Today open from 11 to 18
Temporary Exhibition
The Future, what’s that?
7 May 2026 - 10 January 2027
Robots, lucky charms or tarot cards : all these objects reflect our desire to understand what the future has in store for us. Between beliefs, technologies and imagination, they reveal the capacity to apprehend the future. In its exhibition “The Future, what’s that?”, MEG questions the ways in which we conceive time.
A video game, a robot, a weather application, tarot cards or Buddhist statuettes: can these objects help us catch a glimpse of the future ? This is the question at the heart of the new temporary exhibition proposed by MEG.
The exhibition begins with a real cabinet of curiosities, bringing together futures of yesterday and today, from here and elsewhere. Next to ancient objects, speaking of the future and the passage of time, we find pop culture gadgets and contemporary games evoking imagined or possible tomorrows. One fact stands out : for centuries, all over the world, human societies have endeavoured to imagine the future, using a wide range of objects and symbols representing the future.
Robotic Daruma
designed in 2021 by the Chinese firm Toyzeroplus.
Private collection.
© MEG, Demian Tschumi
Daruma are very well-known figurines in Japan. They stem from a legend telling how the monk Bodhidharma came from Persia or India to bring Buddhism to China and Japan. These round, red statuettes, displayed here in a futuristic form, are traditionally made out of papier mâché. When you make a wish, you paint their first pupil. If the wish comes true, you go on and paint the second one. As well as being lucky charms, daruma are both objects you tell your wish to and proof that the wish has come true.
Mouse Oracle
The pot and its accessories were made by a person, from the Baoulé population in Ivory Coast, unknown to the MEG, between the late 19th and early 20th century.
The set made of mixed materials was purchased from the ethnologist Hans Himmelheber in 1934.
MEG Inv. ETHAF 014522
© MEG, Demian Tschumi
In the Baoulé culture of Ivory Coast there is a fortune-telling practice called “mouse oracle”. Mice may be able help humans know the future. For this, they are put in a box containing little sticks and food. When the mice move about to eat, they disturb the little sticks. A person who understands these movements then interprets the position of the sticks in order to predict the future. Whether it be in the form of an object or a living being, humans often need assistance to create a link with the invisible world.
The exhibition visit branches out into four stages, each associated with a different way of conceiving time. For the future occupies different places depending on whether one represents time as linear or cyclic. To situate the future is to already situate oneself with respect to it.
These four sections thus invite us to question our relation to technical progress, experiment strategies for dialoguing with the future, discover forms of artistic expression which imagine desirable futures and, finally, explore a variety of possible evolutions conceived of here, in Geneva.
Omnibot 2000
Robot designed by the Japanese firm Tomy in 1985.
This robot made of mixed materials has been lent by the Musée Bolo – Musée suisse de l’informatique, de la culture numérique et du jeu vidéo in Lausanne.
Photo © 2025 Musée Bolo - Musée suisse de l'informatique, de la culture numérique et du jeu vidéo
We often imagine that robots symbolize a future in which technology will make everything easier. When the Omnibot 2000 robot was created, it had two main purposes : to help humans in their daily tasks and to keep them company. But it was very expensive, its use limited and its computer programming too complicated. So it wasn’t a success and didn’t sell as well as expected, which goes to show that technology does not always fulfill its promises.
The aim of the exhibition is not to provide definitive answers but to encourage visitors of all ages to reflect on their own future and that of the world around them. At the centre of the theme : the development of everyone’s capacity to imagine tomorrow.
Accompanied by an amusing, colourful and immersive scenography realised by Cabanon Vertical, the exhibition creates a dialogue between many pieces from MEG’s collections and those of the Maison d’Ailleurs, the Musée Suisse du Jeu or the Bolo Museum. It also hosts works by Vanessa Meister, Delphine Diallo, Cannupa Hanska Luger, as well as a project resulting from a collaboration between Mi Mawai, Madzerokai – L’École Vivante Baniwa and L’Abri – Genève. Four original creations by pupils from classes in Geneva complete the whole.
Designed to be accessible to young publics, the exhibition is the result of two years’ work with two Genevan Harmos 9 classes. The content, designed to be comprehensible to visitors from 8 to 108, proposes several levels of interpretation for treating this complex subject.
Bibliography
[PDF 3.6 Mo]
Our sincerest thanks also go to all the collaborators and staff members of the MEG, whose involvement — whether direct or indirect — was essential to bringing the “The Future, what’s that ?” project to life.
Practical informations
Place 2nd basement
Schedule
Tuesday to Sunday
from 11:00 to 18:00
Public General public
Public Accessible to persons with reduced mobility
Age of target audience From 8 to 108 years
12 / 8 CHF
Free :
up to 25 years of age
1st Sunday of the month
