In February the City of Lugano and the Federal Customs Administration signed the agreement that entrusted the management of the Swiss Customs Museum to the Lugano Museum of Cultures and objectives and development methods were defined for the next three years. The Customs Museum will continue to encourage an articulated reflection on local history, traditions and folklore to which the activity of the customs officer and border guard and their eternal counterpart: the smuggler is linked. But it will also be an open window on the issues of the economy and culture of the border. The development of cycles of art exhibitions on the theme of the border and of identities in comparison is one of the most innovative elements proposed by the Customs Museum. And «The island of the gods. Gotthard Schuh. Photos. Bali, 1938 »is the first temporary exhibition created specifically in this area.
Surprising installations and films in multiple languages transform a visit to the Swiss Customs Museum at the Cantine di Gandria into a unique experience for visitors of all ages. But what characterizes the Museum in a unique way is its location. A real architectural treasure, the building born as a border post is set in an environment that is in some respects still uncontaminated. It dominates, even symbolically, an extraordinary territory, of which it has been sentinel for almost two centuries: the "heart" of one of the great alpine lakes, in an area that is still miraculously secluded, reachable only by water or along a path that crosses the slopes of a wooded mountain. An environmental context that has no equal, not only in Switzerland. It should be noted that the Swiss Customs Museum is nominated for the European Museum Academy Award 2017.
