Léontine Meijer-van Mensch
Léontine Meijer-van Mensch (b. 1972) studied Modern and Theoretical History and Jewish Studies in Amsterdam, Jerusalem, and Berlin, and completed a postgraduate program in European Cultural Heritage Protection, with a special focus on Museum Studies, at the European University Viadrina in Frankfurt an der Oder. Léontine worked for a variety of exhibition projects in Germany, Poland and in The Netherlands, for instance as a researcher and as an educator in the Jewish Museum in Berlin and the Jewish Historical Museum in Amsterdam.
Before returning to Amsterdam in January 2006, she was the project co-ordinator of the Europa Fellows II research programme at the Collegium Polonicum in Słubice (Poland) and lecturer of cultural management and museology at Europa-Universität Viadrina in Frankfurt/Oder. She is a board member of COMCOL, the ICOM-International Committee for Collecting and an international board member of the International School of Museology, Celje, Slovenia. She moderated the the Erfgoed Arena at Reinwardt Academy till January 2011. Her Ph.D. research focused on the museology discourse in the German Democratic Republic and its international resonance. Her main interest is in remembrance culture and contemporary collecting.
Léontine Meijer-van Mensch was a guest speaker for the event Presence of an Absence in 2011, organised in cooperation with the Scheltema Complex, Leiden and Framer Framed in Amsterdam. After working as a lecturer in heritage theory and professional ethics at the Reinwardt Academy, in 2014 she was the Deputy Director at Museum Europäischer Kulturen Staatliche Museen (Museum for European Cultures) in Berlin. From 2017-2019 held the position as Program Director and Deputy Director of the Jewish Museum Berlin, having been a member of the museum’s founding team and a freelancer in the education department from 2001 to 2005.
Meijer-van Mensch’s broad international background, knowledge and experience of European cultural heritage and museological developments provide her with a profound sense of history and current trends. She is an insightful theoretical museologist contributing to the ongoing museological discourse. She lives in Berlin, Germany and Northern Bohemia, Czech Republic.
