WHAT’S NEW? REVISITING NEW MUSEOLOGY 30 YEARS LATER
John Michael Rysbrack, "Thuner", Victoria and Albert Museum, fot. Stephencdickson, CC BY-SA 4.0
WHAT’S NEW? REVISITING NEW MUSEOLOGY 30 YEARS LATER
Publikacja „The New Museology” zredagowana przez Petera Vergo i wydana w 1989 roku uruchomiła szereg dyskusji wokół instytucji muzeum oraz długotrwały proces przemian, które miały na celu jej zreformowanie. Teksty zgromadzone w opracowaniu obejmowały między innymi teorie przedmiotu i strategii jego wystawiania, tematykę odbiorców muzeum, a także kontekstów funkcjonowania instytucji oraz zależności wpływających na jej program. Artykuły te wspólnie tworzyły apel o muzeum będące ważnym społecznie miejscem, podejmującym istotne dla społeczności kwestie, skierowanym (również) do osób dotychczas wykluczonych.
30 lat po ogłoszeniu idei nowej muzeologii w świecie anglosaskim chcemy dokonać rewizji jej założeń - zapytać o te, które udało się osiągnąć, jak i te wciąż wymagające aktywnych starań. Być może część z zadań stawianych przed praktykami i teoretykami muzealnictwa straciła na aktualności, z pewnością pojawiły się również nowe palące kwestie. Istotna jest również kwestia lokalnych uwarunkowań przemian muzeów nie tylko w dotychczasowych centrach politycznych świata, ale i poza nimi. Pytanie o nową muzeologię stanowi więc swoisty pretekst do analiz współczesnych instytucji muzealnych.
Zapraszamy na międzynarodową konferencję naukową What’s new? Revisiting new museology 30 years later, organizowaną przez Instytut Etnologii i Antropologii Kulturowej Uniwersytetu Jagiellońskiego, Instytut Historii Sztuki Uniwersytetu Jagiellońskiego oraz Muzeum Narodowe w Krakowie w dniach 20-21.11.2019 w Krakowie.
Udział bierny w konferencji jest bezpłatny. Językiem wystąpień jest angielski.
Jako zaproszony gość wygłosi wykład Nick Merriman, dyrektor Horniman Museum w Londynie. Jest on również profesorem muzeologii na Uniwersytecie w Manchesterze, wcześniej pracował w Museum of London i był dyrektorem Manchester Museum. Profesor Merriman uczestniczył w 1989 roku w publikacji „The New Museology”.
PROGRAM KONFERENCJI
20 listopada, 2019 (środa)
Miejsce: Muzeum Narodowe w Krakowie, sala “U Samurajów”
9.00 Rejestracja uczestników
9.30 Przywitanie
10.00-11.00 Sesja 1: What frames museum?
10.00 Nikola Krstović, PhD (Cathedra for Museology and Heritology, University of Belgrade), Lost in past, stuck in contemporaneity. New Museology vs. museology of News
10.20 Beata Turek (Jagiellonian University / Museum of the Masovian Countryside in Sierpc), We do NOT need anything NEW
10.40 Paulina Paga (Museum of Housing Estates), Museum as format for agonistic practices
11.00 Dyskusja
11.20-11:40 Przerwa kawowa
11.40-13.40 Sesja 2: Who is the public?
11.40 Przemysław Kisiel, PhD (Department of Sociology Cracow University of Economics), Expectations of a young audience to the contemporary museum of art
12.00 Renata Pater, PhD (Institute of Education Jagiellonian University), Museum and Education in the 21st century. What has changed in Poland?
12.20 Sara Herczyńska (University of Warsaw), The tour guide in the museum
12.40 Marianna Otmianowska (The Royal Łazienki Museum in Warsaw / Cardinal Stefan Wyszyński University in Warsaw), Social responsibility of museum education. Research directions
13.00 Dyskusja
13.20-14.10 Przerwa obiadowa
14.10-15.50 Sesja 3: What does the collection evoke? (1)
14.10 Anna Manicka, PhD (National Museum in Warsaw), Social responsibility of the contemporary museums in the context of the collections of the foreign artists
14.30 Karolina Echaust (Institute of Ethnology and Cultural Anthropology Adam Mickiewicz University in Poznań / National Museum of Agriculture and Food Industry in Szreniawa), Apiculture collections of the National Museum of Agriculture and Food Industry in Szreniawa in the context of environmental anthropology
14.50 Prosper Mutero (Central European University in Budapest), On the African definition of Mortuary Heritage
15.10 Karolina Radłowska, PhD (Department of Sociology of Culture University of Białystok), Ethnicity in Polish museums. The example of Podlaskie Voivodship
15.30 Dyskusja
15.50-16.10 Przerwa kawowa
16.10-16.30 Rozgrzewka – warsztaty / performans, Maja Luxenberg
16.30-17.50 Sesja 4: What does the collection evoke? (2)
16.30 Magdalena Zych (Ethnographic Museum in Kraków), Fieldwork Museology. The new approach towards collections
16.50 Magdalena Wróblewska, PhD (Museum of Warsaw / University of Warsaw), New materialism and return to things in a museum: a case of "Things of Warsaw" exhibition
17.10 Łukasz Bukowiecki, PhD (Institute of Sociology University of Warsaw), Self-critique, return to things and museum revival. The case of the Museum of Warsaw
17.30 Dyskusja
18.00 Wykład: 30 years after 'The New Museology': What has changed?
Nick Merriman (Dyrektor Muzeum Horniman, Londyn)
20:00 Kolacja
21 listopada, 2019 (czwartek)
Miejsce: Muzeum Narodowe w Krakowie, sala “U Samurajów”
9.00-10.20 Sesja 1: What is new in new media?
9.00 Gabriela Manista (Faculty of Journalism, Information and Book Studies University of Warsaw), Multimedias in museum - worth looking or time consuming?
9.20 Zuzanna Stańska, A place called museum - can traditional museums benefit from places like Museum of Ice Cream?
9.40 Ewa Drygalska, PhD (Polish-Japanese Academy of Information Technology / The Fryderyk Chopin Museum in Warsaw), From visitor to user - rethinking audiences when designing for the museum visitors
10.00 Dyskusja
10.20-10.40 Coffee break
10.40-12.00 Sesja 2: What is the museum responsibility? (1)
10.40 Curatorial Collective, Case study: curating a university as a maternity unit
11.00 Alicja Głuszek, PhD, Something old, something new, something borrowed, something blue - Mexican museums during the democratization and liberalization
11.20 Zuzanna Schnepf-Kołacz (POLIN Museum of the History of Polish Jews), Museum in the Process of Building a Social Partnership in the Contemporary City: the Waliców Case
11.40 Discusson
12.00-13.20 Sesja 3: What is the museum responsibility? (2)
12.00 Weronika Pokojska (Jagiellonian University), Corporate museums. Between marketing and responsibility
12.20 Katarzyna Jagodzińska, PhD (Jagiellonian University), Melania Tutak (Podgórze Museum), The Responsibility of Museums Towards Landscape: Discussion based on case studies from Katowice, Kraków and Warsaw
12.40 Mary Bouquet, PhD (University College Utrecht), Making Journeys: modular and mobile in the age of museum renovation
13.00 Dyskusja
13.20-15.00 Przerwa obiadowa
15.00 -17:00 Museum activism in practice: Caring for Jewish culture in a Polish ethnographic museum today, workshop, Magdalena Zych (Ethnographic Museum in Kraków), Erica Lehrer, PhD (History Department, Concordia University, Montreal), and FestivALT (a local Jewish arts collective)
17:30 Book promotion: Diversifying the National„ We”: Curatorial Dreams. (Eds.) Roma Sendyka and Erica Lehrer. Kraków: Jagiellonian University Press, 2019. Roma Sendyka (Jagiellonian University) will lead a discussion with Erica Lehrer (Concordia University), Magdalena Zych (Kraków Ethnographic Museum), and Magda Rubenfeld Koralewska (FestivALT) on new critical approaches to heritage in national museums.
