THE PATH OF LEATHER, FIBRES AND IRON

The Path of Leather, Fibres and Iron. Natural Materials in Human Hands | exhibition

The exhibition presents three natural materials and their transformation in human hands.

Evidence of how people have, since time immemorial, transformed raw materials from plants, animals and rocks into objects needed for life is provided by archaeological finds. To this day, however, only durable materials (bone, stone, ceramics, metal) have survived buried in the ground. Less durable ones (for example wood, leather and furs, textiles) have mostly disappeared irretrievably and thus become invisible to us.

Archaeologists therefore find only fragments of the whole story, which often point to materials indirectly or are merely evidence of the process of producing and transforming raw materials. These are mere clues to humanity's long journey through history.

Finally, visitors can look into the workshops of the blacksmith, the saddler and the weaver, and discover that human work in some cases has changed very little over many millennia. A number of working methods and tools survived in slightly altered form until the 19th and early 20th centuries, when traditional handicraft production from households and the workshops of old masters faded away. The age of machines, electricity and modern technology fundamentally transformed the world of work and at the same time broke the once close bond between people and natural materials. The aim of the exhibition is to recall this bond and to newly value the knowledge that grew out of it.