Today we bring next chapter in our ‘Meet the collector’-series. Our intern Iana Lukina has interviewed associate professor at Department for Anthropology, Aarhus University, about his fieldwork and the collections he made for the Ethnographic Department at Moesgaard Museum. All photographs are by Martijn van […]
All posts filed under: Asia
Speedy Delivery – The Hand Drum from Sumba
To the extent that the Indonesian island of Sumba is famous, it is for its horses. A quick google search will return dreamy images of the setting sun illuminating riders on the pristine beach, or the elegant sandalwood ponies, originally bred here on Sumba and […]
Small but Courageous: The Chanter’s Drum
People on Sumba depend on the goodwill of the ancestors and in the Zaizo ritual, the requests of the living flow through the music and ultimately reach the ancestor spirits. As I wrote in the last post about gongs, Zaizo rituals related to the ancestors […]
Talking Gongs and Aching Buttocks
The first, middle and last rule of thumb in ethnographic fieldwork is that you gotta spend time with your informants to get to know them. Sounds easy enough. Do a bit of “deep hanging out”, participate in stuff and go write about it. Well, in […]
Meet the curator: Mikael Gravers
In the Ethnographic Collections at Moesgaard Museum, we have a big collection of artefacts and photographs from Thailand: EA212. It was curated by Associate Professor Emeritus at Aarhus University, Mikael Gravers, during an ethnographic fieldwork that took place from October 1970 to July 1972 in […]
Video Diary from Sumba Island
In September, anthropologist Victor Krusell went to Sumba Island, Indonesia, to collect objects for our Ethnographic Collections at Moesgaard Museum. In the video below, you can follow his and the objects’ journey – and in the bottom, we have showcased two central objects, that now […]
In the aftermath of a superstar
I have this fantasy. It might seem a little odd, but it goes like this: I have made friends with someone who used to be famous and popular. Someone, who has stepped out of the spotlight. Perhaps because of age. Yes, he or she has […]
Where there’s tea there’s hope
English playwright Arthur Wing Pinero said that ‘where there’s tea there’s hope’. In many societies, drinking tea is a social event; sometimes even a ritual; something to gather around, something that organises the day, a tradition, a cultural practice. And around the globe, tea is […]
On Garments and Gender
When my son was 4 years old, he loved to dress in skirts. Reactions from the surroundings varied a lot: from the daycare assistant who laughed and said he was funny, to his great grandfather who exclaimed that skirts were for girls only. Not to […]
An impermanent artefact: The sand mandala
These days, a splash of colour has been added to the view from the railing around the central staircase at Moesgaard Museum. Looking down, our visitors will be met with the splendid colours and intricate details of a Buddhist sand mandala. During a week in […]
A collection of treasures and stories: Randi Dæhnfeldt’s collection
I have always found the phenomenon of ‘the collector’ immensely fascinating. Perhaps because I am a bit of a collector myself… I have saved every cinema ticket since seeing The Waterboy in 1998, and am the proud owner of a splendid rock (actual rocks, not […]
Love, cigarettes, and new beginnings: Happy New Year!
Ah, New Year’s Eve. A night of celebration with friends. Of looking back at the ups and downs of the past year, and with hope and good wishes for the year to come. It is also a night of good food, copious amounts of champagne, […]
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