Galleries of Marvel

On the night of 2 September 2018, the Paço de São Cristóvão burns in Rio de Janeiro, the former residence of the Portuguese and later Brazilian imperial families. The Austrian Archduchess and first Empress of Brazil Leopoldine lived here from 1817 until her death in 1826. A large part of the structure of the palace is destroyed.

Thus the majority of the collections, archives and printed materials of the Brazilian National Museum, which had its seat here since 1892, become ashes. With more than 20 million objects, its exhibitions were the result of the institution's history and its outstanding research and teaching activities. The collections of natural history, archaeology and ethnography were most affected.  They documented the empire and the emergence of a nation with its diverse traditions to this day. They served research at various institutions and linked Brazil with other regions of the world. Many stories have been told with the collections in the last 200 years, others now remain only in memory.

Museums are places of preservation and their collections are media of memory that also create emotional bonds. The museum's architecture conveys permanence. It appears indestructible and creates for eternity. The tragic events of September 2018 make us aware of its vulnerability. The fire at the Brazilian National Museum is unfortunately only one example of culturally significant sites and objects that have been destroyed worldwide in recent decades, whether by tragic circumstances or acts of war.

The international project Uncovering Pacific Pasts examines the ideas, people, and networks that have been critical to the development of the discipline of archaeology and influence how we deal with the long history of the Pacific. The Weltmuseum Wien is participating in this exciting project with a display cabinet showcasing the archaeology of New Guinea.

In a joint contribution, the Natural History Museum Vienna and the Weltmuseum Vienna reveal the early contributions of Austrian scientists to archaeology in the Pacific. At the same time, it shows us how biological and cultural prejudice can mislead scientific research by examining the first known archaeological excavations on the New Guinea mainland, which were carried out in 1905 under the supervision of Viennese anthropologist Rudolf Pöch (1870–1921).

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The human body is a central motif in the creation of art. Human figures do not always represent specific individuals but occasionally also abstract ideas or beings from other worlds. At the same time, abstract representation may also refer to actual people in real life. And not everything is recognised as a human being right away either.

Faces as reflected in masks play a vital role in communication. A face inevitably stirs up emotions and often requires just a few hints to become a clear message. All it takes are a few lines and dots for a ☺ to have an effect on us.

Ethnographic museums claimed to present the material culture of a society as a whole. Certain objects could only be collected to a limited extent due to their sheer size. In the early nineteenth century, museums instead began to have models of such objects made to close this collection gap.    

Buildings and boats serve as symbols of sedentism and mobility, of ties to a certain place and freedom. At the same time, however, they also refer to the relationship between a society and its environment.