Exhibition "Patong" at the Gottardo Gallery

From May 23rd to August 25th, The Gottardo Gallery in Lugano houses the exhibition "Patong". The patong are the big sculptures of the native people in the Borneo island (the dayak). Sculptures represent ancestors, priests, spirits, anthropomorphic and zoomorphic motives. Some of them were created purposefully for housing the spirit of a deceased person. The dayak believe that each human being has two souls: one that dies with the body and one that remains for a while near the deceased before heading for the House of the Souls.
All the sculptures are part of the collection Serge Brignoni, at The Museum of Cultures in Lugano. This exhibition is part of a project of collaboration between the Museum and the Gallery, which has in plan the organisation of several other exhibitions in the following 3-4 years.

TEC-CH Seminar: Museum Anthropology

Tomorrow, May 30, starts a three-days seminar held by guest-speaker Paolo Campione. Prof. Campione has a wide experience as anthropologist, he has conducted fieldwork in New Guinea, Bali and, most recently, northern Laos; in Italy, has studied the popular arts of traditional communities in Sardegna and the Alps. He teaches Cultural Anthropology at the University of Insubria and from 2005 he is curator of the Museo delle Culture, in Lugano.

The seminar is themed on Museum Anthropology, encompassing the history of the anthropological museum, issues in the interpretation of cultural objects, complexity of giving meaning, classification and display of ethnographic objects, with rich examples drawn from the Museo delle Culture in Lugano and the exhibitions which have been designed with the collaboration of prof. Campione. A special section is dedicated to the interpretation of Indian works of art and of distinctive objects from Melanesia and Polynesia, with examples from the museum collection.

All lectures will be held at Museo delle Culture in Lugano, in Via Cortivo 24/28.