Inside Geneva
Inside Geneva is a podcast about global politics, humanitarian issues, and international aid, hosted by journalist Imogen Foulkes. It is produced by SWI swissinfo.ch, a multilingual international public service media company from Switzerland.
Inside Geneva
Inside Geneva’s Summer Profiles: the Red Cross Museum
Inside Geneva’s fourth summer profile – not a person, but a much-loved museum.
“In this museum, we ask an essential question: what does humanitarian action have to do with me, in my life, here and now?” says Pascal Hufschmid, director of the Red Cross Museum.
This month there’s a special exhibition, “Tuning in” … to the sound of humanity.
“It’s an exhibition conceived as an exploration of sound archives – particularly humanitarian sound archives – preserved here in Geneva at the International Committee of the Red Cross
(ICRC) and at the museum,” says curator Elisa Rusca.
“It’s also a way of saying that, no matter who we are or where we come from, the way we feel is the same and our internal voice is just as important as the one that comes out,” Rusca says.
The museum reminds us of our shared humanity.
“We really bend over backwards to explain humanitarian principles, international human rights and humanitarian law, and to show that these are lived experiences we can all relate to.”
Listen to the full episode on our Inside Geneva podcast hosted by Imogen Foulkes.
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Host: Imogen Foulkes
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This is Inside Geneva. I'm your host, imogen Foulkes, and this is a production from Swissinfo, the international public media company of Switzerland.
Speaker 3:In today's program, In this museum, we ask a central question, which is what does humanitarian action have to do with me in my life here and now?
Speaker 4:It's an exhibition that was thought as an exploration of the sound archives, in particular the humanitarian sound archives preserved here in Geneva at the ICRC and the FIRC and also at the museum.
Speaker 3:We really bend over backwards to explain humanitarian principles, international humanitarian law and to show that there are embodied experiences we can all relate to.
Speaker 2:Hello and welcome again to Inside Geneva. I'm Imogen Fowlkes. Regular listeners will know that over the summer we run a series of summer profiles, from an aid worker in Gaza to an international lawyer hoping to become a judge on the International Court of Justice. Today we're doing a profile too, but it's not of a person, but of a much-loved Geneva institution which has in recent months faced some existential challenges.
Speaker 3:My name is Pascal Hofschmidt, I'm a passionate museum director, and we're having a drink in the cafe of the International Red Cross and Red Crescent Museum in Geneva in the cafe of the International Red Cross and Red Crescent Museum in Geneva.
Speaker 2:This is, for me, anyway, an amazing museum. I've always loved it, but it's faced some challenges recently.
Speaker 3:Yes, it has faced major challenges that questioned its very existence and had us face possible closure in 2027 due to cost-cutting measures on the federal level in Switzerland, the consequences of which might not have been fully estimated on the museum. And for the past year or so, we've been really, really reminding public authorities of the key role we play in many different realities Daily life, humanitarian action, culture, diplomacy, education, research, tourism and fighting for this institution, which is useful and important.
Speaker 2:Just tell me, for your own personal conviction, why this museum is important. I mean, it's not your Condon Garden Art Gallery or Natural History Museum. It's something different.
Speaker 3:When you connect with world news every day, at least from this part of the world, you see information that is connected somehow or another to humanitarian principles and international humanitarian law.
Speaker 3:It can be the devastating consequences of climate change, it can be conflicts, wars.
Speaker 3:It can be so many situations in which our shared humanity is at risk. And in this museum we ask a central question, which is what does humanitarian action have to do with me in my life, here and now? And to establish this connection on a personal level, we really bend over backwards to explain humanitarian principles, international humanitarian law and to show that there are embodied experiences we can all relate to. It's not something you only hear about on TV or in the news. It's something that makes sense in the way you behave in your own community, how you connect with your neighbors, how you are an active citizen and all these fundamental ideas and questions that are deeply, deeply connected to Geneva's history, to Switzerland's history, to the vision of Henri Dunant, the founder of the international Red Cross and Red Crescent movement. And we tell these stories and make these connections to a great variety of people, going from five-year-old kids I gave a tour this morning to throughout the exhibition to heads of state that come here on a regular basis.
