Ljubljana: Exhibition of folk instruments from the collection of the Ethnographic Museum in Belgrade

The exhibition, titled “Where everyone is silent, they speak”, in the Rectory of the Ecclesiastical Municipality of Ljubljana, has been organised with the support of the Ministry of Culture and Information of the Republic of Serbia and the Embassy of the Republic of Serbia in Ljubljana. The author of the exhibition is Miroslav Mitrović, museum advisor to the Ethnographic Museum in Belgrade.

This exhibition, a central part of an event called Serbian Culture Month in Slovenia, will be opened by Deputy Prime Minister of the Government of Serbia and Minister of Culture and Information Maja Gojković and the Director of the Ethnographic Museum in Belgrade Tijana Čolak-Antić.

The exhibition will present a part of the musical tradition of the Serbian people in the Balkans, and the richness and diversity of instruments in terms of their construction, form and performance.

Over 120 objects, with accompanying materials, will be displayed in what will be a combination of two exhibitions of two types of instruments: gusle and flutes. Gusle is a traditional Serbian instrument, used to convey universal moral messages through music and poetry, born of an inseparable unity of the epic song, the gusle and the gusle player.

The second part of the exhibition will present the flute, a folk woodwind instrument used throughout the former Yugoslavia. The Ethnographic Museum in Belgrade has, during its 120 year-long history, collected flutes from this entire area.

As this region is known for its many migrations throughout centuries, instruments which have been brought to the region and have taken root here will be displayed alongside instruments which have originated in the region. All these instruments are exhibited for the first time ever in Slovenia.