Natural History Museum Vienna and Austrian Museum of Folk Life and Folk Art are part of EU-wide project “Throwaway - The history of a modern crisis”
16. February
2023
The Natural History Museum Vienna (NHM)
and the Austrian Museum of Folk Life and Folk Art are participating in a cooperation project initiated and organised by the
House of European History (HEH) around the vast topic of producing, throwing away, reusing and preventing waste. Waste is
perhaps the most visible and tangible aspect of the looming environmental crisis. The project seeks to make the untold history
of waste visible in Europe and thus tell a story of social change.
The idea of a multilingual and interactive online
platform was developed and implemented by the team in Brussels in cooperation with colleagues at seven other European
museums. The digital platform is available from 18 February at http://www.throwaway-history.eu/.
It features object biographies for more than seventy digitised objects from the collections of the participating museums and
audiovisual stories from throughout the EU on the topic of waste, as well as blog posts, photo essays, live streams of events
and podcasts about the many different activities and events around the issue of waste taking place during the project’s duration.
Objects and audiovisual materials from the two Viennese museums are featured on the platform.
In addition, both Viennese museums contributed content and loaned items to the “Throwaway” exhibition. The exhibition on the history of modern throwaway society will be shown at the House of European History in Brussels from 18 February 2023 until 14 January 2024. It addresses deprivation in wartime, the rising tide of waste in post-war consumer society, and finally the barely manageable waste crisis of the present day. The exhibition conveys an impression of how profoundly our ways of dealing with waste, and of understanding or misunderstanding waste, have changed over the years. Exploring the history of waste strengthens the relevance and importance of present-day criticism and vocal calls for change.
Objects on loan from the Natural History Museum Vienna include artefacts from the Bronze Age deposit at Wöllersdorf (1000-800 BCE), as well as audiovisual materials from the special exhibition “Best Before. When Food Becomes Waste” shown at the NHM Vienna from 8 December 2020 until 5 September 2021, which addressed the issue in a similar way.
With the example of the fragmented bronze objects on loan from the NHM, which were probably intended for smelting down in order to make something new out of them, the exhibition shows that recycling and reuse of materials have been customary practices throughout human history.
The Austrian Museum of Folk Life and Folk Art has contributed seven objects complete with biographies and three audiovisual stories realised by Viennese film-maker Mike Kren to the online platform, and a loaned object to the exhibition in Brussels. The objects, which became part of its collections between 1896 and 2022, point to past and present core themes of collections and exhibitions: from the historical dimensions of collections, collectors and the canon of folk art all the way to current issues such as migration and refugees, as well as European experiences of terrorism. Two objects relate to general museum themes around the question, “Rubbish or museum piece?” Objects featured from the collections of the Austrian Museum of Folk Life and Folk Art include “bone animals” made from slaughterhouse waste, a plate repaired by tinkers, the heavily used and frequently mended leather shorts of a goat herder, artwork made from remains of memorial objects from the night of the terrorist attack in Vienna in 2020, flotsam collected on the Greek coast in 2017 at the time of large-scale refugee movements and taken to the museum, an embroidered skirt trim showing traces of pest infestation, and finally the more than 5300 ceramic and clay shards and fragments that came to the museum between 1948 and 1955, and were inventoried and stored in almost one hundred boxes in the depot, awaiting their use in the museum.
Natural History Museum Vienna: www.nhm-wien.ac.at
Austrian Museum of Folk Life and Folk Art: www.volkskundemuseum.at
Online platform “Throwaway”: http://www.throwaway-history.eu/
Platform design: Digiocracy
Languages: French, English and German, as well as machine translation into all other official languages of the EU.
