History of the collections
The Musée d’ethnographie de Genève was founded in 1901. But its collections have a longer history, some beginning as many as two centuries earlier. The objects in this museum tell us not only about peoples, but also about our own history and our taste for the objects of the Other.
1. Ethnographic objects in geneva's museums
2. Strange objects and natural history
3. Establishing a hierarchy for mankind
4. Exoticism as taste
5. The picturesque economy
6. The ambiguities of missionary collecting
7. Ethnography and international relations
8. No fieldwork without theory
9. From field to museum
Mer (Sea), 2014
Video installation by the artist Ange Leccia
HD video
Acquired by the MEG in 2014
MEG Inv. ETHEU 800004
Filmed on the beach below Nonza in Corsica, this work invites multiple interpretations. Mer is about distance and the contacts between the continents. Its power contrasts with the fragility of cultural productions and, like a sandglass, its surf marks the perpetual trickle of passing time. Merceaselessly redraws the outline of a story to be written on the white pages of its foam.
© 2015 Musée d'ethnographie, Genève
Ville de Genève, Département de la culture et du sport