We mark this time of year with Christmas celebration and various activities – decorating the Christmas tree, preparing the food, Christmas shopping etc. The rich and varied ethnographic regions in Croatia always showed the desire to make this time of year special, and now we can revisit that tradition in the Ethnographic museum Zagreb with the exhibition Feathers, apples and a grain of salt.
Feathers, apples and a grain of salt present the Christmas ornaments that date from the end of the 19th and 20th century and it aims to showcase all the different kinds and various ways of creating those ornaments and decorations. The exhibition is divided into two parts by the types of ornaments made from different materials and techniques -the homemade ones, made for personal use and the serial ornaments made for selling.
The exhibition also tackles the history of the ever-popular Christmas tree and its connotations throughout history. It begs the question if they were just for decoration or was there a certain apotropaic function that they had which got lost with time?
For more information about the exhibition, visit the museum website.
