A Night at the Museum

Once a year, we’re allowed into the museum at night. When it gets dark outside, the doors in Zurich stay open and suddenly you can visit places you’d never normally get to see at this time of night. For one night, the city becomes one big, somewhat peculiar museum. Here are nine stops that I’ll be visiting in this order.

Guided tour from 6.15 pm to 6.30 pm

I love a good meal, so why not start with a feast? In 1522, sausages were eaten in Zurich despite it being Lent; Zwingli was there, albeit only as a spectator. La Grande Bouffe, Zurich edition, followed by the Reformation. The guided tour lasts fifteen minutes. A rather good start to the evening.

Please note: The number of participants is limited. Meeting point in the chancel.

to the programme for the Old Town churches

This is where my curiosity gets the better of me. I’ve never been to the Moulage Museum before and am looking forward to exploring this unfamiliar, cabinet-like world of body parts. Epitheses replace parts of the face lost due to illness or accident. Replicas and technology, artificial and natural, beauty and function: quite a few contrasts that come together in individual objects.

to the Moulage Museum programme

Hybrids fascinate me. Half human, half animal, or something in between. They disrupt a supposedly clear order. When the ‘other’ appears, it often initially causes unease. But it is perhaps precisely there that the opportunity arises to engage with this ‘other’ with an open mind. I’m interested in the ‘other’ and what effect it has on us.

to the programme of the Archaeological Collection

Talk from 9.00 pm to 9.30 pm

I’m a huge fan of the Graphic Arts Collection. In a conversation, Alexandra Barcal and Tim Oechslin talk about discoveries, challenges and moments of joy on the journey towards the finished exhibition. This public reflection on how an exhibition actually comes about offers an insight into the workings of a museum. You’ll also find a little ontological hat here, which you’re welcome to wear for the rest of the evening.

Bonus: If you’d like to get creative yourself, you can choose, cut, move and reassemble elements in the collage workshop.

View the Graphic Collection’s programme

Guided tour at 10.30 pm

For centuries, Swiss women were denied civil and political rights, even though they were clearly key members of society. What roles have women played over the last 500 years? Why was the road to the introduction of women’s suffrage in 1971 so rocky, and what has changed since then? The ‘Women in Focus’ guided tour at the National Museum illustrates the connections in women’s history, sheds light on the current situation and looks to the future.

Special note: The number of participants is limited; bookings for programme items starting after 10.30 pm can be made from 9 pm at the Welcome Desk.

Alternative event taking place at the same time: If you can’t keep your hands off the paintings, head to Kunsthaus Zürich to the ‘Ask Me’ station on Impressionism.

to the Landesmuseum programme

Someone tells a dream, and Lina Ehrentraut, Nando von Arb and other illustrators transform it straight away into a picture or a short comic. How brilliant! Words and images are, after all, intrinsically linked, and I once heard that dreams aren’t always meant for oneself, but for the people to whom one tells them. I don’t know if that’s true, but I like the idea. Perhaps a small collective subconscious emerges at the Strauhof for one night, and in visualising our dreams, we find the missing pieces of the jigsaw?

A romantic detour: From here to St Peter’s. The bell-ranger climbs up with us and explains Zurich’s bell landscape. A bit touristy? Yes. But climbing a church tower at night and talking about the city’s bells is so romantic that I certainly won’t miss out on it.

Strauhof programme

Here is what the evening demands: to remain open-minded, to start afresh and ask: How else? Names hold power. They shape our identity, influence how others treat us, and mould our perception of the world. The exhibition accompanies the participatory process of renaming the University of Zurich’s Museum of Ethnology and asks: Who has the power to name?

Extra: Anyone wishing to turn this into a little anthropological field study can start their own list at the Musée Visionnaire as part of ‘What do lists tell us about our lives?’.

to the Ethnographic Museum’s programme

For me, the Cabaret Voltaire belongs in the Long Night for the same reason as the Völlerei: it makes Zurich what it is. Hugo Ball’s sound poem ‘Gadji Beri Bimba’ becomes karaoke, thus transforming once again from a historical document into spoken, sung – and probably slightly off-key – language. It will be performed by Aina Rea Aliotta, Christian Falsnaes, Crimer, Franz Hohler, Judith Keller, Hannah Mae Mehler, María Sabato, New Kyd, Sunny Pfalzer and Rahel Sternberg.

Tip: For those who’d rather dance at the end, head to the Kunsthalle Zürich, where AMOS ANGELES & FAI BABA will be playing songs about identity and change, centring on the questions: Who am I? And who are you?

Visit the Cabaret Voltaire programme