Explore 'The Order of Things' Exhibition at the National Ethnographic Museum in Warsaw

This permanent exhibition transforms a historically inaccessible collection storeroom into a visitor-accessible space. It showcases a meticulously ordered array of tools and objects related to farming, animal husbandry, fishing, and handicraft, with the oldest dating back to the mid-19th century. The exhibition incorporates modern technology, including digital frames and a multimedia kiosk, to present archival materials and detailed object information.

For the first time in Polish museology, 'The Order of Things' provides public access to a museum collection storeroom, a space traditionally reserved for staff. The exhibition presents a vast and perfectly ordered collection of tools used in farming, animal husbandry, gathering, fishing, apiculture, and handicraft. The oldest items date from the mid-19th century, while the most recent, such as handicraft objects or self-made tools, were created in the 1970s. This unique classification and organization of museum objects was conceived by Piotr Szacki, a prominent museologist who was an employee of the National Ethnographic Museum in Warsaw from 1962 to 2004. Modern technologies have been integrated into the storeroom, with digital frames displaying archival video recordings that document how the collected objects were used, and a multimedia kiosk offering access to photographs and articles about them. At the exhibition's center is a worktable where visitors can search for any of the displayed objects in a digital collection inventory and view its academic catalogue card. Additionally, visitors can examine other tools of an ethnographer, including questionnaires, field notes, reports, and photographs taken during fieldwork.

This is a permanent exhibition. Visitors are directed to the museum's official website for general admission and ticketing information, as the page itself does not detail specific entry requirements or prices for this exhibition.