The Ethnographic Museum of La Gomera
Vision and mission
The MEG is a public institution dedicated to researching, conserving and disseminating the island’s popular culture.
The museum aims to avoid the clichéd vision of nostalgia for the past that people sometimes have of popular culture. The centre is a means to revive our customs and behaviour, to make any visitor reflect on our social reality, on our recent past (the museum’s narrative focuses mainly on the 20th century).
This is not a museum where only artefacts are exhibited, here an infinite number of aspects are important, which together make up a large part of the island’s cultural heritage; at the same time they are a reservoir of information and a reference for the future development of our society.
History
The initiative for the creation of this centre dates back to the 1970’s from the idea suggested by Juan Francisco Navarro Mederos (lecturer in the Department of Archaeology, Prehistory and Ancient History at the ULL) and Virgilio Brito García (resident of Hermigua, Island Delegate for Culture of the Island Council and scholar of the island’s popular traditions). At that time, the need to create an Archaeological and Ethnographic Museum or Museum of the History of the island was raised. This idea gained momentum when, in 1979, Virgilio Brito offered his private collection of ethnographic and archaeological pieces.
Located in the neighbourhood of Las Hoyetas, in the municipality of Hermigua, the original building where the museum is today is a two-storey building, built in the first quarter of the 20th century, which from the beginning was used for municipal functions. Over the years, its uses varied from municipal fundraising events to rehearsal rooms for local musical groups. Meanwhile, the ground floor housed for a time the Virgilio Brito collection, the starting point for the creation of the museum.
On 20th April 2007, the Ethnographic Museum of La Gomera opened its doors, after the building was refurbished to provide it with the spatial functionality that a museum space requires.
