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Religious Everyday Companions: Exhibition at IG Farben Building showcases objects intended to provide aid in all of life’s situations, supported by LOEWE Center "Dynamics of the Religious"

Through religion, people look toward that which lies beyond the visible world. However, most believers also look to religion for assistance with the problems of everyday life. In Christian Europe, these hopes long found expression in "spiritual home medicine chests": assembled without strict rules, these collections – right up until the 20th century – contained religious and religiously inspired objects from which people sought relief for physical as well as spiritual ailments. From Tuesday, May 12, to Friday, July 31, the exhibition "With Rosary & Scrap Madonna: Religious Everyday Companions of the Modern Age in Dialogue"—located in the Department of History (Historisches Seminar) on the 3rd floor of the IG Farben Building – illustrates the kinds of objects that served this purpose.
Many of these objects were directly linked to Christianity – yet by no means all: devotional images could be found lying side by side with silk threads soaked in snake’s blood.
Part of the exhibition is the "Secular Home Medicine Chest" ("Weltliche Hausapotheke") by contemporary artist Eva Ulm, which enters into a dialogue with the historical pieces. The exhibition – funded by the LOEWE Center "Dynamics of the Religious" and the DFG Research Group "Polycentricity and Plurality of Premodern Christianities" – was organized by the academic platform "Interface Religion" (*Schnittstelle Religion*), coordinated by Zbiranski. Academic direction for the exhibition is provided by historians Prof. Birgit Emich and Prof. Xenia von Tippelskirch.
The exhibition opened on May 12 at 5 pm with a vernissage. It is open Monday through Friday from 8 am to 10 pm, and Saturdays from 8 am to 6 pm. It is located in sections Q 4 and 5, as well as in the Study Lounge. A small portion of the exhibition is accessible only during the Study Lounge’s opening hours; these can be found here: https://www.geschichte.uni-frankfurt.de/49425245/Studienlounge