Free admission on Hungarian Culture Day

Hungarian Culture Day has been celebrated every January 22 since 1989, in memory of the fact that, according to the manuscript, Ferenc Kölcsey finalized the manuscript of the Hungarian national anthem on this day in 1823 in Cseke.

On this occasion, the permanent exhibitions of the Museum of Ethnography will be open to the public free of charge on January 22, 2026.

Collection exhibition

The Museum of Ethnography’s permanent collection exhibition showcases 3,600 original artefacts and 1,600 photographs across 3,000 square metres. Organised into eight themes with 1,000 stories and 100 interpretations, it highlights the cultural diversity of five continents while reflecting the heritage of Hungary and the Carpathian Basin.

The exhibition is based on the museum’s collection, which has been growing for over 150 years. It offers an exploration of the knowledge preserved by these artefacts through unique and historically significant narratives.

Divided into eight thematic sections, the exhibition examines historically shifting perspectives. It provides an opportunity to study Hungarian traditions and the cultural practices of other peoples from various angles. The presentation also places emphasis on the lives of objects within the collection, the museum's fieldwork, its institutional history, and folk art. Additionally, it explores the relationship between art and ethnography, prehistoric research, and the concept of heritage.

ZOOM

In connect to the collection exhibition, ZOOM presents both the museum’s hoard of material—and select objects within it—via a more playful approach, without interpretation or textual explanations: it is itself a change in perspectives. Here, viewpoint and approach become physical experience as we zoom in, turn things over, break them apart, turn them in-side-out, stir them together—and visitors, for their part, lose themselves in a soup of objects, images, and script until they emerge at a few select examples, perhaps even see themselves in ZOOM’s sea of faces.

Ceramics Space

The Ceramics Space is a two-part gallery that can be visited free of charge. It is not a storage area, nor is it an exhibition furnished with detailed explanations. Think of the two parts of the gallery as the two hemispheres of the human brain. The left hemisphere is in charge of logical thought, rational perception, and language use, while the right side is responsible for visuality, creativity, and imagination. The Ceramics Space takes this duality as the model for museum collecting and conceptualisation. In the area corresponding to the left hemisphere, ceramics of the world are grouped logically, according to geographical area, ceramics centre, and shape, while the right hemisphere area offers an intuitive response to the myriad worlds of ceramics and explores their interconnections.