Speaker 2:And I can confirm that the Red Cross Museum really is worth a visit. Its permanent exhibition gives visitors an insight into what humanitarianism is and what the Red Cross movement does, from the incredibly moving files documenting the prisoners of two world wars and how the Red Cross kept them in touch with their families, to an interactive look at disaster risk reduction, to a section which asks the simple question what is human dignity and how can we all protect it. But the museum of course has special temporary exhibitions too, and that's what I've come to see today.
Speaker 4:My name is Elisa Ruska. I am the Director of Collections and Exhibitions here at the International Red Cross and Red Crescent Museum in Geneva, and we are standing in front of the entrance of the Tuning In exhibition.
Speaker 2:The reason I'm here is because the title grabbed me Tuning In. This is an exhibition that is not just visual. In fact, its foundation is actually sound just visual.
Speaker 4:In fact, its foundation is actually sound. Yes, it is, and it's an exhibition that was thought as an exploration of the sound archives, in particular the humanitarian sound archives preserved here in Geneva at the ICRC and the FIRC and also at the museum.
Speaker 2:Well, let's just have a look at this first case here. Listeners who can't see this. We're looking at an exhibition case with files, but also blast from the past quarter inch recording tape which still lay around studios. When I first started, nobody touched them, but they were there. What's on these things?
Speaker 4:Well, it's certainly a lot of different things that we found. There were not only documentation of different recordings, but also recording of official meetings, recordings of radio program, recordings from the fields.
Speaker 2:Well, I mean, you've got some of these recordings over here. Tell me a little about them. They are aimed at, you know, public health, things like that.
Speaker 4:Yeah, well, you have to remember that this history of the Red Cross and the radio goes a long way, because humanitarian was born in 1860s and then the radio in the 1890s. So since the very beginning of this new technology, the National Societies and the ICRC has been using the radio to spread messages, messages of awareness, messages for health, to communicate where to go in a moment of crisis, to find help, to find food, etc.
Speaker 5:Your.
Speaker 4:Nigerian Red Cross presents a message for your good health. This one in particular that I really like is the Fly is your Enemy. From the Nigerian Red Cross in 1966.
Speaker 5:My baby is ill.
Speaker 4:I have just come from the village. We were listening to a man from the Nigerian Red Cross who told us that flies bring sickness. The Fly is your Enemy is, in particular. The idea behind is to give awareness of the fact that flies and insects can carry diseases and so you should keep them out of your house. So use fly nets. So the way the program is made is quite playful. There's a museum in a way. It's very constructed. We can hear the radio drama, so everything is written down and very theatrical in the style it is. But nevertheless the message of health was really well brought out and effective.
Speaker 1:Voice hurricane warnings 11 am Eastern Standard Time. Voice of Hurricane. Voice of Hurricane. Voice of Hurricane.
Speaker 2:Voice of Hurricane. Voice of Hurricane. Voice of Hurricane for possible natural disasters, storms, things like that, haven't you?
Speaker 4:Yeah, we also have that, and there is an example here that you cannot see but you can hear is the song Be Prepared. That was created in 2012 by a group of artists from Granada in collaboration with the Granadaet Cross.
Speaker 1:Eclipse, german Edison. Yeah, I say you got to be prepared in this time of your life. Got to be prepared in this time of your life. You don't know what it's like.
Speaker 4:And the song is thought to tell you what to do if a hurricane hits the island, and so, in a very playful way, we start to get this earworm in the ear that is transmitted through the radio, and then, when the actual crisis arrives, people are supposed to be responsive and be already trained in a way.
Speaker 1:And that's a strategy that has been used since the very beginning of the collaboration between the radio and the Red Cross.
Speaker 2:One of the things that I was really interested in when I was reading about this exhibition that public service announcements, etc. How to stay healthy, all good, but you've also got things about how music plays a role in humanitarianism. We've got some pictures over here maybe have a look at.
