Anniversary photographic exhibition of the Transylvanian Museum of Ethnography centenary. 1922-2022
The exhibition brings to the public relevant aspects of the activity of the Transylvanian Museum of Ethnography (M.E.T.), a museum that celebrates 100 years of existence this year and which operates today under the authority of Cluj County Council.
The Transylvanian Museum of Ethnography set the Romanian ethnographic museography, gave it a framework and a horizon in which it developed, it substantially contributed to the patrimonial education of the public, to the knowledge of the peasant and the rural space in Romania, as well as to the development of ethnological sciences in Romania.
In the Romanian museography and ethnography, the Transylvanian Museum of Ethnography has marked several achievements: the first Romanian ethnographic museum, the first Romanian ethnographic park, the first and only museum that has an operating law; the first periodical publication of a Romanian ethnographic museum. The first Department of Ethnography, established within the “King Ferdinand I” University of Cluj, is also closely linked to the Ethnographic Museum of Transylvania (as the institution was named in the interwar period). These significant achievements would have been contentless had they not been covered by the professional skills of those who built the current Transylvanian Museum of Ethnography step-by-step. Each important stage of its centennial journey was marked by the visionary professionalism of some exceptional ethnographers: Romulus Vuia in the interwar period, Valeriu Butură and Kós Károly in the postwar period, Ioan Augustin Goia in the current period.
In the hundred years of activity, the Transylvanian Museum of Ethnography has had, until its current manager, the following directors: Romulus Vuia (1922-1947), Gheorghe Pavelescu (1947-1951), Gheorghe Dăncuș (1951-1954), Teodor Onișor (1955-1959), Gheorghe Dăncuș (1960-1967), Valeriu Butură (1967-1971), Viorica Pascu (1971-1979), Tiberiu Graur (1980-2001) and Simona Munteanu (2001-2011).
The exhibition is structured on three parts covering with information as many great periods from the one hundred years of M.E.T. activity. The first module is dedicated to the interwar period (panels 1-20), the second module refers to the postwar period (panels 21-30) and, finally, the third module exposes the museum’s post-December activity (panels 31- 40).
Exhibition maker: dr. Silvestru Petac
Graphic editor: George Ciupag
Exhibition contributors: dr. Tudor Sălăgean (M.E.T. manager), dr. Tőtszegi Tekla, Daniela Șerdan-Orga, dr. Augustin Goia, Ioan Toșa, Flavia Stoica, Andrei Filip, dr. Laura Pop, Anca Mocan (M.E.T. museographers), dr. Teodora-Maria Sas (marketing specialist), dr. Daniela Toader, Dana Benkara, Monica Cristian, dr. Laura Troșan, Maria Tonca, Ionuț Butnariu, Mioara Sîntiuan, Emanuel Nicula (M.E.T. curators - restorers).