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British curator and art historian Ruth Ur is the new Director of Stiftung Exilmuseum Berlin starting 1 June, 2025.

“Ruth Ur is an outstanding, experienced, and internationally renowned curator. She is a passionate networker and initiator and curator of numerous exhibitions and projects all over the world. She will bring new energy to the Exilmuseum and inspiration for its path towards the future,” announced Bernd Schultz on behalf of the board of the Exilmuseum Berlin.

“The word exile is an old word, with a long history that continues to repeat itself, even today. It stands for hundreds of thousands of individual life stories, all of which share the loss of a homeland and everything that was once taken for granted. We are made to confront the question: how much homeland do refugees carry with them in their minds when they are forced to flee? How difficult is this and what happens to this invisible luggage? Where does the sense of being lost go? And is it possible to represent all of this in one location in Berlin? The Exilmuseum’s mission is to explore these issues and the meaning of the word exile. I am happy that we were able to appoint Ruth Ur as Director. She brings with her a wealth of experience and the skills necessary to make our plan a reality”, Herta Müller, Nobel Prize winner and Exilmuseum patron.

Ruth Ur, designated Director, Stiftung Exilmuseum Berlin: “Exile is not simply a matter of the past. It is also our present. What happened here in Germany between 1933 and 1945 and how it changed the world is more relevant today than ever before. I am inspired by how engaging with the past can help us to understand the present. Creating a new institution in the heart of Berlin that makes the history of exile palpable and connects it to the present day is a great honor and I believe, an urgent necessity.”

The executive board of the Stiftung Exilmuseum Berlin voted unanimously for Ruth Ur as the new Director. She will develop the program at Exilmuseum’s location on Fasanenstraße 24, in the heart of Berlin-Charlottenburg. Ruth Ur follows Christoph Stölzl, the Founding Director of Exilmuseum, who died in January 2023. Ur had previously served as a member of the Foundation’s board alongside Bernd Schultz, the initiator of Stiftung Exilmuseum. Ruth Ur is being joined by Lukas Geck, who was formerly Head of Programmes at Freundeskreis Yad Vashem, and who will now take on the new position of Head of Strategy at the Exilmuseum.

Ruth Ur
British curator and art historian Ruth Ur has more than twenty-five years’ experience in developing and delivering flagship cultural projects around the world. She served in senior positions at the British Council from 1998 to 2017 including in the UK, Germany, Israel, Turkey, and India. She curated numerous high-profile exhibitions and projects, including the British Pavilion at the Architecture Biennale in Venice (2002), the EU program “My City” (2008–10), and the first art installation on the façade of Buckingham Palace (2017).

In 2018, Ruth Ur founded the arts consultancy urKultur, which is dedicated to advising museums and public art commissions. As part of this she is curating the Holocaust Museum of Greece in Thessaloniki, whose opening is set for 2027.
From 2019 until 2024, Ruth Ur served as the representative of Yad Vashem, the World Holocaust Remembrance Center in Germany. In this role, she curated numerous exhibitions and campaigns across Germany on Jewish life and the Holocaust. This included being invited on two consecutive years to curate the German Bundestag’s official annual exhibition to mark International Holocaust Memorial Day: Sixteen Objects: Seventy Years of Yad Vashem (2023) and I said, “Auf Wiedersehen”: 85 years since the Kindertransport to Britain (2024).