Speaker 4:Yeah, so the idea was to create an exhibition that is not just sound, to make it more inclusive and more also open to a larger understanding on what does it mean to deal with music, and so this section is focusing on our collections and we are presenting images in particular here, photos, prints from from our collections, showing how the presence of music is really important in what we call the preservation of human dignity.
Speaker 4:because it may be something that is not usually think as a first aid element, but in fact we might say it is because it helps us feel better, it helps us to relate to the other, it helps us maybe forget also a moment of distress, and that's why here we can also see how music is performed in prison by prisoners for other prisoners, but also by Red Cross volunteers. Here's a volunteer of the Red Cross playing guitar for a group of children in Memphis after a flood in the 1930s. And in this next picture you can see wounded soldiers in Vietnam playing with an ICRC nurse who is playing this.
Speaker 2:She's got a banjo, I think, and one of the wounded soldiers has got a guitar and clearly it's doing them good. You can see from their faces. We were here a little earlier listening to this. This really interests me because these are the outtakes of your archives and it's all music, and yet it was like, oh, we don't need this. Why.
Speaker 4:Yeah, it's also very interesting for me to be here, because this is a part that shows how communication and non-verbal noises are also part of these humanitarian recordings, and so, in a broader sense, what's outside the picture is also important, and here these are sounds that have not a real label. We don't really know what they are, but they were selected and put together in a loop of three hours by three students of the idea. So there is the school of art in sierra, which whom we collaborated for the exhibition. The material that comes from here also includes some parts that were in a non-dual cassette, which was labeled Don't Keep, just Music.
Speaker 2:Don't Keep Just Music. So these are recordings taken by the Red Cross in different places all over the world of people making music.
Speaker 4:and then somebody wrote don't keep just music, yeah and that's the point of the students and that's why they wanted to focus on that aspect and create this beautiful loop, to give it a new life, because for them, these sounds were kept for many, many years in the darkness of cold archives, underground, and this was a way to make them alive again. Kept for many, many years in the darkness of cold archives underground, and this was a way to make them alive again.
Speaker 2:One of the things that really interested me is that this exhibition includes not just things that aid agencies the Red Cross movement has produced to try and keep people safe or healthy. It's got the sounds of what the emotions of aid workers in difficult situations might sound like. Tell me how that came about, because it's really fascinating.
Speaker 4:Yeah well, something that came out exploring this sound archive was the fact that delegates and Red Cross volunteers recorded a lot of things At the same time. They are exposed to landscapes that are very particular and that stick to them even when they came back.
Speaker 2:Things they can't forget. Yes, and that can also be sound.
Speaker 4:Yes, of course, sound is something that really unleashes your memory, maybe more than images, you know. And so this piece in particular. And so this piece in particular has been created in collaboration with 42 volunteers from the so-called International Geneva, so 42 people working at the ICRC, médecins Sans Frontières, ifrc, and here at the museum, who were interviewed by the artist, piero Mottola, who is an artist researching on the relation between emotion and sound, and he asked them to emit the vocalism of 10 so-called basic emotions. So you know love, joy, fear, excitement, etc. And the result is this installation where we can hear these different voices, humanitarian voices, and relate to the emotions that are presented, and suddenly being amazed as well by the fact that, even though these people are not musically trained, there's a harmony that presents.
Speaker 1:We can hear it right now. Yeah.
Speaker 4:And so it's a way to say as well no matter who we are or where we are from, the way we feel is the same, and also our internal voice is also important as the one that comes out.
Speaker 2:Well, let's go in. I should explain to our listeners. It's a darkened room and these 10 emotions are in a kind of wheel around the room and when you stand on one you will hear that one, and if lots of people are in, you're hearing them together, but they range from anguish to calm, to joy, to fear, sadness, all sorts. Let's go in. Let's go in. So I'm standing on calm and you're standing on excitement.
Speaker 1:Excitement.
Speaker 2:Okay, you're moving to amazement and I'm going to move to joy. Why not? So we've each chosen a cheerful one joy and pleasure. And over this side it's not so joyful. I'm on sad Right well before I leave. I'm going to go back to pleasure just to cheer myself up a bit. It's absolutely fascinating that he got aid workers who've been in difficult parts of the world to vocalize emotions, and that's the mixture. I mean, that is fascinating. So what are your visitors telling you about it? You're doing really well with the number of visitors.
