SEP Talks x International Geneva: the International Red Cross and Red Crescent Museum

Posted on March 20 2025

On March 13th, Pascal Hufschmid, the International Red Cross and Red Crescent Museum's Executive Director spent some quality time with our Community in Geneva, discussing the role of the Museum, its importance in the Swiss and Global framework, its challenges and its future.

" We are the only space in International Geneva where on one day we are giving an official tour to the President of Germany, and the following days we host a workshop for 5-year old kids, to have them think about humanitarian principles and how that can be relevant in their everyday life at school"

We all learnt something from this Talk, these are some of our takeaways:

The Museum was created in 1988 in Geneva and it serves as a testament to 160 years of humanitarian efforts worldwide. It hosts over 120,000 visitors per year, from all over the world, 25,000 of which are under 25. The Museum represents the legacy of the Red Cross founders and it keeps the Nobel Peace Prize which was awarded in 1901 to Henry Dunant and French pacifist Frédéric Passy.

"For most visitors, humanitarian action is a piece of news, which you hear or read about, something far away; there is nothing wrong with that, but the Museum is trying to fundamentally question the idea that it is someone else's issue, far away from us and has nothing to do with you": the collection is the backbone of the work carried out around the world since the 19th Century by the Red Cross and Red Crescent Movement. "Every object we keep has had a life in the field".

The exhibitions Pascal and his team curate are all thoroughly researched and polyphonic: from humanitarian photography to the current participatory artist residency with artist Zahrasadat Hakim, winner of the 10th Prix Art Humanité: Zahra will take over "L'Atelier," the Museum's new creative space, on March 4th. Until the summer, everyone is invited to join in free access and contribute to the creation of a tapestry.

They have just installed an incredible glass sculpture, "The People's Wall", a major donation, made and donated by world-renowned glass artists and designers, Monica Guggisberg and Philip Baldwin for the 100th anniversary of WW1, to celebrate that 100 years later we live in a multicultural society, that respects the great diversity of the identities that constitutes society and that we should do everything we can to preserve that:

To be a truly welcoming space for all visitors, the entire ground floor has been redesigned in 100% circular way: nothing, none of the materials used were "new". Everything was carefully unbuilt and rebuilt for new purposes or sourced second-hand around the site.

Every year the Museum addresses a big social theme. Among the latest was "gender and diversity" having the Museum become the first in Switzerland to be a Certified LGBTI employer.

Another incredible piece received this year is a sculpture of the Hiroshima tricycle, which belonged to a little boy who was playing with it, when the atomic bomb hit. His father buried the little boy with his tricycle and 40 years later donated the original object to the Hiroshima Peace Museum; 40 years later, 2 artists, one American and one Japanese, Cannon Hersey and Akira Fujimoto, created this sculpture, which is now presented in the entrance hall of the Red Cross Museum, as a way to remind people that behind war numbers, there are individual human beings and little boys who just want to play.

The Museum's budget is around 4.5m CHF per year, of which around 2m funded by the Swiss Federal Government (1.1m) and the Canton of Geneva and the rest through tickets, sales and private fundraising. One day in September 2024, Pascal Hufschmid and his team realised that the Federal subsidy was due to be cut as part of a series of cost-cutting measured (the Gaillard plan) which did not require a change in law.

To put the "missing 1.1m CHF" into context, the Museum spends 500k CHF a year to deliver the exhibitions, which enable them to sell tickets and another 500k CHF are invested every year to take care of the collection.

" We became vocal to explain that the consequences were asymmetrical: that for us it meant closure, it did not mean doing less. Even as a Swiss Citizen, I felt an urge to have a public debate on the consequences of an administrative decision that had already been enacted by the Federal Council".

Cost-cutting is not an option, for the above reasons and also because a small team of around 20 people only take care of a space of 4000 square meters and tens of thousands of visitors. The current funding takes the Museum to the end of 2026, after which, if no political solution is found, the Museum faces closure.

Two parliamentary motions to save the Museum have been adopted and many politicians across the whole political parties spectrum are expressing support, giving the Museum a political lifeline, but the struggle is just beginning. Every one of us can play a role by raising awareness, visiting the Museum and through advocacy with our local politicians.