Dr. phil. Clara Rellensmann receives the Max Grünebaum Award 2022 at the BTU

Clara Rellensmann defended her dissertation entitled "Appropriating Sacred Spaces: An Investigation of Bagan's Transformed Landscape" in February 2022, receiving summa cum laude honors.

In her dissertation, Clara Rellensmann takes an in-depth look at the temple landscape of Bagan in Myanmar, which has been listed as a UNESCO World Heritage Site since 2019. She does not analyze it solely in terms of its artistic, archaeological, or historical qualities. Rather, Clara Rellensmann presents it as a highly complex and telling example of the ideological transformation, use, and misappropriation of this significant site for the political purposes of an authoritarian regime.

With its assumption of power in 1988, the military initiated an extensive reconstruction program of sacred buildings at this site of the highest historical impact. UNESCO accepted Myanmar's argument that this was a revival of religious tradition. In doing so, it overlooked the fact that the regime was primarily concerned with gaining legitimacy through the religious and historical connotations of these buildings.

Clara Rellensmann examines this process holistically in her work. With her clever, differentiated, and always diplomatic analysis of the site and its multi-layered context, Clara Rellensmann has made an important contribution to the current discussion about what the values of heritage actually consist of and how they are seen in different cultural circles around the world. In doing so, she can build on her many years of experience working for UNESCO in Southeast Asia, which Clara Rellensmann did after completing her master's degree in World Heritage Studiesat the BTU. A long list of publications provides an overview of the enormous range and depth of her research. She received special recognition, among other things, when she was elected in 2017 in New Delhi for a term of three years to the board of ICOMOS International, the International Council of Monuments and Siteswith, a World Heritage Advisory Organization of UNESCO with about 10,000 members worldwide.

In addition to her academic work, Clara Rellensmann is involved in intercultural activities. She organized and led summer schools for students from Myanmar and the BTU. For this, she raised funds from the German Academic Exchange Service (DAAD). To this day, she supports a group of students from Myanmar who were able to come to Germany to continue their architectural studies at the BTU. Clara Rellensmann is also a founding member of Haus Döschnitz e.V., an association that has been renovating a historic half-timbered house in Thuringia in accordance with historic preservation requirements and making it usable for study purposes since the beginning of 2020. After her doctorate, she is now at the beginning of a habilitation project.

Professional background Since April 2017 research associate at the Chair of Historic Preservation at BTU.

2017 - 2021 Research activities for dissertation on monument policy in Myanmar in association with the DFG Research Training Group 1913 "Cultural and Technical Values Historical Buildings".

2017 - 2020 Board member of ICOMOS International (honorary position)

2012-2016 Project Coordinator and Technical Advisor for the UNESCO Regional Office in Bangkok (Thailand) and the UNESCO Project Office in Yangon (Myanmar) 2010-2011 Scholarship holder of the "Mercator Kolleg für Internationale Aufgaben".

2010 Master of Arts in "World Heritage Studies" at the Brandenburg University of Technology in Cottbus, Germany

2007 Bachelor of Arts in "European Studies" at the University of Passau

Contact

Susett Tanneberger
Stabsstelle Kommunikation und Marketing
T +49 (0) 355 69-3126
susett.tanneberger(at)b-tu.de
Dr phil. Clara Rellensmann (Photo: Marc Timo Berg)
Temple landscape of Bagan in Myanmar (Photo: Clara Rellensmann)