These are photographs of the exquisite details of masterpieces from the collection which you can now see live at the exhibition Asia in the Heart of Ljubljana: The Life of the Skušek Collection at the Slovene Ethnographic Museum.

The collection's exciting story began over a hundred years ago, when the Austro-Hungarian naval officer Ivan Skušek Jr returned to Ljubljana from his captivity in China. He and his Japanese wife Tsuneko Kondō Kawase brought with them a collection of exquisite East Asian artefacts in 75 large crates with the idea of establishing a museum of Asian cultures, which, however, they were unable to realise. So they put the collection on display in their own apartment, lived with it and showed it to their guests. Today, the collection is curated by SEM.

This is the largest collection of East Asian artefacts in Slovenia. The exhibition showcases some truly remarkable objects such as the model of a Chinese house recently assembled by experts from the Palace Museum in the Forbidden City in Beijing, a reconstruction of the Skušeks’ living room with selected pieces of carved furniture, porcelain items, Buddhist sculptures, silk embroidered garments, musical instruments and many mysterious objects.

Welcome to SEM!

Razstavo Azija sredi Ljubljane: Skuškova zbirka v Slovenskem etnografskem muzeju na Krakovskem nasipu v Ljubljani je pripravil Slovenski etnografski muzej, zanj Natalija Polenec, direktorica / The exhibition Asia in the Heart of Ljubljana: The Skušek Collection at the Slovene Ethnographic Museum at Krakovski nasip in Ljubljana was prepared by the Slovene Ethnographic Museum, represented by Natalija Polenec, director.
Koordinatorka razstave / exhibition coordinator: mag. Maja Kostric Grubišić (SEM); besedila / texts: mag. Maja Kostric Grubišić (SEM), Živa M. Brecelj (SEM), dr. Helena Motoh (ZRS Koper), prof. dr. Nataša Vampelj Suhadolnik (Oddelek za azijske študije, FF UL); fotografije / photographs: Blaž Verbič (SEM); asistent fotografije / photography assistant: Svitan Zarjan France Vidrih; grafično oblikovanje / graphic design: Danijela Grgić (DG DESIGN), Maja Kocjan (SEM); prevod / translation: Helena Biffio Zorko; jezikovni pregled / English proofreading: Paul Steed. Ljubljana, 18. 7.–19. 8. 2024.