ABSTRAKTY
Nikola Krstović, PhD (Cathedra for Museology and Heritology, University of Belgrade), Lost in past, stuck in contemporaneity. New Museology Vs. museology of News
Starting from Greenaway-ish position in Rembrandt`s: J`accuse, one could ask if Vergo is “guilty of stealing or colonizing” the new museology for the sake of collective memory consumerism. Translating the translations of what behind-the-Iron-curtain thinkers were delivering from intellectual laboratories (not from or for ideologically formatted museums) since 1960s was the “extreme makeover” of original ideas. Recalling the Smith`s (2006), Groys` (2009) or Osborne`s (2013) notion of contemporaneity, new museology is very contemporary, yet far from being novelty (or nouvelle as Riviere or Varine thought during 1970s). On the other side, in the obvious tensions generated by the ICOM proposal of new museum definition or recent introduction of the Extended museum concept (2017 Conference in Poland), new museology (and ecomuseum as its operating model) is occupying the central position in the recent debates. Museums, museological laboratories – as new museology tends to think, are hovering over the present hot-spot social and natural issues aiming to provide better future and hope for communities. And, as Solnit (Hope in the Dark, 2004) pointed out “the hope is ability to work for something because it is good, not just because it stands a chance to succeed”. The question is whether new or some newer museology is still the source of hope for not just the museums but heritage in general?
Beata Turek (Jagiellonian University / Museum of the Masovian Countryside in Sierpc), We do NOT need anything NEW
“Fear of changes” is like the umbrella which cover the problems of appling the cultural management solutions, adapting new models of creating and promoting the cultural offer, answering for the trends or even the need of profiling the audience. The presentation is about the opposition met from “old generation of museum professionals” and the ideas how to abolish that wall not killing your willingness to act, motivations and ambitions.
Paulina Paga (Museum of Housing Estates), Museum as format for agonistic practices
MoM Museum of Housing Estates (Muzeum Osiedli Mieszkaniowych) is a grassroots initiative of inhabitants from Lublin Housing Cooperative. It treats Lublin housing estates from the 1950s, 1960s, and 1970s as a common identity basis for four generations of city residents.
The museum is located in a pavilion designed by Zofia and Oskar Hansen in direct relation to Słowacki Housing Estate (Osiedle Słowackiego). It is a museum object at a scale of 1:1. In a non-invasive way, it’s been placed into the local context, building a relationship with the environment around. The map of Lublin Housing Cooperative estates becomes its natural extension and a field for dialogue. Entire collection had grown from the object brought by the residents and quotes from the interviews or interactions.
The museum embraces social tensions, gives consent to coexistence of conflicts in expressing visions and values as well as in assessments of the last century. We create a framework for collection to present co-existing contradictions.
Przemysław Kisiel, PhD (Department of Sociology Cracow University of Economics), Expectations of a young audience to the contemporary museum of art
The aim of presentation is a sociological analysis of the way of perception of art museum institutions by young visitors. The results of the analysis allow to know their expectations towards museum institutions. This problem is a very interesting because young visitors, representatives of millennial generation, participate in social and cultural life in different way than representatives of previous generations. This problem is also very important, because just millennials will decide about the fate of this kind of institution in not far future.
The analysis of the perception of museum institutions will be based on the results of an empirical study, carried out among high school students (17-19 years). The main areas of interest in this study were both preferences in the style of visiting museum exhibitions, opinions of respondents about exhibition being visited, as well as expectations regarding changes in the formula of presenting art in the museum space.
Renata Pater, PhD (Institute of Education Jagiellonian University), Museum and Education in the 21st century. What has changed in Poland?
The subject of the research presented here is the content of the definitional terms, categories and concepts relating to museum and education in the historiography of the topic. The article is a review that provides an analysis of selected papers on museum education, surveying the categories, terminology and definitions proposed by Polish researchers in the context of socio-cultural changes in Poland and museology in the last 30 years. The study also involved looking at museum websites to review the descriptive terms, concepts and categories used in the sections relating to a museum’s educational activities, and itervie. The analyzes also used interviews conducted in recent years with museum employees, educators and museum animators. The work is partly a result of the experience of the author practice. The cultural contexts of changes museum and education are significant and influential in the quality of the services provided in polish museums.
Sara Herczyńska (University of Warsaw), The tour guide in the museum
Guides are crucial elements of the ecosystem of a museum – they give meanings to objects and act as facilitators between the museum and the visitors. Sometimes they help visitors to see the exposition as a linear story with a clear narrative and sometimes they disturb this narrative with their approach, allowing different voices and interpretations. This role is particularly interesting in the context of national heritage and the ways it is socially constructed. At the same time guides often seem invisible – easy to forget facilitators, whose bodies seem transparent in comparison with the objects on display at the exhibition. In my presentation I will use both my academic research in the field of biographical museums and my experience as a tour guide in a gallery. I will also speak about using the position of the guide as a research strategy for an academic purpose.
Marianna Otmianowska (The Royal Łazienki Museum in Warsaw / Cardinal Stefan Wyszyński University in Warsaw), Social responsibility of museum education. Research directions
Noticeable changes which take place in museums allow to draw attention to a definite turn towards the audience. The inclusiveness of educational activity which results from the transition from passive to activating cooperation methods causes an increasingly common in museology educational turn. The presentation is an attempt to present the research perspective undertaken by the speaker. This kind of approach will consequently help conclude the use of museums in order to change a society. It will also mention the role and place of education departments in the museum structure, in the processes which take place in the institution and in the offer addressed to recipients, and finally their contribution to building the image of the museum. The discourse, in which one of the party is museum education, is important both from the internal perspective of the institution and from the visitors’ point of view. In this context, the definition of social responsibility should be considered in at least two meanings: it should be looked at from the perspective of management organization as well as being analysed from a sociological perspective, in order to try to find a balance while taking social issues into account in museum strategies.
Warm-up workshop / performance Maja Luxenberg
Anna Manicka, PhD (National Museum in Warsaw), Social responsibility of the contemporary museums in the context of the collections of the foreign artists
Social responsibility of the museums manifests itself in the numerous multi-track activities practiced throughout a long time. Museums create collections which respond to the needs of different visitors, among them people of the different nationalities. Awareness of the need of creating of such collections came from the new museology. But generally the collections of the foreign artists in Polish collections are totally random, what means that they are incomplete, not representative, and sometimes of a low artistic value. Collection the Department of Contemporary Prints and Drawings in the National Museum in Warsaw is random, caused by the political events in the former epoch and- important artistic events like Cracow International Biennial of Prints. Paradoxically after so many years it appears that some random messages can be read and accepted in the future while using the nationalistic key. The good example of such situation is collection of the Chinese drawings (Indian ink) or the collection of the Mexican woodcuts form the 50’s in National Museum in Warsaw.
