Museum Engiadinais: «Glüsch – life from not»

As the sun sets, the day draws to a close. The light of the sun gives way to dancing points of light behind the windows of the houses. Since ancient times, people have had a need to artificially illuminate the night. Starting this summer, the Engiadinais Museum is showing in a special exhibition how the local population illuminated their homes at night well into the 20th century. Like fire, light in the living room had to be tamed and cared for in a centuries-long struggle. The development ranges from pinewood, which burned down after just a few minutes of flickering, to foul-smelling tallow candles, which produced a lot of soot and whose wicks had to be trimmed several times an hour, to a creative variety of oil lamps and modern and luxuriously designed kerosene lamps. Long before the first electric lamps, there was an exciting relationship between people and artificial light.