If you’ve ever spent any time in a Swiss city, you’ve probably not been able to avoid noticing the omnipresence of things labeled ‘Migros’. I first got to know Migros as the slightly more affordable of the two major supermarket chains in Zurich (Coop being the other one), but groceries are just the tip of the iceberg at this retail giant. There are Migros department stores, Migros banks, Migros home-improvement stores (amusingly named ‘Do It’), and a Migros school.
The school is sort of like a community college, offering adult classes in a wide array of disciplines. I have taken Swiss German, Painting, and Inline Skating classes there. [NB: Those were 3 separate courses. Painting while inline skating would just be silly – almost as silly as wanting to speak Swiss German.]
This past weekend we explored yet another corner of the Migros empire: the Migros Museum of Contemporary Art. The museum shares a building with several independent art galleries, pretty much all of which are closed for summer vacation right now. The trip was more than worth it, though, for the museum’s current exhibit, a grouping of films, sculptures, and drawings by Icelandic artist Gabriela Friðriksdóttir. I can’t get the eerie, textural, dream-like films out of my head.
The Gabriela Friðriksdóttir exhibit, entitled Inside the Core, will be at the Migros Museum through August 13th. I highly recommend it.
Now if you’ll excuse me, I’m off to the Migros service desk to pick up the DVD player I brought in for repair… and then maybe I’ll do some grocery shopping while I’m there…
that actually sounds pretty cool. In Montreux, migros is the only grocery store but nothing more. so I took classes from other places beside migros (you add the type of store here).
Kind of cool actually!