lb. As part of the exhibition “kolonial” at the Landesmuseum Zurich, studiyo filipino was invited to speak at the panel discussion “Kolonialismus im Depot” on October 17, 2024. The evening was organized in collaboration with ETH Zurich and dealt with the fact that the archives of numerous Swiss museums and public memory institutions contain thousands of objects and artefacts obtained in a colonial context, most of which go unnoticed and are difficult to access. Lenny Bugayong, founding member and project lead of studiyo filipino’s museum project, talked about the challenges faced when museums collaborate with source communities. Together with Adam Fehr, also a member of studiyo filipino and moderator on that evening, she tried to represent the Filipino community in Switzerland as best as possible: to her, the fact that Filipino artifacts are still “hidden” up to this day also reflects her observation that the Filipino community is not truly perceived as an integral part of Swiss mainstream society, which can lead to exclusion and social inequalities.
However, there is hope that the relations between the Philippines and Switzerland dating as far back as the late 19th century could slowly enter the Swiss public’s field of vision: since studiyo filipino’s presentation at the Ethnographic Museum of the University of Zurich (VMZ) last November 2023, more museums that own hidden Filipino artefacts have come forward. Among them is the Museum der Kulturen Basel (MKB), which not only opened the doors to its archives to us, but meanwhile has also independently uploaded several objects to the SOAS digital platform, as can be read in the recently published blogpost on the website of Mapping Philippine Material Culture (MPMC).
For more background information on our museum projects, there is a recently published article on Suedostasien.net. The online magazine in previous issues has already widely reported on why it is imperative for museums nowadays to create transparency regarding their collections. We hope that our collaboration with the museums continues and deepens. At this point, we would like to thank all our project partners, especially Dr. Cristina Juan, head of the MPMC project, as well as Alice Hertzog and Martina Wernsdörfer from the VMZ, Silvia Greber and Richard Kunz from the MKB, Raphael Schwere from the Landesmuseum Zurich and Marina Wetzlmaier at Suedostasien.net.
Images: Patrick Wirz, studiyo filipino (2024)
