The Valencian traditional society has passed us down a whole wealth of culture enabling us to find out how people really lived in this part of the world: photographs, eyewitness accounts and items which constituted our way of living and understanding the world, documenting techniques, practices and ideological representations, everyday objects which speak to us about those who created and used them. Recovering these materials is one of the raisons d’être of the Museu Valencià d’Etnologia, set up by the Diputació de València (provincial authority) in 1982.

The Museum has a permanent exhibition, organized in five areas that define the relationship between people and the medium on which they operate: the city, the garden, the fen, the dry and the mountains. In all the fields and content objects are shown in relation to specific axes: living (domestic space) live (spaces for the meeting) and work (workplace).

The Museum also aspires to be a space for dialogue and spreading knowledge about the cultures of different parts of the world. Through its temporary programmes, the Museum gives us a closer look at aspects of global cultural diversity. The exhibitions, grouped in cycles such as the one on Africa: the Etnomúsica, Etnocuina and Etnocinema activity programmes, and the teaching workshops, help us to understand the thrilling journey leading from traditional cultures to present-day global interculturality.

The Museum carries out research programmes into ethnological heritage, publishes a magazine and two thematic collections of books, offers the services of a specialised library and cooperates with a large number of town councils in the recovery and diffusion of local heritage.

The headquarters of the Museum are in la Beneficència Culture Centre, in the city of València.