Burgdorf Castle

Since time immemorial, women have been a part of society, whether alone, in groups or in associations. Some gained such freedom naturally, while others had to fight long and hard for their rights. Some pursued their own personal goals, others fought for more rights or better education for all women. Most of these courageous women were involved in social causes. Women are often expected to care for those around them: a role that many of them embraced.

The stories of the women of Burgdorf and the Emmental could fill an entire museum. This exhibition focuses on just a few of them. Both modern women and women alive decades or even centuries ago. These women of action forged their own paths and changed the world, in the past as well as in the present, in ways both big and small.

The cabinets of curiosities of Burgdorf Castle invite to take part in a journey of discovery. Eleven images and many objects will tell the tale of the lives and deeds of several Burgdorf people.

As in the curiosity cabinets of the refined Renaissance and Baroque periods, works of art, natural objects and exotic pieces from distant lands rub shoulders here. The ordinary is displayed alongside the rare or strange, merging them into cabinets of curiosities where borders between everyday life and art blur.

The cabinets of Burgdorf Castle continue this tradition and, in their own way, take the public into new worlds. We do not classify or give context for what is shown; objects of historical interest are found alongside everyday objects: new associations that could give rise to different stories.