Karolina Echaust (Institute of Ethnology and Cultural Anthropology Adam Mickiewicz University in Poznań / National Museum of Agriculture and Food Industry in Szreniawa), Apiculture collections of the National Museum of Agriculture and Food Industry in Szreniawa in the context of environmental anthropology
The National Museum of Agriculture and Food Industry in Szreniawa has in its collections an extensive collection of apiculture exhibits. The permanent exhibition was opened to the public in 1994. The exhibition is divided into three sections: history of Medieval forest beekeeping, modern era beekeeping and present beekeeping and presented in the exhibition pavilion and at the open-air exhibition. As a cultural anthropologist, museum assistant and doctoral student, preparing a dissertation on forest beekeeping in the context of environmental anthropology, in my daily activities undertaking dialogue and narration with the museum visitors. I present the issue of pollinating insect protection on the case of a honey bee. Contemporary museums as part of European history and traditions are aware of the activities for the community and forming cultural ties with the museum. In times of Anthropocene when the life and future of pollinating insects, in the case of a honey bee is endangered (the phenomenon of mass disappearance of the honey bee Colony Collapse Disorder, CCD), it is reasonable to consider educational activities related to the protection of bee resources and biodiversity. My activity as a museum assistant is manifested in everyday contact with the museum visitor. Not only historical knowledge is important for visitors because visitors are increasingly interested in current issues of pollinating insects protection, including honey bees. As a museum assistant I meet the demanding museum viewer and include in my activities moving on many levels of apiculture education.
My presentation will concern educational and animating activities that I undertake in my everyday work at the National Museum of Agriculture and Food Industry in Szreniawa. On the example of my museum activities I will discuss educational projects regarding the protection of bees and other pollinating insects. My presentation will be enriched with illustrative material from the classes that I have conducted so far in the museum and I will also use examples of good socio-cultural practices (museum lessons, seminars, workshops, meetings with the viewer, acting as a guide, educator, scientist) gathered around widely understood educational activities in the context of the protection of pollinating insects as well as the cultural and natural heritage of the Polish forest beekeepers and beekeepers.
Prosper Mutero (Central European University in Budapest), On the African definition of Mortuary Heritage
The repatriation of the human remains by the formerly colonized has been in the focus of attention for the recent years. The remains of their ancestors were collected by the colonizers either as evidence of the conquest or as objects of research. Based on the academic discussions on issues of repatriation and the museum curation of the remains of the dead, however, it might appear that mortuary heritage is only represented by human bones. However, objects placed in the graves to take care of the ancestors in the afterlife as well as their venerated objects in the present life can also be considered as part of the mortuary heritage in an African context, since they belong to the sacred sphere. While museums would like to have these objects for display and research, local communities has often taken this to be the dehumanization of the dead. This paper seeks to widen the academic understanding of what mortuary heritage is by giving an ‘African definition’ of the concept. Bringing case studies from Southern Africa, both the tangible and the intangible aspects of mortuary heritage will be discussed: various types of burial goods, the orientation of the burials and its significance, the ritualization of the dead’s possessions and the rituals associated with the dead.
Karolina Radłowska, PhD (Department of Sociology of Culture University of Bialystok), Ethnicity in Polish museums. The example of Podlaskie Voivodship
The importance of ethnic issues in museums finds its strong theoretical grounding in the assumptions of the New Museology. The thesis of this paradigm have revealed the significance of the museum as a classification system on the one hand, and their role to play in solving important social problems on the other. The aim of the presentation is to show how the ethnic issues are implemented by Polish museums. I will show it on the example of selected museums located in Podlaskie Voivodeship. It is both a borderland area and one of the most ethnically diverse areas in Poland.
Magdalena Zych (Ethnographic Museum in Kraków), Fieldwork Museology. The new approach towards collections
The museum collections as a tool of human relations require an approach which would make them useful and important to understand the contemporary world. Based on the case studies analyzed from the anthropological perspective, I will present the methodology and practice of the idea which I called the fieldwork museology. The main example will be the result of 3-years research project (2016-2019) dedicated to XIX-century Siberian collection from the Ethnographic Museum in Kraków, which includes objects gathered by political prisoners, scientists and travelers. I want to discuss how contemporary knowledge of many local experts (such as reindeer herders, whale hunters, museum staff or donor families) can help in understanding the unique connections between the past and the future of such heritage and its consequences in our life.
The starting point for the idea of the fieldwork museology is the problem of the gap between theory of museums developed in global context and the daily curatorial and keeper activity realized in local environments. The very local level of museum practices tells us the story of many dependencies. For example, the source communities, the museum neighborhood, the museums owners or the academic public, all of them require particular attention, communication and offer. The basis for all activities directed to these different groups of audience is the museum collection. The fieldwork museology is the attempt to create a space for common understanding of the agency of such heritage as museum collection and its consequences.
Magdalena Wróblewska, PhD (Museum of Warsaw / University of Warsaw), New materialism and return to things in a museum: a case of "Things of Warsaw" exhibition
New core exhibition of Museum of Warsaw is called „Things of Warsaw” and its concept is very rigorous: only objects from the Museum’s collections can be displayed. In the era of scenographic and new media based exhibitions, curators decided to return to the roots by presenting things in twenty-three thematic rooms. There are no screens, no multimedia tools and no projections added, just objects displayed on walls, pedestals, in vitrines and cabinets. There is no big narrative referring to the history of the city or the nation that could organise these objects, but only micro-stories of chosen things which were part of past events.
This approach may seem traditional or conservative, but in the context of museum boom in Warsaw (and Poland) is rather a radical and provocative statement. It is intentionally created as opposite to new institutions which turns to immaterial history, based on new media or reconstruction strategy. While The Warsaw Rising Museum, POLIN Jewish Museum or Katyń Museum are engaged in historical policy, Museum of Warsaw exhibition is rising questions about the relation between object and the narration of history, about material conditions of heritage, the definition and limits of museum institution, but also its mission and obligation.
Łukasz Bukowiecki, PhD (Institute of Sociology University of Warsaw), Self-critique, return to things and museum revival. The case of the Museum of Warsaw
In the mid-2010s the Museum of Warsaw implemented Bjørnar Olsen’s concept of a return to things to its curatorial practices and since that it has developed the idea of The Things of Warsaw as theme of the museum’s new core exhibition (opened in 2017–2018) and as a way of rethinking, reviewing and revaluation of its huge collections of ca. 300.000 museum objects. All loans from other museums, as well as any replicas, models, dioramas or elements of illusionistic scenography, were rejected from the exhibition. At the same time the old-fashioned, single, linear, chronological museum narrative was replaced by a multi-layered, multi-threaded representation of the city past through ca. 7.000 things divided into 21 thematic rooms. According to curators, this radical attempt to come back to the historical collections of the museum and, in general, to the roots of museology (cabinets of curiosities) was intentionally also a gesture against a growing dominance of a model of historical narrative museum in Poland and a counter-proposal to attractiveness of such museums, based on multimedia content and interactive technologies. However, this critical and self-reflexive approach had it limits, as the museum did not share its authority with the public while preparing the exhibition.
Gabriela Manista (Faculty of Journalism, Information and Book Studies University of Warsaw), Multimedias in museum - worth looking or time consuming?
Nowadays, new technology is an active part of museum’s communication strategy. Its main impact is in the creation of new visitation paths for every type of the audience. Promoting accessibility allows that everyone can experience the museum, regardless of their cognitive level. On the other hand, multimedias can cause multiple problems. One of them is the time which is important factor during the one’s visit. The aim of this presentation is to investigate time consuming structures based on new medias used in museums. The research design for this study was an initial analysis of the data collected in chosen museums. The presentation
should lead to the conclusion of how the new path for visitors may be created in the most efficient way.
Zuzanna Stańska, A place called museum - can traditional museums benefit from places like Museum of Ice Cream?
2019 was the year of the ICOM’s proposal for the new definition of the term “museum” which caused much controversy. At the same time, places calling themselves museums become hugely popular. But should they call themselves that? Institutions like Museum of Ice Cream or Museum of Pizza are the perfect examples of the experience economy. Designed for bringing fun are fully and only focused on their audiences’ needs. Should traditional museums follow that examples? What can they learn from them?
