In the Beginning Was the Belt at the Municipal Museum Braunschweig: Exhibition about Colonial Collections
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In the Beginning Was the Belt: An Exhibition about Origins, Collection, and Colonial Heritage
The Municipal Museum of Braunschweig opens a permanent exhibition that goes far beyond the classic museum presentation. In the Beginning Was the Belt plunges into questions of provenance, colonial history, and the critical curation of ethnological collections.
An Artistic Experience between Object, Context, and Responsibility
The exhibition reveals how museums today deal with collections from colonial contexts. The starting point is the search for the patron belt of the OvaMbanderu leader Kahimemua from present-day Namibia, an object that became a symbol of intensive processing in the museum's collection history. From this arises an exhibition space that does not appear static but remains perceivable as an open, dynamic ensemble.
Five Thematic Spaces, Many Perspectives
The presentation unfolds its strength in five thematic spaces: Networked, Travel Souvenirs, Images of the Other, Colonial Heritage, and Thinking Further. Each station opens a new interpretation of the ethnographic objects. Braunschweig seafarers, merchants, doctors, soldiers, researchers, early tourists, and emigrants appear as historical actors in a collection that simultaneously makes cultural fantasies, power relationships, and knowledge orders visible.
Objects as Testimonies of a Contested History
Highlighted pieces include a Hanseatic ship model, a ritual drum as a souvenir of a Braunschweig soldier from the American Revolutionary War, and an Afro-Portuguese salt vessel from the ducal art chamber. These works and items act not only as exhibits but as historical documents. In their materiality, origin, and reinterpretation, an impressive aesthetic experience emerges, linking art history, museum education, and memory culture.
Provenance Research as Cultural Education
The museum's attitude is particularly convincing: the exhibition sees itself as a process, not as a finished narrative. Collaborations with origin communities continuously flow in and shape the interpretation of the collection. This makes the museum a place for reflection on collecting, representation, and responsibility. For art and culture enthusiasts, this opens up a lesson in contemporary museum work.
Why a Visit is Worthwhile
Those who visit this exhibition do not experience mere object presentation but a multifaceted engagement with how history is told. In the Beginning Was the Belt combines scholarly accuracy with a clear aesthetic language and makes colonial collections perceivable in their historical depth dimension. A visit to the Municipal Museum of Braunschweig is absolutely worthwhile for anyone wanting to experience art, cultural history, and critical provenance research live.
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- Website: https://www.braunschweig.de/kultur/museen/staedtisches-museum/
