Missionary Collections Unpacked

In cooperation with CERES Bochum

The special exhibition “Missionary Collections Unpacked” is dedicated to a long-overlooked collecting practice: The collection of objects by Catholic and Protestant missionary societies – primarily during the 19^th and early 20^th centuries. The exhibition focuses objects that came to North Rhine Westphalia from far-flung regions of the world. Today, they are kept at institutions of the missionary societies or at public museums and in university collections.

What do these objects tell us about the colonial power dynamics under which they were collected? What role did missionaries play in the compilation, classification, and dissemination of material culture? And what does this mean for the handling of these collections? Using exhibits from various Protestant and Catholic collections in NRW, the diversity of the objects becomes apparent. The aim of the exhibition is to raise public awareness, to increase transparency on the subject and to draw attention to gaps in previous research and historical reappraisal.

The exhibition was created in collaboration with the Center for Religious Studies (CERES) at Ruhr University Bochum. It aims to contribute to a critical examination of missionary collections – and to shed more light on a difficult chapter in our collection history.

flyer (german)