Ewa Drygalska, PhD (Polish-Japanese Academy of Information Technology / The Fryderyk Chopin Museum in Warsaw), From visitor to user - rethinking audiences when designing for the museum visitors
Our daily life is mediated by the technology: we spend about 10 hour daily in front of the screen, an average person uses internet for 170 minutes, or in case of the generation Z the line between online and offline blurres, and we are always already available. Our experiences, habits, expectations, customs, cognitive abilities, hopes are all shaped by the user experience with media, services and technology. We are all users. We bring our user experience to the museum while visiting the exhibition, while browsing online collections and interacting with museum social media. Taking this under consideration, not only the definition of museum needs redefinition but also the notion of the individual visitor and audiences. We can ask a question whether the concept of an audience: historically emerged from the media theory and mass media studies is still adequate and relevant today? Understanding the concept of the user is crucial to understand the contemporary visitor, to be able to design, build and create for it. I will discuss various historical conceptualization of the user and how and when it intermingles with the traditional audience.
Curatorial Collective
Case study: curating a university as a maternity unit
In Polish home university is called ‘maternal unit’. The impulse for Matrix project came from an observation, that there were few representations of women in Jagiellonian University Museum. We decided to use Bracha Ettinger’s matrix theory as a background for a curatorial event, which main goal was to create alternative visual and textual narratives that made women at the universities and high schools visible: as scholars, graduates, workers, students and historical characters. The aim was to rethink the structure of a university and reshape it in a maternal way: more caring, less competitive, more relational.
The main goal of the paper is to outline outcomes and considerations of the curatorial Matrix project, organized by Curatorial Collective, a non-hierarchical group of scholars based at The Faculty of Polish Studies of the Jagiellonian University. The event took place in Jagiellonian University Museum during Cracow Gallery Weekend (2018) as a pop-up museum lasting 3 hours. As it was thought as a democratic event, it started with a call for papers for artists and academics who were invited to interfere with the space of the rather traditional museum: perform an action or place an object that changes the nets of relations between artefacts.
Alicja Głuszek, PhD, Something old, something new, something borrowed, something blue – Mexican museums during the democratization and liberalization
The presentation focuses on the influence of political and economic transformation in the last forty years on museums in Mexico City. In particular it analyses the financing, programming, and outreach of museums during the time of instability and change in federal and local government as well in new neoliberal, globalized economy.
It points out how the old institutions like Museo de Antropologia or Museo de Arte Moderno, new museums like Soumaya, Jumex, MUAC, and blue one Casa Azul compete, adapt, survive and thrive in the new settings.
Zuzanna Schnepf-Kołacz (POLIN Museum of the History of Polish Jews)
Museum in the Process of Building a Social Partnership in the Contemporary City. The Waliców Case
The three buildings on Waliców Street in Warsaw bear the DNA of the prewar un-existing city. They survived the ghetto, the Warsaw Uprising and postwar demolition. For many years these buildings were abandoned and neglected in terms of their heritage. Despite the lack of the official acknowledgement, Waliców has inspired many grassroots initiatives to commemorate it’s history undertaken by artists, local activists and residents.
Architects Guido Morpurgo and Annalisa de Curtis launched “The Waliców Project” at the Politecnico di Milano. The POLIN Museum in cooperation with the Italian professors has started to bring the subject of the Waliców to the wider public discussion, inviting authorities of Warsaw, urban activists, residents, architects and historians to take part in it. An international team of experts from various fields was asked by POLIN to develop and jot down ideas concerning the future of Waliców. Those proposals were hand over to the authorities of Warsaw which declared to be interested in building a social partnership for Waliców.
In my paper I focus on the social role of the Museum as an actor and facilitator of the process of regaining the memory and identity of the Waliców place. At the same time I analyze POLIN’s participation in the urban activism in the context of the “extended museum” ICOM’s idea, related to the impact which museums have, how they react to the urban landscape that surrounds them and their responsibility for that.
Weronika Pokojska (Jagiellonian University)
Corporate museums. Between marketing and responsibility
The presentation will be devoted to the subject of corporate heritage and in particular corporate museums. Corporate museums have in recent decades become the basic tool for managing their own heritage for many enterprises. On the one hand, they allow to use own history in building a brand, on the other, they require the implementation of the assumptions of social responsibility for historical truth. Today, there is also a question of the sustainability of this type of objects and the future of corporate heritage itself in the context of the functioning of e.g. global enterprises. In the presentation the theoretical framework for this issue will be characterized and concrete examples of such institutions will be presented.
Katarzyna Jagodzińska, PhD (Jagiellonian University), Melania Tutak (Podgórze Museum),
The Responsibility of Museums Towards Landscape: Discussion based on case studies from Katowice, Kraków and Warsaw
According to the Resolution no 1 adopted by the ICOM's General Assembly in 2016 “Museums have a particular responsibility towards the landscape that surrounds them, urban or rural.” And thus they should “manage buildings and sites of cultural landscape as ‘extended museums’, offering enhanced protection and accessibility to such heritage in closed relationship with communities.” This document is in line with discussions on socio-economic roles and responsibilities of museums that have been continuously held at least from 1980s.
In a paper we will discuss responsibility of museums for their vicinity, making references to four Polish case studies that could be considered as model: Muzeum Śląskie in Katowice, Podgórze Museum and Ethnographic Museum in Krakow, and the Museum of King Jan III's Palace at Wilanów. These museums are no longer quiet observers of changes taking place behind museum walls and fences, and they started to act to protect their context.
We will talk about:
Mary Bouquet, PhD (University College Utrecht)
Making Journeys: modular and mobile in the age of museum renovation
Renovation has become a favoured pathway to making museums into public-friendly, if not socially relevant, places. This means that museums are often closed, sometimes for years, in order to improve their public facilities. Utrecht University Museum was closed for renovation when the exhibition ‘Journeys into Diversity’ was to open. This exhibition was one of the outcomes of a two- year project on everyday experiences of diversity in education, taking the case of Utrecht University’s InclUUsion programme.
Incluusion enables people “on hold” in AZCs to participate in university courses. The project ‘Making Journeys’ engineered a third space to explore - through writing, photography, drawing, painting, and film – things that could not be broached within the limited time and space of the classroom. The paper describes what was made and how it was conceptualized, designed, and produced as an exhibition.
The exhibition was shown twice in public spaces of the university, and used for workshops for colleagues and students. Students of Computer Science designed a website and an app. The paper will discuss what was learned – about the role of the university in broader society; and about value and sustainability in the age of museum renovation.
Workshop: Museum Activism In Practice: Caring for Jewish Culture in a Polish Ethnographic Museum Today
In this workshop, conference participants explore tensions around and new approaches to Jewish materials in the permanent exhibition of the Kraków Ethnographic Museum. The experimental investigation will be facilitated by curator Magdalena Zych, museum scholar-activist Erica Lehrer, and local Jewish arts organization FestivALT.
The number of participants is limited. Please sign-up at registration if you would like to attend the workshop.
