The Museum Ulm is a multi-disciplinary museum of art and cultural history. The municipal museum is part of a listed ensemble of buildings from the 16th-20th centuries in the heart of Ulm and conveys history and objects from 40,000 years - from regional pre- and early history and the cultural history of Ulm to the art of Western modernism and up to design in the HfG archive.
From September 2021 to December 2022, around 200 ethnographic objects were examined, most of which were loaned or donated to the Gewerbemuseum Ulm, the predecessor institution of today's museum, before 1925 and are still part of the city's collection. The objects identified as non-European come from African countries, parts of Oceania and Australia and China, among others, and mainly include weapons, jewelry, clothing and everyday objects.
The examination followed the case groups as defined by the German Museums Association: In addition to the collection items from formal colonial rule (case group 1, e.g. the objects from Cameroon), objects from areas that were not under formal colonial rule at the time of production or acquisition, but in which influences of informal colonial structures were at work (case group 2, vessels from Peru or objects from North America), were also examined.
In addition, some objects are included whose place and time of origin are not clearly known, but for which a connection with colonial contexts cannot be ruled out.