what the Museum Selma will look like. One thing is particularly important to us: that people enjoy spending time here. Because the Museum Selma will be a museum for all of us. So be patient a little longer, but then you can make yourself at home in the Museum Selma.

Museum Selma's future neighbourhood could hardly be more exciting: The ‘Hallen Kalk’, the former industrial site in Cologne-Kalk, is being filled with life again after years of stagnation: A cultural area to discover and help shape is being created here in one of Cologne's neighbourhoods most affected by migration.

The Museum Selma will be a place where we can experience ourselves as an immigration society, where questions of social coexistence can be negotiated. That's why the Museum Selma will be more than just a museum: we offer space for conferences, workshops, discussions, art, music and much more. Already curious? Stay up to date.

The rifts are deep, as are the wounds. We don't want to resolve the divisions in this society on our own, but we do want to make it an offer: The Museum Selma should be a place where people come together to understand each other better - and perhaps find a little healing.