ORGANIZATORZY
Instytut Etnologii i Antropologii Kulturowej Uniwersytetu Jagiellońskiego
Instytut Historii Sztuki Uniwersytetu Jagiellońskiego
Muzeum Narodowe w Krakowie
KOMITET ORGANIZACYJNY
dr Dorota Jędruch, Instytut Historii Sztuki Uniwersytetu Jagiellońskiego
dr Katarzyna Maniak, Instytut Etnologii i Antropologii Kulturowej Uniwersytetu Jagiellońskiego
Filip Skowron, Muzeum Narodowe w Krakowie
KOMITET NAUKOWY
prof. Jan Święch, Dziekan Wydziału Historycznego Uniwersytetu Jagiellońskiego - przewodniczący
prof. dr hab. Wojciech Bałus, Instytut Historii Sztuki Uniwersytetu Jagiellońskiego
prof. Janusz Barański, Instytut Etnologii i Antropologii Kulturowej Uniwersytetu Jagiellońskiego
dr hab. Andrzej Betlej, Muzeum Narodowe w Krakowie / Instytut Historii Sztuki Uniwersytetu Jagiellońskiego
dr hab. Łukasz Gaweł, Muzeum Narodowe w Krakowie / Instytut Kultury Uniwersytetu Jagiellońskiego
Alicja Knast, Muzeum Śląskie w Katowicach
dr hab. Piotr Majewski, prof. UKSW, Narodowy Instytut Muzealnictwa i Ochrony Zbiorów
Michał Niezabitowski, Stowarzyszenie Muzealników Polskich
dr Piotr Rypson, Polski Komitet Narodowy ICOM
PATRONAT
Polski Komitet Narodowy ICOM
Narodowy Instytut Muzealnictwa i Ochrony Zbiorów
Zapraszamy na międzynarodową konferencję naukową What’s new? Revisiting new museology 30 years later, organizowaną przez Instytut Etnologii i Antropologii Kulturowej Uniwersytetu Jagiellońskiego, Instytut Historii Sztuki Uniwersytetu Jagiellońskiego oraz Muzeum Narodowe w Krakowie w dniach 20-21.11.2019 w Krakowie.
Udział bierny w konferencji jest bezpłatny. Językiem wystąpień jest angielski.
Jako zaproszony gość wygłosi wykład Nick Merriman, dyrektor Horniman Museum w Londynie. Jest on również profesorem muzeologii na Uniwersytecie w Manchesterze, wcześniej pracował w Museum of London i był dyrektorem Manchester Museum. Profesor Merriman uczestniczył w 1989 roku w publikacji „The New Museology”.
PROGRAM KONFERENCJI
20 listopada, 2019 (środa)
Miejsce: Muzeum Narodowe w Krakowie, sala “U Samurajów”
9.00 Rejestracja uczestników
9.30 Przywitanie
10.00-11.00 Sesja 1: What frames museum?
10.00 Nikola Krstović, PhD (Cathedra for Museology and Heritology, University of Belgrade), Lost in past, stuck in contemporaneity. New Museology vs. museology of News
10.20 Beata Turek (Jagiellonian University / Museum of the Masovian Countryside in Sierpc), We do NOT need anything NEW
10.40 Paulina Paga (Museum of Housing Estates), Museum as format for agonistic practices
11.00 Dyskusja
11.20-11:40 Przerwa kawowa
11.40-13.40 Sesja 2: Who is the public?
11.40 Przemysław Kisiel, PhD (Department of Sociology Cracow University of Economics), Expectations of a young audience to the contemporary museum of art
12.00 Renata Pater, PhD (Institute of Education Jagiellonian University), Museum and Education in the 21st century. What has changed in Poland?
12.20 Sara Herczyńska (University of Warsaw), The tour guide in the museum
12.40 Marianna Otmianowska (The Royal Łazienki Museum in Warsaw / Cardinal Stefan Wyszyński University in Warsaw), Social responsibility of museum education. Research directions
13.00 Dyskusja
13.20-14.10 Przerwa obiadowa
14.10-15.50 Sesja 3: What does the collection evoke? (1)
14.10 Anna Manicka, PhD (National Museum in Warsaw), Social responsibility of the contemporary museums in the context of the collections of the foreign artists
14.30 Karolina Echaust (Institute of Ethnology and Cultural Anthropology Adam Mickiewicz University in Poznań / National Museum of Agriculture and Food Industry in Szreniawa), Apiculture collections of the National Museum of Agriculture and Food Industry in Szreniawa in the context of environmental anthropology
14.50 Prosper Mutero (Central European University in Budapest), On the African definition of Mortuary Heritage
15.10 Karolina Radłowska, PhD (Department of Sociology of Culture University of Białystok), Ethnicity in Polish museums. The example of Podlaskie Voivodship
15.30 Dyskusja
15.50-16.10 Przerwa kawowa
16.10-16.30 Rozgrzewka – warsztaty / performans, Maja Luxenberg
16.30-17.50 Sesja 4: What does the collection evoke? (2)
16.30 Magdalena Zych (Ethnographic Museum in Kraków), Fieldwork Museology. The new approach towards collections
16.50 Magdalena Wróblewska, PhD (Museum of Warsaw / University of Warsaw), New materialism and return to things in a museum: a case of "Things of Warsaw" exhibition
17.10 Łukasz Bukowiecki, PhD (Institute of Sociology University of Warsaw), Self-critique, return to things and museum revival. The case of the Museum of Warsaw
17.30 Dyskusja
18.00 Wykład: 30 years after 'The New Museology': What has changed?
Nick Merriman (Dyrektor Muzeum Horniman, Londyn)
20:00 Kolacja
21 listopada, 2019 (czwartek)
Miejsce: Muzeum Narodowe w Krakowie, sala “U Samurajów”
9.00-10.20 Sesja 1: What is new in new media?
9.00 Gabriela Manista (Faculty of Journalism, Information and Book Studies University of Warsaw), Multimedias in museum - worth looking or time consuming?
9.20 Zuzanna Stańska, A place called museum - can traditional museums benefit from places like Museum of Ice Cream?
9.40 Ewa Drygalska, PhD (Polish-Japanese Academy of Information Technology / The Fryderyk Chopin Museum in Warsaw), From visitor to user - rethinking audiences when designing for the museum visitors
10.00 Dyskusja
10.20-10.40 Coffee break
10.40-12.00 Sesja 2: What is the museum responsibility? (1)
10.40 Curatorial Collective, Case study: curating a university as a maternity unit
11.00 Alicja Głuszek, PhD, Something old, something new, something borrowed, something blue - Mexican museums during the democratization and liberalization
11.20 Zuzanna Schnepf-Kołacz (POLIN Museum of the History of Polish Jews), Museum in the Process of Building a Social Partnership in the Contemporary City: the Waliców Case
11.40 Discusson
12.00-13.20 Sesja 3: What is the museum responsibility? (2)
12.00 Weronika Pokojska (Jagiellonian University), Corporate museums. Between marketing and responsibility
12.20 Katarzyna Jagodzińska, PhD (Jagiellonian University), Melania Tutak (Podgórze Museum), The Responsibility of Museums Towards Landscape: Discussion based on case studies from Katowice, Kraków and Warsaw
12.40 Mary Bouquet, PhD (University College Utrecht), Making Journeys: modular and mobile in the age of museum renovation
13.00 Dyskusja
13.20-15.00 Przerwa obiadowa
15.00 -17:00 Museum activism in practice: Caring for Jewish culture in a Polish ethnographic museum today, workshop, Magdalena Zych (Ethnographic Museum in Kraków), Erica Lehrer, PhD (History Department, Concordia University, Montreal), and FestivALT (a local Jewish arts collective)
17:30 Book promotion: Diversifying the National„ We”: Curatorial Dreams. (Eds.) Roma Sendyka and Erica Lehrer. Kraków: Jagiellonian University Press, 2019. Roma Sendyka (Jagiellonian University) will lead a discussion with Erica Lehrer (Concordia University), Magdalena Zych (Kraków Ethnographic Museum), and Magda Rubenfeld Koralewska (FestivALT) on new critical approaches to heritage in national museums.
