The Museum of the History of Cattle
Installation exhibition, 2014
Project website: www.historyofcattle.org

“For thousands of years history has been written from the perspective of a small minority, humans. Still, the world has always been shared by numerous species. For the first time in history a non-human form of life will have their own museum, an institution that makes their experience of this shared reality visible.”

The Museum of the History of Cattle opens on 1.12. 2013 in Helsinki. The museum exhibits bovine culture and the relationship between cattle and their companion species. The installations explore the changes in bovine landscape caused by developments in human populations such as urbanization, industrialisation, and capitalism.”

Press release, 2916

The Museum of the History of Cattle takes the form of an 250m2 ethnographic museum, exhibiting the shared history of cattle and humans from bovine perspective. The exhibition explores the ways in which human scientific theories, technological developments and related ideologies have effected the lives of both of these species. It also examines the concepts of time, history and heritage from the perspective of cattle, while giving insights in to the lives of cattle outside the normative, human-dominated cattle society.

See project website for full documentation of the touring exhibition, essays and updates.

The Museum of the History of Cattle. Installation view: Hall 2: Historical Time.
The Museum of the History of Cattle. Installation view: Hall 1: Time Before History.
The Museum of the History of Cattle. Installation view: Companion Species.
The Museum of the History of Cattle. Installation view: Hall 3: Ahistoric Time.
The Museum of the History of Cattle. Grand opening, 2014. Photo Noora Geagea.