Permanent display
Closing soon
Cargo Cults Unlimited
17 Dec 2023 — 18 Jan 2026 at Ethnographic Museum of Neuchâtel
· Neuchâtel
Cargo Cults Unlimited is a long-term exhibition at the Ethnographic Museum in Neuchâtel, Switzerland, running from 2023 to 2026. Drawing on the anthropological concept of cargo cults — movements that arose in Melanesia and elsewhere in response to the sudden arrival of foreign goods and wealth — the show turns its lens on the rituals, beliefs, and mythologies that underpin today's global economy and markets.
The exhibition invites visitors to reconsider familiar economic practices as cultural phenomena: the fetishisation of commodities, the faith placed in financial systems, and the ceremonies of consumption that shape modern life. By placing contemporary market culture alongside ethnographic perspectives, it challenges the boundary between the "rational" West and the "magical" other, asking what, ultimately, separates a cargo cult from a stock exchange.
The exhibition invites visitors to reconsider familiar economic practices as cultural phenomena: the fetishisation of commodities, the faith placed in financial systems, and the ceremonies of consumption that shape modern life. By placing contemporary market culture alongside ethnographic perspectives, it challenges the boundary between the "rational" West and the "magical" other, asking what, ultimately, separates a cargo cult from a stock exchange.
About the venue
Ethnographic Museum of Neuchâtel
· Neuchâtel
The Musée d'ethnographie de Neuchâtel (MEN) is a museum of ethnography in Neuchâtel, Switzerland established in 1904. The collections consist of 50,000 objects from all regions of the world, with about half from Africa. The MEN is well known for its museology of the rupture, initiated by Jacques…