StrawGold

Why is a Bavarian dirndl tailored from African waxprint cloths? Moreover, what is African about these cloths? Can it be that in southern Asia and the Himalayan region the Bodhisattva Avalokiteshvara is represented by a male being, while in Japan the same bodhisattva is worshipped in female form named Kannon Bosatsu. The second permanent exhibition titled StrawGold focuses on cultural appropriation and transformation processes. Items of everyday use, technologies, materials, political ideas as well as religious beliefs spread not only across regions, but across the entire world. In their new settings they are gradually absorbed and creatively woven into new cultural contexts. 

In ten stations the exhibition addresses different themes, such as upcycling, fashion, religious interrelationships and (hi)stories of global economic entanglement, through to rites of passage. 

Since cultural transformation processes belong to the constants in life, changes are also made to two of the exhibition galleries each year. In the opening gallery alternating artists are showcased with a work which, in some way or another, was inspired by an object in our collections. The last gallery in the exhibition is redesigned twice a year in order to address further themes or to enlarge upon special aspects of the exhibition – either in the form of shows designed alongside with collaborative partners or in workshops in which visitors are invited to engage and convert an item of everyday use into something new and special.

The Exhibition plays host to

CREATIVE POTENTIAL – The join-in workshops in StrawGold
28 Apr. 2019 – 19 Jan. 2019
During the winter months we organized a join-in workshop in the exhibition StrawGold in which visitors were invited to fold, plaid, weave, knot, sew … and many, actually, gave it a go. In “Creative potential” we present the results of these inspired visits to the museum.

AFTER-EFFECTS – Revisting StrawGold
25 Jun. 2019 – 19 Jan. 2019
As from summer 2019 we are staging a (virtual) reunion with the guests to the exhibition StrawGold – Cultural Transformations Rendered Visible. Numerous artists concerned themselves with objects from the collection in their work, transforming them in multiple and imaginative ways. The interviews on film shed some light on this process.