ABSTRAKTY
Nikola Krstović, PhD (Cathedra for Museology and Heritology, University of Belgrade), Lost in past, stuck in contemporaneity. New Museology Vs. museology of News
Starting from Greenaway-ish position in Rembrandt`s: J`accuse, one could ask if Vergo is “guilty of stealing or colonizing” the new museology for the sake of collective memory consumerism. Translating the translations of what behind-the-Iron-curtain thinkers were delivering from intellectual laboratories (not from or for ideologically formatted museums) since 1960s was the “extreme makeover” of original ideas. Recalling the Smith`s (2006), Groys` (2009) or Osborne`s (2013) notion of contemporaneity, new museology is very contemporary, yet far from being novelty (or nouvelle as Riviere or Varine thought during 1970s). On the other side, in the obvious tensions generated by the ICOM proposal of new museum definition or recent introduction of the Extended museum concept (2017 Conference in Poland), new museology (and ecomuseum as its operating model) is occupying the central position in the recent debates. Museums, museological laboratories – as new museology tends to think, are hovering over the present hot-spot social and natural issues aiming to provide better future and hope for communities. And, as Solnit (Hope in the Dark, 2004) pointed out “the hope is ability to work for something because it is good, not just because it stands a chance to succeed”. The question is whether new or some newer museology is still the source of hope for not just the museums but heritage in general?
Beata Turek (Jagiellonian University / Museum of the Masovian Countryside in Sierpc), We do NOT need anything NEW
“Fear of changes” is like the umbrella which cover the problems of appling the cultural management solutions, adapting new models of creating and promoting the cultural offer, answering for the trends or even the need of profiling the audience. The presentation is about the opposition met from “old generation of museum professionals” and the ideas how to abolish that wall not killing your willingness to act, motivations and ambitions.
Paulina Paga (Museum of Housing Estates), Museum as format for agonistic practices
MoM Museum of Housing Estates (Muzeum Osiedli Mieszkaniowych) is a grassroots initiative of inhabitants from Lublin Housing Cooperative. It treats Lublin housing estates from the 1950s, 1960s, and 1970s as a common identity basis for four generations of city residents.
The museum is located in a pavilion designed by Zofia and Oskar Hansen in direct relation to Słowacki Housing Estate (Osiedle Słowackiego). It is a museum object at a scale of 1:1. In a non-invasive way, it’s been placed into the local context, building a relationship with the environment around. The map of Lublin Housing Cooperative estates becomes its natural extension and a field for dialogue. Entire collection had grown from the object brought by the residents and quotes from the interviews or interactions.
The museum embraces social tensions, gives consent to coexistence of conflicts in expressing visions and values as well as in assessments of the last century. We create a framework for collection to present co-existing contradictions.
Przemysław Kisiel, PhD (Department of Sociology Cracow University of Economics), Expectations of a young audience to the contemporary museum of art
The aim of presentation is a sociological analysis of the way of perception of art museum institutions by young visitors. The results of the analysis allow to know their expectations towards museum institutions. This problem is a very interesting because young visitors, representatives of millennial generation, participate in social and cultural life in different way than representatives of previous generations. This problem is also very important, because just millennials will decide about the fate of this kind of institution in not far future.
The analysis of the perception of museum institutions will be based on the results of an empirical study, carried out among high school students (17-19 years). The main areas of interest in this study were both preferences in the style of visiting museum exhibitions, opinions of respondents about exhibition being visited, as well as expectations regarding changes in the formula of presenting art in the museum space.
Renata Pater, PhD (Institute of Education Jagiellonian University), Museum and Education in the 21st century. What has changed in Poland?
The subject of the research presented here is the content of the definitional terms, categories and concepts relating to museum and education in the historiography of the topic. The article is a review that provides an analysis of selected papers on museum education, surveying the categories, terminology and definitions proposed by Polish researchers in the context of socio-cultural changes in Poland and museology in the last 30 years. The study also involved looking at museum websites to review the descriptive terms, concepts and categories used in the sections relating to a museum’s educational activities, and itervie. The analyzes also used interviews conducted in recent years with museum employees, educators and museum animators. The work is partly a result of the experience of the author practice. The cultural contexts of changes museum and education are significant and influential in the quality of the services provided in polish museums.
Sara Herczyńska (University of Warsaw), The tour guide in the museum
Guides are crucial elements of the ecosystem of a museum – they give meanings to objects and act as facilitators between the museum and the visitors. Sometimes they help visitors to see the exposition as a linear story with a clear narrative and sometimes they disturb this narrative with their approach, allowing different voices and interpretations. This role is particularly interesting in the context of national heritage and the ways it is socially constructed. At the same time guides often seem invisible – easy to forget facilitators, whose bodies seem transparent in comparison with the objects on display at the exhibition. In my presentation I will use both my academic research in the field of biographical museums and my experience as a tour guide in a gallery. I will also speak about using the position of the guide as a research strategy for an academic purpose.
Marianna Otmianowska (The Royal Łazienki Museum in Warsaw / Cardinal Stefan Wyszyński University in Warsaw), Social responsibility of museum education. Research directions
Noticeable changes which take place in museums allow to draw attention to a definite turn towards the audience. The inclusiveness of educational activity which results from the transition from passive to activating cooperation methods causes an increasingly common in museology educational turn. The presentation is an attempt to present the research perspective undertaken by the speaker. This kind of approach will consequently help conclude the use of museums in order to change a society. It will also mention the role and place of education departments in the museum structure, in the processes which take place in the institution and in the offer addressed to recipients, and finally their contribution to building the image of the museum. The discourse, in which one of the party is museum education, is important both from the internal perspective of the institution and from the visitors’ point of view. In this context, the definition of social responsibility should be considered in at least two meanings: it should be looked at from the perspective of management organization as well as being analysed from a sociological perspective, in order to try to find a balance while taking social issues into account in museum strategies.
Warm-up workshop / performance Maja Luxenberg
Anna Manicka, PhD (National Museum in Warsaw), Social responsibility of the contemporary museums in the context of the collections of the foreign artists
Social responsibility of the museums manifests itself in the numerous multi-track activities practiced throughout a long time. Museums create collections which respond to the needs of different visitors, among them people of the different nationalities. Awareness of the need of creating of such collections came from the new museology. But generally the collections of the foreign artists in Polish collections are totally random, what means that they are incomplete, not representative, and sometimes of a low artistic value. Collection the Department of Contemporary Prints and Drawings in the National Museum in Warsaw is random, caused by the political events in the former epoch and- important artistic events like Cracow International Biennial of Prints. Paradoxically after so many years it appears that some random messages can be read and accepted in the future while using the nationalistic key. The good example of such situation is collection of the Chinese drawings (Indian ink) or the collection of the Mexican woodcuts form the 50’s in National Museum in Warsaw.
Karolina Echaust (Institute of Ethnology and Cultural Anthropology Adam Mickiewicz University in Poznań / National Museum of Agriculture and Food Industry in Szreniawa), Apiculture collections of the National Museum of Agriculture and Food Industry in Szreniawa in the context of environmental anthropology
The National Museum of Agriculture and Food Industry in Szreniawa has in its collections an extensive collection of apiculture exhibits. The permanent exhibition was opened to the public in 1994. The exhibition is divided into three sections: history of Medieval forest beekeeping, modern era beekeeping and present beekeeping and presented in the exhibition pavilion and at the open-air exhibition. As a cultural anthropologist, museum assistant and doctoral student, preparing a dissertation on forest beekeeping in the context of environmental anthropology, in my daily activities undertaking dialogue and narration with the museum visitors. I present the issue of pollinating insect protection on the case of a honey bee. Contemporary museums as part of European history and traditions are aware of the activities for the community and forming cultural ties with the museum. In times of Anthropocene when the life and future of pollinating insects, in the case of a honey bee is endangered (the phenomenon of mass disappearance of the honey bee Colony Collapse Disorder, CCD), it is reasonable to consider educational activities related to the protection of bee resources and biodiversity. My activity as a museum assistant is manifested in everyday contact with the museum visitor. Not only historical knowledge is important for visitors because visitors are increasingly interested in current issues of pollinating insects protection, including honey bees. As a museum assistant I meet the demanding museum viewer and include in my activities moving on many levels of apiculture education.
