Survey of the ethnographic collection of the Basel Mission (Museum der Kulturen, Basel)

This project is dedicated to the ethnographic collection of the Basel Mission currently located as a long-term loan at the Basel Museum of Cultures (Museum der Kulturen, Basel). About ten thousand objects from Africa, India, China and other countries that are deposited in the museum’s storage constitute a collection that was brought by the missionaries of Basel in the 19th and 20th centuries to Switzerland. The research is primarily focused on the objects originating from East Asia. In addition to the survey of the collection, related contextual connections are being explored: of individual missionaries, missionary agenda at establishing ethnographic collections and cooperation between museums of the various missionary societies in the 19th and 20th centuries. The results of the survey were presented at an international conference “Moving Art Between East Asia and the West in Zurich” in March 2013 and will be published as an article in a conference volume. The results of the survey were also presented to the general public as a part of the publication dedicated to the 200th anniversary of the Basel Mission “Pioniere, Weltenbummler, Brückenbauer. Jubiläumsmagazin zu 200 Jahre Basler Mission” (in German and French). A number of objects from the collection will be shown in the upcoming anniversary exhibition at the Museum der Kulturen in Spring 2015.