Step into the Museum of Ethnography in Budapest, a landmark institution in European cultural heritage. Renowned for its cutting-edge design since its new building opened in 2022, this museum offers an unparalleled experience for anyone interested in folk traditions, cultural studies, and social history. With over 225,000 ethnographic objects, the museum’s collection spans centuries, showcasing artifacts from the 17th century to the present day.

In the collection of the Museum of Ethnography are united more than
two hundred thousand individual artefacts, along with several hundred thousand photographs, drawings, manuscripts, audio recordings and films. Here, in the ZOOM exhibition space, this monumental body of material appears in its primordial state, the cast out flotsam of a museal
Big Bang.

The Collection Exhibition opened in 2024, seeks to provide insight into how such chaos gives way to order—how a ‘museumgalaxy’ coalesces as a result of systematisation and interpretation.

To fulfil this purpose, it will traverse various historical points of view,
examining each problem from multiple angles and pointing out as it goes all the new and exciting possibilities each change in perspectives—and each contemporary interpretation— has to offer. ZOOM, on the other hand, presents both the museum’s hoard of material—and select
objects within it—via a more playful approach, without interpretation
or textual explanations: it is itself a change in perspectives. Here, viewpoint and approach become physical experience as we zoom in, turn things over, break them apart, turn them in-side-out, stir them
together—and visitors, for their part, lose themselves in a soup of objects, images, and script until they emerge at a few select examples, perhaps even see themselves in ZOOM’s sea of faces. The possibilities opened up by changing perspectives—by zooming in and out—are probed primarily through pairs of opposing concepts: many/few, small/large, part/whole, near/far, up/down, flat/multidimensional, positive/negative, black-and-white/colour, wide-angle/ zoom, acceleration/deceleration, assembly/disassembly, extraction/ incorporation, static /dynamic, ordered/disordered. It is these that hold ZOOM’s varied themes together and these that reach beyond them, imparting coherence to the seemingly incoherent, putting distance between things that otherwise stand side-by-side. Where there is no sequentiality, there is no set starting point. Hurry through or browse slowly, see it all or pick and choose, dive in or skim it over, stand back or peer closely, loom over or hunker down….

Beyond its exhibitions, the museum is a hub for contemporary museological research and education. Whether you’re a history enthusiast or curious about global cultures, the Museum of Ethnography provides a fascinating journey through time and traditions. Conclude your visit in the heart of Budapest, perfectly situated for exploring more of the city’s cultural landmarks.