Participating museums:
Natural History Museum Vienna (Austria)
Austrian Museum of Folk Life and Folk Art (Austria)
Eesti Rahva Muuseum in Tartu (Estonia)
Fondazione Museo Ettore Guatelli in Ozzano Taro (Italy)
Museum Europäischer Kulturen, Staatliche Museen zu Berlin (Germany)
Musée de la Vie wallonne in the province of Liège (Belgium)
Muzej novejše zgodovine Celje (Slovenia)
Moesgaard Museum (Denmark)
Muzeul Naţional al Ţăranului Român in Bucharest (Romania)
Państwowe Muzeum Etnograficzne w Warszawie in Warsaw (Poland)
Press contact:
Natural History Museum Vienna
Mag. Irina Kubadinow
Head of Press & Public Relations, Press Spokesperson
Tel.: + 43 (1) 521 77 - 410
irina.kubadinow@nhm-wien.ac.at
Mag. Magdalena Reuss
Press & Public Relations, Press Officer
Tel.: + 43 (1) 521 77 - 626
magdalena.reuss@nhm-wien.ac.at
Austrian Museum of Folk Life and Folk Art
Gesine Stern, MA
Press and Public Relations
Tel.: +43 (1) 406 89 05 - 51
gesine.stern@volkskundemuseum.at
In addition, both Viennese museums contributed content and loaned items to the “Throwaway” exhibition. The exhibition on the history of modern throwaway society will be shown at the House of European History in Brussels from 18 February 2023 until 14 January 2024. It addresses deprivation in wartime, the rising tide of waste in post-war consumer society, and finally the barely manageable waste crisis of the present day. The exhibition conveys an impression of how profoundly our ways of dealing with waste, and of understanding or misunderstanding waste, have changed over the years. Exploring the history of waste strengthens the relevance and importance of present-day criticism and vocal calls for change.
Objects on loan from the Natural History Museum Vienna include artefacts from the Bronze Age deposit at Wöllersdorf (1000-800 BCE), as well as audiovisual materials from the special exhibition “Best Before. When Food Becomes Waste” shown at the NHM Vienna from 8 December 2020 until 5 September 2021, which addressed the issue in a similar way.
With the example of the fragmented bronze objects on loan from the NHM, which were probably intended for smelting down in order to make something new out of them, the exhibition shows that recycling and reuse of materials have been customary practices throughout human history.
The Austrian Museum of Folk Life and Folk Art has contributed seven objects complete with biographies and three audiovisual stories realised by Viennese film-maker Mike Kren to the online platform, and a loaned object to the exhibition in Brussels. The objects, which became part of its collections between 1896 and 2022, point to past and present core themes of collections and exhibitions: from the historical dimensions of collections, collectors and the canon of folk art all the way to current issues such as migration and refugees, as well as European experiences of terrorism. Two objects relate to general museum themes around the question, “Rubbish or museum piece?” Objects featured from the collections of the Austrian Museum of Folk Life and Folk Art include “bone animals” made from slaughterhouse waste, a plate repaired by tinkers, the heavily used and frequently mended leather shorts of a goat herder, artwork made from remains of memorial objects from the night of the terrorist attack in Vienna in 2020, flotsam collected on the Greek coast in 2017 at the time of large-scale refugee movements and taken to the museum, an embroidered skirt trim showing traces of pest infestation, and finally the more than 5300 ceramic and clay shards and fragments that came to the museum between 1948 and 1955, and were inventoried and stored in almost one hundred boxes in the depot, awaiting their use in the museum.
Natural History Museum Vienna: www.nhm-wien.ac.at
Austrian Museum of Folk Life and Folk Art: www.volkskundemuseum.at
Online platform “Throwaway”: http://www.throwaway-history.eu/
Platform design: Digiocracy
Languages: French, English and German, as well as machine translation into all other official languages of the EU.
Participating museums:
Natural History Museum Vienna (Austria)
Austrian Museum of Folk Life and Folk Art (Austria)
Eesti Rahva Muuseum in Tartu (Estonia)
Fondazione Museo Ettore Guatelli in Ozzano Taro (Italy)
Museum Europäischer Kulturen, Staatliche Museen zu Berlin (Germany)
Musée de la Vie wallonne in the province of Liège (Belgium)
Muzej novejše zgodovine Celje (Slovenia)
Moesgaard Museum (Denmark)
Muzeul Naţional al Ţăranului Român in Bucharest (Romania)
Państwowe Muzeum Etnograficzne w Warszawie in Warsaw (Poland)
Press contact:
Natural History Museum Vienna
Mag. Irina Kubadinow
Head of Press & Public Relations, Press Spokesperson
Tel.: + 43 (1) 521 77 - 410
irina.kubadinow@nhm-wien.ac.at
Mag. Magdalena Reuss
Press & Public Relations, Press Officer
Tel.: + 43 (1) 521 77 - 626
magdalena.reuss@nhm-wien.ac.at
Austrian Museum of Folk Life and Folk Art
Gesine Stern, MA
Press and Public Relations
Tel.: +43 (1) 406 89 05 - 51
gesine.stern@volkskundemuseum.at
© NHM Wien
