World Cultures

The World Cultures collection at Ulster Museum provides a fascinating insight into many rich cultures from around the world and includes over 5,000 objects from Africa, Asia, Oceania, the Americas and the Arctic.

The collection illustrates the history and life of Indigenous peoples around the world, and is a reflection of human relationships, as well as relationships to nature, spirituality and creativity. The collection also reflects a history of both imperialism and globalisation.

Every object holds memories of the people and places associated with it and its journey into the museum’s collection. The material, some of which goes back in time to ancient civilisations and has travelled thousands of miles to Belfast, captures stories of everyday life in the home, trade, appearance and dress, rites of passage, migration, religion, and conflict.

Most of the collection was donated by Ulster men and women who collected while travelling abroad. The majority of the collections have their origin in the collections of the Belfast Natural History and Philosophical Society (established 1842) who gifted their collections to the Ulster Museum in 1910. Western curiosity and notions of superiority were largely the drivers behind what items were collected and what stories were told. For this reason, many of the items underline the bias of the collector and the society to which they belonged during that period. The collection has a challenging and at times contentious history and legacy in regards to issues around acquisition, ownership and interpretation. Today we work in partnership with communities locally and source communities internationally to re-examine and develop this collection through our ‘Inclusive Global Histories’ work which is helping to decolonise the museum and address racism and exclusionary practices.