My presentation will concern educational and animating activities that I undertake in my everyday work at the National Museum of Agriculture and Food Industry in Szreniawa. On the example of my museum activities I will discuss educational projects regarding the protection of bees and other pollinating insects. My presentation will be enriched with illustrative material from the classes that I have conducted so far in the museum and I will also use examples of good socio-cultural practices (museum lessons, seminars, workshops, meetings with the viewer, acting as a guide, educator, scientist) gathered around widely understood educational activities in the context of the protection of pollinating insects as well as the cultural and natural heritage of the Polish forest beekeepers and beekeepers.
Prosper Mutero (Central European University in Budapest), On the African definition of Mortuary Heritage
The repatriation of the human remains by the formerly colonized has been in the focus of attention for the recent years. The remains of their ancestors were collected by the colonizers either as evidence of the conquest or as objects of research. Based on the academic discussions on issues of repatriation and the museum curation of the remains of the dead, however, it might appear that mortuary heritage is only represented by human bones. However, objects placed in the graves to take care of the ancestors in the afterlife as well as their venerated objects in the present life can also be considered as part of the mortuary heritage in an African context, since they belong to the sacred sphere. While museums would like to have these objects for display and research, local communities has often taken this to be the dehumanization of the dead. This paper seeks to widen the academic understanding of what mortuary heritage is by giving an ‘African definition’ of the concept. Bringing case studies from Southern Africa, both the tangible and the intangible aspects of mortuary heritage will be discussed: various types of burial goods, the orientation of the burials and its significance, the ritualization of the dead’s possessions and the rituals associated with the dead.
Karolina Radłowska, PhD (Department of Sociology of Culture University of Bialystok), Ethnicity in Polish museums. The example of Podlaskie Voivodship
The importance of ethnic issues in museums finds its strong theoretical grounding in the assumptions of the New Museology. The thesis of this paradigm have revealed the significance of the museum as a classification system on the one hand, and their role to play in solving important social problems on the other. The aim of the presentation is to show how the ethnic issues are implemented by Polish museums. I will show it on the example of selected museums located in Podlaskie Voivodeship. It is both a borderland area and one of the most ethnically diverse areas in Poland.
Magdalena Zych (Ethnographic Museum in Kraków), Fieldwork Museology. The new approach towards collections
The museum collections as a tool of human relations require an approach which would make them useful and important to understand the contemporary world. Based on the case studies analyzed from the anthropological perspective, I will present the methodology and practice of the idea which I called the fieldwork museology. The main example will be the result of 3-years research project (2016-2019) dedicated to XIX-century Siberian collection from the Ethnographic Museum in Kraków, which includes objects gathered by political prisoners, scientists and travelers. I want to discuss how contemporary knowledge of many local experts (such as reindeer herders, whale hunters, museum staff or donor families) can help in understanding the unique connections between the past and the future of such heritage and its consequences in our life.
The starting point for the idea of the fieldwork museology is the problem of the gap between theory of museums developed in global context and the daily curatorial and keeper activity realized in local environments. The very local level of museum practices tells us the story of many dependencies. For example, the source communities, the museum neighborhood, the museums owners or the academic public, all of them require particular attention, communication and offer. The basis for all activities directed to these different groups of audience is the museum collection. The fieldwork museology is the attempt to create a space for common understanding of the agency of such heritage as museum collection and its consequences.
Magdalena Wróblewska, PhD (Museum of Warsaw / University of Warsaw), New materialism and return to things in a museum: a case of "Things of Warsaw" exhibition
New core exhibition of Museum of Warsaw is called „Things of Warsaw” and its concept is very rigorous: only objects from the Museum’s collections can be displayed. In the era of scenographic and new media based exhibitions, curators decided to return to the roots by presenting things in twenty-three thematic rooms. There are no screens, no multimedia tools and no projections added, just objects displayed on walls, pedestals, in vitrines and cabinets. There is no big narrative referring to the history of the city or the nation that could organise these objects, but only micro-stories of chosen things which were part of past events.
This approach may seem traditional or conservative, but in the context of museum boom in Warsaw (and Poland) is rather a radical and provocative statement. It is intentionally created as opposite to new institutions which turns to immaterial history, based on new media or reconstruction strategy. While The Warsaw Rising Museum, POLIN Jewish Museum or Katyń Museum are engaged in historical policy, Museum of Warsaw exhibition is rising questions about the relation between object and the narration of history, about material conditions of heritage, the definition and limits of museum institution, but also its mission and obligation.
Łukasz Bukowiecki, PhD (Institute of Sociology University of Warsaw), Self-critique, return to things and museum revival. The case of the Museum of Warsaw
In the mid-2010s the Museum of Warsaw implemented Bjørnar Olsen’s concept of a return to things to its curatorial practices and since that it has developed the idea of The Things of Warsaw as theme of the museum’s new core exhibition (opened in 2017–2018) and as a way of rethinking, reviewing and revaluation of its huge collections of ca. 300.000 museum objects. All loans from other museums, as well as any replicas, models, dioramas or elements of illusionistic scenography, were rejected from the exhibition. At the same time the old-fashioned, single, linear, chronological museum narrative was replaced by a multi-layered, multi-threaded representation of the city past through ca. 7.000 things divided into 21 thematic rooms. According to curators, this radical attempt to come back to the historical collections of the museum and, in general, to the roots of museology (cabinets of curiosities) was intentionally also a gesture against a growing dominance of a model of historical narrative museum in Poland and a counter-proposal to attractiveness of such museums, based on multimedia content and interactive technologies. However, this critical and self-reflexive approach had it limits, as the museum did not share its authority with the public while preparing the exhibition.
Gabriela Manista (Faculty of Journalism, Information and Book Studies University of Warsaw), Multimedias in museum - worth looking or time consuming?
Nowadays, new technology is an active part of museum’s communication strategy. Its main impact is in the creation of new visitation paths for every type of the audience. Promoting accessibility allows that everyone can experience the museum, regardless of their cognitive level. On the other hand, multimedias can cause multiple problems. One of them is the time which is important factor during the one’s visit. The aim of this presentation is to investigate time consuming structures based on new medias used in museums. The research design for this study was an initial analysis of the data collected in chosen museums. The presentation
should lead to the conclusion of how the new path for visitors may be created in the most efficient way.
Zuzanna Stańska, A place called museum - can traditional museums benefit from places like Museum of Ice Cream?
2019 was the year of the ICOM’s proposal for the new definition of the term “museum” which caused much controversy. At the same time, places calling themselves museums become hugely popular. But should they call themselves that? Institutions like Museum of Ice Cream or Museum of Pizza are the perfect examples of the experience economy. Designed for bringing fun are fully and only focused on their audiences’ needs. Should traditional museums follow that examples? What can they learn from them?
Ewa Drygalska, PhD (Polish-Japanese Academy of Information Technology / The Fryderyk Chopin Museum in Warsaw), From visitor to user - rethinking audiences when designing for the museum visitors
Our daily life is mediated by the technology: we spend about 10 hour daily in front of the screen, an average person uses internet for 170 minutes, or in case of the generation Z the line between online and offline blurres, and we are always already available. Our experiences, habits, expectations, customs, cognitive abilities, hopes are all shaped by the user experience with media, services and technology. We are all users. We bring our user experience to the museum while visiting the exhibition, while browsing online collections and interacting with museum social media. Taking this under consideration, not only the definition of museum needs redefinition but also the notion of the individual visitor and audiences. We can ask a question whether the concept of an audience: historically emerged from the media theory and mass media studies is still adequate and relevant today? Understanding the concept of the user is crucial to understand the contemporary visitor, to be able to design, build and create for it. I will discuss various historical conceptualization of the user and how and when it intermingles with the traditional audience.
