It felt wonderful to be back in a museum, finally, a place to walk around and look at items without any pressure to buy them. And being here on a weekday morning means no crowd, yay!
It also makes me feel a little more clever than when I woke up in the morning, lol.
Arranged chronological order, the items were well curated and a fine representation of what it was supposed to showcase, starting from early human stone tools at least a million years ago, classical antiquity (which some may feel is the highlight of human civilization), and finally, a credit card of the modern world.
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| The human race has come a long, long way... It sometimes sure feels like we are regressing though.
Image Credit: British Museum |
I understand that not all the objects from the original British Museum collection [the BM website showing the full list of the original here] were able to be shipped over to Abu Dhabi and so substitutes were used in place of those, but the meaning is in no way lost. Ultimately, there are so many objects out there that one can come up with another few sets of 100 items and can still fit the theme. (This is not meant to say that the curators had an easy job by the way.)
The exhibition has received great reviews on TripAdvisor and beyond, so I'll let the more eloquent write the reviews instead, but what this exhibition does excellently is the rich description made of both the object and tying it to its significance to history. Where possible, some background information is also provided to the visitor – such as the story of behind the carvings on this sarcophagus (it can be said that anyone interested can easily wiki it but that's not the point). I didn't use their audio guide but still felt enriched by the material, whereas there are some museums I can think of that are inadequate EVEN with the audio guide. Hmm.
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| If you are interested, the wiki link is here. Image Credit: British Museum |
The curators have also been careful to select pieces that come from a great variety of geographical locations and cultures, as opposed to the oftentimes Western (Europe)-centric way of treating every other non-European culture as some inconsequential sideshow.
Photos were not allowed to be taken, but while the memory is fresh, here are some of the exhibits I found quite compelling:
Afghan War Rug
When local tradition meets the harsh reality of war, the result is heartbreaking. This rug depicts a convoy of vehicles going through a mountain pass during the Soviet invasion in 1979, with helicopters and planes above. Seems especially sobering as we going through the somewhat frivolous(?) activity of shopping for rugs for our new home. During the US invasion following 9/11, rugs were also made to depict the war theme.
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| Image Credit: British Museum |
Counterfeit Drogba shirt
To communicate globalization - this fake jersey was made in Indonesia, sold on the streets of Peru, worn by an Ivorian soccer player who grew up in France, played/worked? in an English football club owned by a Russian (subsequently China and now Turkey). Apparently, there was a lot of controversy of how such a mundane shirt could have possibly made it into the 100, but the theme of globalization in our time is highly apt, and fascinatingly represented by the backstory of this shirt.
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| Image Credit: British Museum |
War shields from Papua New Guinea
Beer labels on shields used for real battle between warring tribes in PNG. Imagine using these to block out spears, arrows, even bullets. This page describes it far better than I can ever hope to.
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| Image Credit: TheNational |
If the standard of this exhibition gives us a glimpse of what the new Louvre and Guggenheim will be like, certainly exciting times for the Abu Dhabi cultural scene ahead. And should the man feel like going to Manarat Al Saadiyat after reading this post, I don't think I'll hesitate to repeat the visit.
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