Fragments

The collections of ethnographic museums contain numerous fragments that bear witness to practices of sharing and connecting. They include fragments from history, remnants of destruction, and once powerful objects made up of single parts. This publication shows how these things were handled in the past, and still are today. It sheds light on what it means to divide, repair, reassemble, even to let something fall apart. In each instance, it is always a matter of (re)storing or creating a new order. Instead of seeing fragments exclusively as signs of loss or as witnesses to the inexorable passage of time, the authors focus on the power of connecting, the art of separating, and the force of destruction in the pieces presented.The MUSEUM DER KULTUREN BASEL (MKB) is the largest anthropological museum in Switzerland and one of the most eminent of its kind in Europe. The MKB collections are renowned throughout the world and include over 340,000 objects, around 50,000 historical photographs, and roughly 200,000 documentary images.