This is the story of a raw material that co-created the global capitalist system and thus co-shaped the world we live in. This is the story of cotton.

Cotton cultivation has a history of thousands of years. The centers of cotton cultivation were initially in Asia, Africa and South America, while European textile production and consumption was long dominated by flax and wool. In the 18th century, Europeans introduced new forms of organization of production, trade and consumption of cotton, which attracted different world regions to the global flows of this raw material. The industrial revolution connected the previously scattered worlds of cotton into a cotton empire centered in Europe, as the historian Sven Beckert called this system.

The exhibition illuminates the story of cotton with two SEM collections from the beginning of the 20th century: the missionary collection from Bengal in East India and the collection of Baron Anton Codelli and his colleague Leo Poljanec from Togo. They were created as a by-product of the other activities of their collectors in both countries - Christianization and the establishment of the first radiotelegraph station between the then Togoland and the German colonial empire. Selected objects such as textiles and Indian prints of deities and motifs from everyday life, as well as photographic and film material, shed light on cotton production and clothing culture in India and Togo.


Text and images from www.etno-muzej.si