Speaker 4:Yeah, we are doing very well. We have a lot of people visiting more than 10,000 every month and everyone is surprised and then happy because of course it's a topic that is intriguing. Yeah, and through this path that we create, we can feel and maybe think differently about the connection between humanitarianism, emotion and sound.
Speaker 2:What do you think people will take away with them about humanitarianism when they've been to this exhibition?
Speaker 4:Humanitarianism is a plurality of voices and should be also a way to make those voices heard.
Speaker 2:That special exhibition runs only until August 24th. So if you're in Geneva and you haven't seen and heard it, come and take a look and a listen. But a reminder the museum is full of rewarding exhibitions that are here all year round and, as director Pascal Houschmidt tells us, they have an important message for all of us.
Speaker 3:When you visit the museum, you instinctively understand that you would want to have your, your dignity protected, that people you see on the screen of your iPhone or on the anything your television or in the papers aren't just images and aren't just statistics, but they're people like you, like me. We all just want to have normal lives, because that's such a huge privilege. And making sure that there are some boundaries, making sure that there are some ways of protecting this fundamental right to be a human being and to be respected in one's humanity, I think that is essential and that's what we talk about here in this museum, and it is a very, I think, important reminder of how, then, to apprehend all these stories we hear every day about conflicts and disasters around the world, and just remember that. Well, what would I do, how would I react, if I were to be in that situation? I'd surely want to be respected in my dignity, I'd want to have someone who helps me, and it's nothing more than that, but that's already huge.
Speaker 2:So, let alone Geneva or Switzerland, I mean, the world would be poorer without this museum, you think?
Speaker 3:Well, we do tell a story that resonates all around the world, that of the International Red Cross and Red Crescent movement, and we are telling this story at the heart of the world, capital of humanitarian action and multilateral diplomacy, being also in the state that's the depository state of the Geneva Conventions, the very rules of war. So, yes, I do think that, had this museum closed, or if we'd lose this museum, we'd be sending a very confusing message and this would certainly be a loss for Switzerland and a loss for Geneva. We also have, you know, key items of world heritage in this museum the first ever Nobel Peace Prize medal that was given to Henri Dunant, the cards of war prisoners of the First World War that are considered world heritage, and losing this collection would be a loss for people way beyond Switzerland.
Speaker 2:And that brings us to the end of this edition of Inside Geneva. My thanks to Pascal Hufschmidt and Elisa Rusko for taking the time to give me such a wonderful tour of the museum, to give me such a wonderful tour of the museum. Join us again next time for our fifth summer profile, where we have a fascinating conversation with an aid worker who is on the brink of retirement.
Speaker 5:When I was young, I very quickly realised that there were many, many people who did not have this equal opportunity, who did not have equal chances, and for me, that was fundamentally wrong.
Speaker 2:His career started in Gaza, took him to former Yugoslavia and much, much more 40 years ago, in the mid 80s, gaza was already bad.
Speaker 5:at that time there were curfew every night. There were raids by the Israeli army. They would break into houses, arrest mainly young people. Just the idea that we would have a conflict in the middle of Europe was, I think, we're not ready for that and we were not ready to see the violation. So it was a very awful conflict. We had a real ethnic cleansing.
Speaker 2:That episode will be out on September 2nd. Don't miss it. And a reminder our profiles from last summer are all still available. Hear from Chris Lockyer, secretary General of Médecins Sans Frontières, or Esther Dingemans, of the Global Survivors Fund, which supports people who have suffered sexual violence in conflict. You can hear those and more wherever you get your podcasts. A reminder you've been listening to Inside Geneva, a Swiss Info production. You can subscribe to us and review us wherever you get your podcasts. Check out our previous episodes how the International Red Cross unites prisoners of war with their families, or why survivors of human rights violations turn to the UN in Geneva for justice. I'm Imogen Folksowkes. Thanks again for listening.
