Ethnologisches Museum, Berlin - Oceania (Lynn Grant)

Same trip, different city. And to be absolutely clear, the Museum is on the outskirts of Berlin in Dahlem village, but it's an easy U-Bahn ride. And well worth it. Like the Musee du quai Branly, they exhibit a lot of sensitive ethnographic materials at low light levels but careful use of color in backgrounds made all the difference. I also really liked these zig-zag case designs that made it possible to show a lot of material in a small space, while clearly separating them.

As in our Polynesian gallery, they make effective use of old photographs and prints to bring the object to life. They seem fine with using non-color images.

Unlike in our Polynesian Gallery, they have their large Hawaiian feather cape exhibited fully supported..
















My vote for one of the coolest artifacts ever: A Kiribat suit of armor. Pufferfish helmet and corselet, stingray spine gauntlets, shark tooth sword edge, woven coconut fiber mail. Warfare with Style!

And apparently we're not the only museum having trouble storing our large canoes. At least ours aren't (currently) in the galleries, blocking access to the exhibits....











And just when I was going to give them top marks for sensitive and preservation-minded display, I came across this poor fiber bag nailed to the wall. Okay, maybe it wasn't literally nailed to the wall, but almost. And it was certainly suffering.