Experience a night where tradition comes alive and the past gains new meaning
This year, too, the Hungarian Heritage House will open its doors on the Night of Museums. Here, the past will become an experience and tradition will take on new meaning. The Buda Vigadó building will be open for exploration from the attic to the cellar. The management of the Hungarian Heritage House will lead this exciting tour. Those more attracted to crafts can try dough kneading or felting, joining many others. Interactive exhibitions introduce the world of folk crafts, engaging all your senses. In addition to the folk music concert and dance house, the Hungarian State Folk Ensemble's special fashion show will offer unforgettable moments for music lovers.
Attendance at the various activities will be accepted on the spot in the order of arrival. As the number of free places is limited, it is definitely worth arriving on time!
Five exhibitions reveal the mysteries of tradition for those who wish to immerse themselves; it is worth your while to sign up for several guided tours on the spot. For the exhibition Free to Wash, you will need to descend into the large Lajos Hall in the basement. The installation designed by MOME students is beautifully framed by a fragment of the city wall surviving from the Middle Ages. The exhibition is about the preservation of traditions, sustainability and how the increasingly fast-paced world transforms our most intimate and general activities.
The exhibition Tulip & Sage offers an exciting taste of the world of floral folk motifs. This installation presents our relationship with nature through ceramics, textiles, traditional costume pieces, furniture, and carved objects in the Zoltán Kallós Exhibition Room. The "aromatic" past of floral and plant-patterned clothing, furniture and ceramics can be seen in about 120 objects at the exhibition spanning five centuries.
The exhibition "Smells, Tastes, Shapes – Look with Your Hands, See with Your Heart" has many memorable moments in store for you. Felt Memory Game, maze, gingerbread spice identification, and an art image puzzle lure young and old, as well as everyone, including people living with disabilities, with all the good things related to our folk art and folk crafts. It was nominated as Exhibition of the Year 2022 and also received a certificate of recognition, which can be admired in the Maácz Hall.
At the Night of the Museums, the Hungarian Heritage House's most recent exhibition, From Game to Mastery, will also be open for viewing. The special exhibition presents the examination pieces of students graduating in felt-making, basket-weaving, weaving, and carpet-weaving between 2024 and 2026.
Those visiting the exhibition opened for the 75th jubilee of the Hungarian State Folk Ensemble can learn how Mao Zedong thanked the ensemble for their Chinese tour, how the celebrated star of the era, Ingrid Bergman, got involved in a Hungarian folk dance evening, but first of all, how the ensemble became the innovator of folk dance culture in Hungary.
Those who are more attracted to the world of crafts can try their hand at dough kneading: "We mix, stir, flour, knead and learn how to make our lunch dough with our own hands.” The instructor of this crash course, Gabriella Szivós, shares her most delicious and quickest sauce recipes that can be taken home in your mind's bags. As this activity is very popular, it is worth signing up in advance!
If you want to take part in some "felting together", enter the Atrium. This initiative offers a real, liberating creative experience: participants create felt rugs together, lay out the pattern, and then "knead" the creation together with coordinated force. Anyone can participate in the process; the work is guided by an experienced master, so beginners and advanced felters alike will find their own pleasure in it.
It is worth staying on in the Atrium, because the embroidery workshop, led by Ilka Pálmai, reveals the rich world of floral embroidery. You will understand the hidden meanings behind roses, tulips, and tendrils, as well as how embroidery became part of self-expression and community memory, serving as decoration.
The whole family will enjoy themselves in the space of play "I planted my small garden in the spring - MOTIF TREASURES" by Zsuzsa Sevella, who will guide young and old in this place of fun, where they can get acquainted in an interactive way - with the help of large toys- with the floral motifs used in various crafts - embroidery, wood carving, pottery products. We can enjoy the toys of the MOTIF TREASURE in memory games, dominoes and matrices, but there will be games involving "Fit it in!", "Hide it!", "Investigate!", "Put it together!” , as well as a lottery game, board colouring, difference finding and puzzle.
In the course of a unique walk, you can get a glimpse into the secrets of the workshops of the artisans working in the Hungarian Heritage House - weavers, furniture painters, and felt makers. In this activity, you will find out what it means to learn a trade in the 21st century and what it feels like to start learning a new profession as an adult. Here, we await those who are interested in how crafts become both a personal journey and a professional experience.
The Hungarian Heritage House and the dancers of the Hungarian State Folk Ensemble jointly offer memorable moments to music lovers. The highlight of the night is Circling - Fashion Stage, performed by the ensemble. This special, rarely seen fashion show is not only about the display of clothes; it also brings to life a more profound dialogue between tradition and modernity on stage. Don't miss out on it!
The musicians of Horsa Banda, coming from Komarnó and Budapest, will be playing the music for your dancing feet. The band performs Transylvanian folk music in its original form, so you can enjoy the musical world of the Mezőség, Kalotaszeg and Gyimes. The evening is closed by the traditional evening dance house and dance instruction at Corvin Square on the shortest night of the year.
If you want to see the past in a new light, come to the Hungarian Heritage House from 4 pm on the Night of Museum.
