The Collections of the Weltkulturen Museum

The Weltkulturen Museum holds a unique collection of 65,000 ethnographic artefacts from Oceania, Africa, Southeast Asia as well as from North, South and Central America. This is complemented by the collection visual anthropology of some 120,000 historical and contemporary ethnographic photos and films.
Due to spatial limitations, the Weltkulturen Museum exhibits exclusively changing special exhibitions.

Depot visits
We appreciate your interest in our collections! As a museum without a permanent exhibition, we consider depot visits to be a central part of our work. They enable direct engagement with the cultural heritage we preserve, especially for interested parties and scholars from the countries of origin of this heritage and from the corresponding diasporic communities. Depot visits are generally possible by prior arrangement. In order to ensure careful preparation – including restoration checks and organisational planning – we ask that you submit appointment requests at least one month in advance. Appointments are allocated according to availability, and we ask for your understanding that we cannot accommodate every request submitted within the deadline. The collections from the African continent are currently in particularly high demand. We therefore recommend that you contact us as early as possible.

1. Accessibility and general conditions
   Not all objects can be viewed without restriction. Conservation status, ethically sensitive contexts or agreements with creator or successor societies may impose restrictions. We thank you for your understanding and will inform you individually in advance of any conditions that may apply.
2. Application
   To request an appointment, please fill out this form completely and send it to the following address: . We will forward your email to the appropriate contact person at our institution. Only completely filled out requests can be processed.
3. Safety information
   Some of our storage rooms contain harmful substances. You will therefore receive a safety information sheet before your visit. For health reasons, access to these areas is unfortunately not permitted for pregnant or breastfeeding women or young people under the age of 16.

Online collection

The museum team is currently working on the presentation of an online collection in order to create access to the extensive collection holdings for communities of origin, researchers and an interested public. Currently, information about the collections of the Weltkulturen Museum can be requested centrally via the department for digital collection management (). We look forward to the exchange!

Parts of the collections of the Weltkulturen Museum are already digitally accessible as part of co-operation projects. You can find an overview here:

1. Digital Benin
   This database provides an overview of Benin bronzes held in German museums. The database is updated regularly: www.cp3c.org/benin-bronzes
2. Mapping Philippine Material Culture
   The project is a visual inventory of Philippine objects from the mid-20th century held in museums and private collections outside the Philippines: https://philippinestudies.uk
3. International Inventories Programme (IIP) 
   The IIP database catalogued 32,321 Kenyan objects held in 30 institutions in 7 countries. This groundbreaking inventory, which is currently no longer accessible online, made Kenya's dispersed cultural heritage searchable and accessible while raising important questions about the objects' history, provenance and cultural restitution. Further information at www.inventoriesprogramme.org