VIENNA

WELTMUSEUM WIEN
2016 – 2018

The Weltmuseum Wien, part of the KHM Museumsverband (Kunsthistorisches Museum Vienna), is one of the world’s leading ethnographic museums. After several years of closure for renovations, redesign of the exhibition spaces, and a renaming (formerly known as the Völkerkundemuseum), the museum was officially reopened in October 2017 with a grand event at the historic Heldenplatz. In my role, I was responsible for the museum’s positioning and marketing, as well as organizing the reopening celebrations.

For nearly a century, the museum was known as the Museum für Völkerkunde (Museum of Ethnology) before being renamed as part of a comprehensive institutional redesign. The core of this transformation was the complete overhaul of the permanent exhibition, which was reimagined from the ground up. Presented as a “string of pearls,” the newly conceived layout features fourteen galleries, each telling a distinct story. These narratives combine key objects from the museum’s renowned collections with contemporary interpretations, inviting visitors to explore the diversity and depth of the Weltmuseum Wien's holdings.

To generate the greatest possible impact for the reopening, we decided to stage an open-air spectacle on Heldenplatz in collaboration with André Heller and Büro Wien. The location was ideal, and Heller—one of Austria’s most prominent cultural figures—shared strong ties with the museum’s non-European collections.

The countdown to the reopening began six months earlier with a press conference announcing the opening date and program. In addition to a wide range of content-driven initiatives, we launched an intensive advertising campaign several months prior to the reopening.

Ad campaign: To ensure that the reopening of the Weltmuseum Wien became a cultural highlight of Vienna’s autumn season, we launched an extensive analog and digital out-of-home campaign. The campaign featured a variety of visuals in large formats, displayed across billboards, subway stations, the airport, city lights, trams, info screens in public transport, and advertising columns.

The visuals showcased both photographic imagery and objects from the museum’s collections, paired with the central campaign slogan It’s All About People, as well as additional taglines tailored to the themes of the collections. The design of the visuals conveyed a festive and celebratory tone, underscoring the significance of the museum’s reopening. 

Urban Art: As part of the countdown to the museum’s reopening, an urban artwork was created by the Madrid-based art collective Boa Mistura on the construction fence that still surrounded the museum’s front area. The artists drew inspiration by the quote Living life constructs your soul by James Cook, whose collection is featured in the new permanent exhibition at the museum. The artwork remained visible for five months, until one month before the official opening. 

Opening Celebrations: The festivities included a series of preview events for media representatives, sponsors, professionals, and the museum’s friends association, as well as a pre-opening for key stakeholders. A major highlight was a large, free open-air show on Heldenplatz, open to the general public. Following the show, admission to the museum was free that evening and throughout the following day, which coincided with Austria’s National Day.

The stage show, curated by André Heller, featured performances by artists from around the world—including Australia, Mexico, Iran, India, Bosnia and Herzegovina, and Mongolia—as well as actors from Vienna’s prestigious Burgtheater.

Austrian Federal President Alexander Van der Bellen attended as guest of honor, alongside prominent international guests such as Tilda Swinton, Wes Anderson, and Michael Haneke. More than 7,500 people experienced the event live at Heldenplatz, and it received extensive media coverage from outlets such as ZDF heute journal, ORF, Deutsche Welle, Der Standard, Süddeutsche Zeitung, Der Tagesspiegel, The Art Newspaper, The Guardian, and many others.

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