Curatorial Collective
Case study: curating a university as a maternity unit
In Polish home university is called ‘maternal unit’. The impulse for Matrix project came from an observation, that there were few representations of women in Jagiellonian University Museum. We decided to use Bracha Ettinger’s matrix theory as a background for a curatorial event, which main goal was to create alternative visual and textual narratives that made women at the universities and high schools visible: as scholars, graduates, workers, students and historical characters. The aim was to rethink the structure of a university and reshape it in a maternal way: more caring, less competitive, more relational.
The main goal of the paper is to outline outcomes and considerations of the curatorial Matrix project, organized by Curatorial Collective, a non-hierarchical group of scholars based at The Faculty of Polish Studies of the Jagiellonian University. The event took place in Jagiellonian University Museum during Cracow Gallery Weekend (2018) as a pop-up museum lasting 3 hours. As it was thought as a democratic event, it started with a call for papers for artists and academics who were invited to interfere with the space of the rather traditional museum: perform an action or place an object that changes the nets of relations between artefacts.
Alicja Głuszek, PhD, Something old, something new, something borrowed, something blue – Mexican museums during the democratization and liberalization
The presentation focuses on the influence of political and economic transformation in the last forty years on museums in Mexico City. In particular it analyses the financing, programming, and outreach of museums during the time of instability and change in federal and local government as well in new neoliberal, globalized economy.
It points out how the old institutions like Museo de Antropologia or Museo de Arte Moderno, new museums like Soumaya, Jumex, MUAC, and blue one Casa Azul compete, adapt, survive and thrive in the new settings.
Zuzanna Schnepf-Kołacz (POLIN Museum of the History of Polish Jews)
Museum in the Process of Building a Social Partnership in the Contemporary City. The Waliców Case
The three buildings on Waliców Street in Warsaw bear the DNA of the prewar un-existing city. They survived the ghetto, the Warsaw Uprising and postwar demolition. For many years these buildings were abandoned and neglected in terms of their heritage. Despite the lack of the official acknowledgement, Waliców has inspired many grassroots initiatives to commemorate it’s history undertaken by artists, local activists and residents.
Architects Guido Morpurgo and Annalisa de Curtis launched “The Waliców Project” at the Politecnico di Milano. The POLIN Museum in cooperation with the Italian professors has started to bring the subject of the Waliców to the wider public discussion, inviting authorities of Warsaw, urban activists, residents, architects and historians to take part in it. An international team of experts from various fields was asked by POLIN to develop and jot down ideas concerning the future of Waliców. Those proposals were hand over to the authorities of Warsaw which declared to be interested in building a social partnership for Waliców.
In my paper I focus on the social role of the Museum as an actor and facilitator of the process of regaining the memory and identity of the Waliców place. At the same time I analyze POLIN’s participation in the urban activism in the context of the “extended museum” ICOM’s idea, related to the impact which museums have, how they react to the urban landscape that surrounds them and their responsibility for that.
Weronika Pokojska (Jagiellonian University)
Corporate museums. Between marketing and responsibility
The presentation will be devoted to the subject of corporate heritage and in particular corporate museums. Corporate museums have in recent decades become the basic tool for managing their own heritage for many enterprises. On the one hand, they allow to use own history in building a brand, on the other, they require the implementation of the assumptions of social responsibility for historical truth. Today, there is also a question of the sustainability of this type of objects and the future of corporate heritage itself in the context of the functioning of e.g. global enterprises. In the presentation the theoretical framework for this issue will be characterized and concrete examples of such institutions will be presented.
Katarzyna Jagodzińska, PhD (Jagiellonian University), Melania Tutak (Podgórze Museum),
The Responsibility of Museums Towards Landscape: Discussion based on case studies from Katowice, Kraków and Warsaw
According to the Resolution no 1 adopted by the ICOM's General Assembly in 2016 “Museums have a particular responsibility towards the landscape that surrounds them, urban or rural.” And thus they should “manage buildings and sites of cultural landscape as ‘extended museums’, offering enhanced protection and accessibility to such heritage in closed relationship with communities.” This document is in line with discussions on socio-economic roles and responsibilities of museums that have been continuously held at least from 1980s.
In a paper we will discuss responsibility of museums for their vicinity, making references to four Polish case studies that could be considered as model: Muzeum Śląskie in Katowice, Podgórze Museum and Ethnographic Museum in Krakow, and the Museum of King Jan III's Palace at Wilanów. These museums are no longer quiet observers of changes taking place behind museum walls and fences, and they started to act to protect their context.
We will talk about:
1. The motives: Why museums should be subjects, not objects of these discussions?
2. What museums can actually do?
3. Can they be successful?
4. What is the role of museums’ social context (e.g. local communities) in their new position?
Mary Bouquet, PhD (University College Utrecht)
Making Journeys: modular and mobile in the age of museum renovation
Renovation has become a favoured pathway to making museums into public-friendly, if not socially relevant, places. This means that museums are often closed, sometimes for years, in order to improve their public facilities. Utrecht University Museum was closed for renovation when the exhibition ‘Journeys into Diversity’ was to open. This exhibition was one of the outcomes of a two- year project on everyday experiences of diversity in education, taking the case of Utrecht University’s InclUUsion programme.
Incluusion enables people “on hold” in AZCs to participate in university courses. The project ‘Making Journeys’ engineered a third space to explore - through writing, photography, drawing, painting, and film – things that could not be broached within the limited time and space of the classroom. The paper describes what was made and how it was conceptualized, designed, and produced as an exhibition.
The exhibition was shown twice in public spaces of the university, and used for workshops for colleagues and students. Students of Computer Science designed a website and an app. The paper will discuss what was learned – about the role of the university in broader society; and about value and sustainability in the age of museum renovation.
Workshop: Museum Activism In Practice: Caring for Jewish Culture in a Polish Ethnographic Museum Today
In this workshop, conference participants explore tensions around and new approaches to Jewish materials in the permanent exhibition of the Kraków Ethnographic Museum. The experimental investigation will be facilitated by curator Magdalena Zych, museum scholar-activist Erica Lehrer, and local Jewish arts organization FestivALT.
The number of participants is limited. Please sign-up at registration if you would like to attend the workshop.
ORGANIZATORZY
Instytut Etnologii i Antropologii Kulturowej Uniwersytetu Jagiellońskiego
Instytut Historii Sztuki Uniwersytetu Jagiellońskiego
Muzeum Narodowe w Krakowie
KOMITET ORGANIZACYJNY
dr Dorota Jędruch, Instytut Historii Sztuki Uniwersytetu Jagiellońskiego
dr Katarzyna Maniak, Instytut Etnologii i Antropologii Kulturowej Uniwersytetu Jagiellońskiego
Filip Skowron, Muzeum Narodowe w Krakowie
KOMITET NAUKOWY
prof. Jan Święch, Dziekan Wydziału Historycznego Uniwersytetu Jagiellońskiego - przewodniczący
prof. dr hab. Wojciech Bałus, Instytut Historii Sztuki Uniwersytetu Jagiellońskiego
prof. Janusz Barański, Instytut Etnologii i Antropologii Kulturowej Uniwersytetu Jagiellońskiego
dr hab. Andrzej Betlej, Muzeum Narodowe w Krakowie / Instytut Historii Sztuki Uniwersytetu Jagiellońskiego
dr hab. Łukasz Gaweł, Muzeum Narodowe w Krakowie / Instytut Kultury Uniwersytetu Jagiellońskiego
Alicja Knast, Muzeum Śląskie w Katowicach
dr hab. Piotr Majewski, prof. UKSW, Narodowy Instytut Muzealnictwa i Ochrony Zbiorów
Michał Niezabitowski, Stowarzyszenie Muzealników Polskich
dr Piotr Rypson, Polski Komitet Narodowy ICOM
PATRONAT
Polski Komitet Narodowy ICOM
Narodowy Instytut Muzealnictwa i Ochrony Zbiorów