In the museum’s storage rooms, visitors encounter written documents, everyday objects, artworks and audio recordings. Each item opens a window into a different world – into the kitchens of modern architecture, into embroidered moral messages on household textiles, or into family life in rural Austria during the First and Second World Wars. The focus lies on regional testimonies that are always embedded in broader historical and social contexts. In this way, personal stories are linked to global developments.

The collection not only includes everyday objects, documents and historical artefacts, but also artworks by women artists from different generations. A particular focus is on the extensive body of work by Anne Marie Jehle (1937–2000), an artist from Vorarlberg whose pieces engage critically and poetically with questions of identity, gender and society.

In addition, the collection features works of the feminist avant-garde as well as contemporary artistic positions that continue and expand upon this legacy. Together, they represent a wide spectrum of female artistic expression – from early feminist strategies to present-day explorations of body, space and self-determination.

Some objects are part of the museum’s permanent holdings. Others are included temporarily through what is known as the “dislocated collection”: they are entrusted to the museum by private individuals, researched, documented and later returned – enriched with knowledge, memories and appreciation. The objects remain part of the collection – even after they are physically returned – as documented and remembered testimonies. Their material traces become intangible components of the museum’s knowledge, expanding the understanding of what it means to collect and preserve. This creates a dynamic and open collection system that does not merely store history but keeps it in motion.

Certain highlights give the collection its distinctive character: an original Frankfurter Küche, a comprehensive set of hand-embroidered motto cloths with moral appeals and gendered role expectations, and the estate of a family from Hittisau that offers insights into women’s lives between 1900 and the 1960s.

In addition, the collection includes numerous oral history interviews. Women speak about topics such as housing and care work, the development of the regional women’s movement, or their childhood during the Second World War. While the audio recordings are not publicly available for legal reasons, their metadata provides insights into the thematic diversity of the collection.

The collection continues to grow and serves as a foundation for research-based exhibitions, educational programmes and artistic projects. Through its inclusion in the Kulturpool, key holdings are now being made accessible to the public for the first time – allowing the stories they carry to reach far beyond the museum’s walls.