Travelers

The exhibition “Travelers” follows the journeys of people and objects from colonial times to the present day and examines the circumstances in which the Collection of Non-European Cultures was formed. In the introductory section we point to the link between colonialism and the creation of national museums, collections of objects from non-European cultures and the beginnings of ethnology and cultural anthropology as academic disciplines. The central section highlights individual donors to the Collection, thereby pointing to the historical contexts in which they worked and assembled their collections. Among other things, visitors can learn what connects Dragutin Lerman with the colonial project of the Belgian King Leopold II; what Tibor Sekelj did in Australia and what he did on Aconcagua, the highest peak of South America; what Joža and Renata Horvat brought back from Papua New Guinea on their sailing boat Besa; and what links Milka Trnina with the American collector William Bigelow. Finally, as a counterpoint to research into non-European cultures, the exhibition presents contemporary ethnographic research from the scientific project ERIM – European Regime of Irregularised Migration at the Periphery of the European Union (2020–2024), funded by the Croatian Science Foundation at the Institute of Ethnology and Folklore Research.