Museum of Ethnography – Budapest, Hungary

Sustainability aspiration

The Museum of Ethnography in Budapest aims to strengthen its contribution to sustainable development by starting a series of workshops addressing the topics of upcycling, recycling and repurposing. The workshops’ goal is to get acquainted with ideas for reducing waste with our colleagues and the visitors and users of the museum.

The topics of the workshops are based on the museum’s ethnographic collection that we would like to connect with our everyday life experiences through the practices of recycling, upcycling and repurposing. Our collection consists of several objects made of waste materials or objects used for other purposes. On the one hand, we have contemporary objects in our collection made by artists in the name of creative recycling of waste. On the other hand, a vast amount of our repurposed or recycled objects were made for the previous user’s /maker’s own use due to necessity or the absence of other objects.

"In our team, we explored workshop ideas and looked for external partners to work with and invite to workshops. We decided that for the first event, a dialogic workshop among our colleagues would be useful, held by specialists working in the field of education and environmental protection. As for the second workshop, we organized the first public event, a clothing swap, advertised on the museum’s Facebook page and website. The collection was indirectly involved in the project. We sought to raise awareness, both among our colleagues and visitors, of how they could engage with, meet and view the collection in a sustainable way.”

OCM toolkit resources used

A sustainable development guide to Canada’s Museums

Adapting Our Culture: A toolkit for cultural organisations planning for a climate changed future

Culture and Local Development: Maximising the Impact: guide for local authorities, communities and museums

SDG targets addressed

This OCM field project addressed the SDG targets below. Click on each target to learn more about their meaning, indicators and related tools in the OCM toolkit to help collections-based organizations strengthen their contribution to sustainable development.