Ethnography or Art? An Unnecessary Question

Abstract

The reflections presented in the article were inspired by the author’s professional practice and personal experience, specifically her participation in the development of the permanent exhibition at the Asia and Pacific Museum in Warsaw. The project lasted nearly twenty years and concluded with the opening in 2022. Over such a long period, the concept was naturally subject to modifications. One constant element of the process, however, was that most members of the curatorial team were art historians working with a collection that may be described as “ethnological.” Their interdisciplinary approach was shaped directly through practice and influenced the final qualities of the exhibition. The article discusses the project and the debates surrounding its implementation, as well as its place in the museum’s history. Its background is the presumed antinomy between art history and ethnology—an opposition now largely out-dated. The author raises the issue that such divisions in museum and research practice are conventional and artificial.