The shores of Austria

In 2015, (refugee) stories were being written along Europe’s external and internal borders. In 2018, these stories became part of the Volkskundemuseum’s permanent collection. This video seeks to give visual form to the human escape stories and their presence in our museum. Refugees, their stories and their belongings deserve a place in our collections and our collective biography. When they docked in Europe, people had to leave behind many of their valuable, worthless and everyday objects. Some of these objects found their way into our exhibition. Some of the new objects could be seen as ‘waste’ or ‘discarded rubbish’ but, as we show in our permanent collection, we have given them fresh value and visitors considering these objects might ask themselves, ‘What is waste and what is worth keeping?’