Emptying the Shelves migration largely taken with a digital

largely taken with a digital point-and-shoot camera before smart phones took over everything

anchors and mermaids

In Ruth van Beek’s new book The Oldest Thing it is ordinary objects that take on a body and life of their own

environmental and social justice

and short texts contextualize each of the 250 objects covered

Emptying the Shelves migration largely taken with a digitalEmptying the Shelves traces how Dutch ethnographic museums including the Dutch National Museum of World Cultures and its predecessors have shaped and reshaped their displays over the past century. Drawing on a trove of archival exhibition photographs and contemporary essays by Mirelle van Tulder, Tamarah Kerr de Haan, Clmentine Deliss and Mirjam Shatanawi, it maps the shift from densely packed cabinets to minimalist white cubes, asking what these