Shamans and shamanism: terms that evoke an imagery of atavistic rituals, eerie masks, hallucinations and exotic places. But what really is shamanism? Who are shamans and what do they do? And, do they still exist?

The exhibition "Shamans. Communicating with the Invisible" has united for the first time three important museums of the Autonomous Province of Trento in a unique and multidisciplinary exhibition project, in the prestigious venue of Palazzo delle Albere (Trento) from 17 December 2023 until 30 June 2024. 

MUSE – Science Museum of Trento, MART – Modern and contemporary Art Museum of Trento and Rovereto and METS – Ethnographic Museum of San Michele all’Adige offered a fascinating narrative of the phenomenon of shamanism between anthropology, art, science and archaeology.

The protagonists have been the objects and the experience of the Sergio Poggianella Foundation (FSP): a very rich collection of artifacts that allows people to investigate the theme of Shamanism in all its complexity.

The Sergio Poggianella Foundation's collection of shamanic art from Eurasia was born in 2000 when the founder, Sergio Poggianella, went to Siberia and thus came into contact with shamans for the first time. Since then, he has traveled numerous times not only to Siberia, but also to Mongolia and China, deepening his studies on the subject and increasing his collection of shamanic trousseau.

To create this unprecedented exhibition, some important scholars of the subject, from different cultural fields (anthropology, ethnography, psychology, archaeology, art), have come into play, with the aim of proposing a multidisciplinary approach to the theme and suggesting innovative, but at the same time scientifically founded, connections and looks.

The conceptual approach of the exhibition uses a scale that goes from the individual to plurality, starting from the shaman as an individual and then placing him in the society to which he belongs and in the natural context. More than one hundred original artifacts, including ritual costumes, masks, headdresses, sticks, tools for divination and healing, guide the visitor on this anthropological journey between Siberia, Mongolia and northern China.

A look was also turned to the deep time: the exhibition featured some archaeological finds, dated to the European Upper Palaeolithic, which represent human figures with animal masks (the so-called "theriomorphs") and bring back the dimension of the sacred of our ancestors, very often associated, rightly or wrongly, with the theme of shamanism.

We then return to explore, through an immersive sensory experience, the individual dimension of the altered state of consciousness, a central element of shamanism that today can be studied, interpreted and also reproduced thanks to technology applied to cognitive sciences.

Subsequently, the word passes to contemporary art, which is in continuity with the scientific narrative by weaving a dialogue with shamanic finds, but avoiding a direct comparison. The varied origins of the artists (not only Europe, but also the UK, USA, Brazil, Australia, Mexico) broadens the shamanic theme to the problems of our days, prompting broader reflections concerning the consequences of capitalism on a global scale and therefore the environment and the protection of diversity. The aim of this section of the exhibition is therefore to divert attention from the fascination of shamanism and its persistent exotic flavor, and to focus on the current and partly common consequences of "cultural globalization".

Finally, at the Mets Museum in San Michele all'Adige, some finds from the shamanic collection have found space next to objects from local Alpine folk traditions which, even in the absence of a real shamanic phenomenon, document rituals, practices, beliefs and figures that manifest a significant affinity with some of the elements that converge to identify the figure of the shaman.

The exhibition "Shamans. Communicating with the Invisible" offered the visitor different points of view from which to observe a distant phenomenon but which, in some respects, can turn out to be unexpectedly close to each of us.