By Claus Biegert

Lake Geneva is home to the world. It was here, after the First World War, that the League of Nations was founded as the forerunner of the United Nations. It was in the twenties, the Haudenosaunee – known to the white world as the Six Nations Confederacy or Iroquois League – sent an ambassador, Deskaheh, who was to obtain a place in the League of Nations on the diplomatic stage. Deskaheh was met with sympathy and care, but he was not taken seriously politically. Winston Churchill saw to it that he was not given an opportunity to present the Haudenosaunee’s case before world representatives; Britain did not tolerate Indian sovereignty in Canada, Quebec was problem enough.

In September 1977, there was a new push: for a whole week, the Palais des Nations in Geneva belonged to Native peoples of both Americas to testify about land theft, racism, and cultural genocide. The delegation, with led by the Haudenosaunee, this time appeared in broad front and arrived with their own passports. The Swiss border authorities stamped the papers – a precedent was set. The historic week opened the door to a new era, a working group was created, from which grew the Declaration of Indigenous Peoples, which today provides the guidelines for policy with indigenous peoples. The next step on the indigenous agenda is a convention. This long journey of the indigenous peoples becomes visible in the exhibition of the MEG. We see a Haudenosaunee passport in the display case (it is that of Onondaga Clanmother Audrey Shenandoah) and we hear and see Mohawk journalist Kenneth Deere, who became a commuter between continents.

They may be small, together they are many: Worldwide, nearly 500 million indigenous peoples are defending their rights against the environmental racism that threatens their survival. The Ts’myen in Alaska, the Amazigh in Morocco, the Anishinaabeg in the United States and Canada, the Sami in Fenno-Scandinavia, the Māori in New Zealand, the Maasaï in Kenya and Tanzania, the Ainu in Japan, the Islanders in the Marshall Islands, the Kalina in Guyana – they appear in idiosyncratic and diverse ways in the sensitively arranged exhibition spiral of the MEG. The walk is like an encounter with a paradigm shift – once the indigenous were the persecuted, now we look to them for advice in crisis. Thanks to their ancestral knowledge and know-how, proven in the protection of biodiversity, soil, water and ecosystems, they have a crucial role to play in the search for solutions.

Through biographies and video testimonies, artistic installations and concrete case studies, the exhibition takes us from hotspot to hotspot. A Digital Map of the World at the entrance guides us to the areas of our natural resources, mostly identical with indigenous habitats. Indigenous artists and activists take a thoughtful, sad look at their land and question the relationship we have with our ecosystems. This stands out because it’s not a given that contemporary Indigenous artists, in particular, will be asked for their opinions and aesthetic statements. Their names are David R. Boxley, Gavin Hudson, Kandi McGilton, Ti’iwan Couchili, Máret Ánne Sara, Elizabeth LaPensée, Kathy Jetnil-Kijiner, Margret Orr.

“This exhibition presents the ways in which Indigenous People’s knowledge and know-how can be used to protect the environment. The MEG gives the voice to women and men who demonstrate to us that another relationship with our planet is possible provided that their fundamental rights are respected”, explains Carine Ayélé Durand, the chief curator and exhibition curator. “Environmental Injustice – Indigenous Peoples’ Alternatives” – supported by the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights – is a show that points to the future. In this way, Europe’s ethnographic museums could become future embassies of indigenous nations.

Post scriptum on our own behalf: Included are various exhibits from the exhibition “A River Drowned by Water” by Rainer Wittenborn and Claus Biegert, which was created in 1979/80 in cooperation with the Cree of James Bay in northern Quebec. At that time, most of the Cree’s hunting grounds were flooded for the world’s largest hydroelectric power plant. The “renewable” electricity generated goes south to the United States. For MEG’s chief curator Carine Durant, the exemplary cooperation with the indigenous hunter folk was an occasion to show individual works.

In March of this year, I was invited to speak to the museum staff about the method of our work, as well as about Action Anthropology and Action Journalism; afterwards, I talked with Carine A. Durant (at that time interim director) about the future of ethnology museums.

Claus Biegert at MEG (only in English)

• About the work with Rainer Wittenborn and the Cree

• About Action Anthropology and Action Journalism

• Conversation with Carine A. Durand about the future of museums of anthropology