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 […]
All posts filed under: North America
Who says working in a museum is boring???
A while ago, I stumbled upon something pretty awesome in our database. Something that says a lot about working at Moesgaard, ‘back in the days’. If you are a regular reader of this blog (or take a quick glance over the previous posts), you’ll see […]
La Catrina: From the Aztec underworld to the Day of the Dead
This weekend Moesgaard Museum celebrated the Day of the Dead, or Día de Muertos, in style. We had paper flowers, coloured paper hangings, lively skeletons greeting our guests, face painting, and an altar for the dead. And in our ethnographic exhibition, La Catrina and her […]
Elections and independence: Greenlandic figurine
Last week, there was an election in Greenland. Though Greenland is an autonomous constituent country within Denmark, there was much talk up to the election about the stirring movement for Greenlandic independence, and about whether the political parties Nunatta Qitornai and Partii Naleraq, agitating for […]
Prairie Indian moccasins: A shoe mystery…?
Whenever I feel uninspired and unsure as to what to write about, I always turn to collection EA600. This collection is solely (pun intended) made up of shoes. Shoes from Morocco, India, Iceland, Japan, Canada, Kenya, Denmark, Greenland – you name it! In a previous […]
Arctic Monsters: A visit from a Greenlandic tupilaq
When I was a child, I was absolutely fascinated by tupilaqs. These grotesque Greenlandic figurines with gaping mouths and twisted limbs seemed alive to me, and stirred my imagination to conjure up images of strange spirits tormenting the arctic landscape and its inhabitants. These figurines […]
The importance of representation: Ghanaian doll
When I was a girl, I wasn’t much into dolls. I was the kind of kid who fell asleep with my box of books next to me in my bed (along with about a 75 stuffed animals). When I, at the age of two, had […]
A week of scary things: Skulls, skeletons, and dentists
Soon, the dead are coming for a visit. In the US (and increasingly here in Denmark) Halloween will be celebrated tomorrow. Scary pumpkins are placed on front porches, children are choosing their most terrifying costumes, and some will go to church and light candles on […]
On tippy-toes: Hare Indian moccasins
I learnt recently that we used to walk differently. Before the Middle Ages, and the invention of shoes as we know them today with thick soles to protect our feet, our toes hit the ground before our heels. Try it out – it is rather […]
The colours of autumn: An ethnographic selection
What does a weaved bag and a skirt from Dutch New Guinea, a Burmese man’s hat, a mask from Australian New Guinea, an ancestor skull from New Guinea, a rice sieve from Malaysia, a pair of Indonesian sandals, a Qatari gold earring, and a Latin […]
Museum of Trash – USA
Nelson Molina, retired New York sanitation worker, took the phrase “One man’s trash is another man’s treasure” to the next level! For decades Nelson collected treasures from New York city trash, putting them on display at the Sanitation Garage at 99th Street in Manhattan, New […]
In Other Shoes – Greenlandic Children’s Kamik Boots
With time, Tuxen not only ventured out worldwide to collect shoes himself – he had trusted helpers in this endeavour, like in the case of these Greenlandic kamik boots, which were provided by a rather noble figure. As appears from Tuxen’s notes in 1957: “Greenlandic children’s kamik […]
ethnographica 