NORDISK MUSEOLOGI 2007 1
●
Redaktion
Dette nummer af Nordisk Museologi spænder fra nye ph.d.-projekter i regi af Kulturarvens Forskerskole, aktuelle tilbud på museologiske uddannelser i Norge over en dansk ICOM konference om
stjålen kulturarv, et nordisk seminar om fremtidens arkivformidling og en introduktion til det internationale forskningsnetværk
om nationale museer, NaMu, til peer reviewed artikler om fx indflydelsen af nationalsocialistisk ideologi på finsk udstillingsliv i trediverne og de læringsmæssige potentialer ved brugen af ny teknologi, både for museet og museets besøgende. De tre artikler om nye
medier som PDA, blogs og EGO-TRAP er alle en viderebearbejdning af mundtlige indlæg på ”NODEM 06 Digital Interpretation
in Cultural Heritage, Art and Science” konferencen, der blev afholdt i december 2006 på universitetet i Oslo.
Blandt boganmeldelserne har vi fokus på den svenske museumsmand Sten Rentzhogs nye udgivelse om frilandsmuseerne, der udkom i foråret 2007 på Jämtli og Carlssons Bokforläg. Redaktionen
har bedt Solveig Sjöberg-Pietarinen om at anmelde den svenske
udgave af bogen, mens vi har fået tilladelse til at bringe lektor
Debra A. Reids problematiserende kommentarer til den engelske
version – kommentarer, som blev mundtligt fremlagt på konferencen “The Future of Open-Air Museums” på Skansen i Sverige april
2007.
Redaktionen forsøger hele tiden at holde sig ajour med, hvad der
foregår i de nordiske museologiske forskningsmiljøer og på museerne og at linke de museologiske aktiviteter i Norden med internationale erfaringer og begivenheder.
ICOM General Conference 07, der i skrivende stund afholdes om
en uge i Wien og har fokus på ”Universal Heritage”, er af en sådan
international karakter, at det derfor i næste nummer af NM vil
være oplagt med en redaktionel kommentar til konferencens tematik og oplæg.
Ane Hejlskov Larsen
2
Forside: Relieffer in situ i Ninive, Assurbanipals Palads, Irak.
Foto: Ingolf Thuesen.
NORDISK MUSEOLOGI 2007 1, S. 3-18
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Brave new world: Mobile phones,
museums and learning
- how and why to use Augmented Reality within museums
1
ANNE KAHR-HØJLAND*
Abstract: This article deals with mobile technologies as tools for learning within
museums. Using the presentation of EGO-TRAP – an exhibition which uses mobile technologies as the technical platform for creating an Augmented Reality – as
my point of departure, I will discuss the advantages of using mobiles as tools for learning in museums. EGO-TRAP may be seen as a first modest step into a new
museum paradigm. On the basis of a brief outline of the change of paradigms within museums I propose a new paradigm based on interactivity, narration and virtuality embedded in an Augmented Reality with an educational aim. This kind of
Augmented Reality, I argue, seems to satisfy the demands of hands-on experiences,
narrative structure and individual experiences, which I point out as being crucial
for a beneficial learning experience at museums.
Keywords: Augmented Reality, mobile phones, museum learning, narratives,
interactivity, hands-on experience, science centres.
EGO-TRAP – A VIRTUAL EXTENSION
THE EXPERIMENTARIUM
OF
I will open this article with a description of a
concrete example of a mobile facilitated exhibition recently launched at the Experimentarium in Copenhagen, Denmark. By means of
an interactive narrative, facilitated by the visitors’ own mobile phones, the exhibition entitled ”EGO-TRAP – you have no idea” provides
a virtual extension of the physical environment
at the Experimentarium (cf. http://www.experimentarium.dk/ego-trap)2. EGO-TRAP was
initially directed at young people from upper
secondary high schools in Denmark, though a
modified version of the EGO-TRAP is now
underway for primary school children. Both
versions of the exhibitions have been developed in co-operation with the staff at the Experimentarium and a professional scriptwriter.
If visitors want to try EGO-TRAP, they
must bring a mobile phone to the Experimentarium. The mobile phone must be signed up
for the mobile Internet (WAP/GPRS) before
arriving at the Experimentarium.
Upon arriving at the Experimentarium, the
visitors have to register for EGO-TRAP by means of their own mobile phones. A woman’s
ANNE KAHR-HØJLAND
4
voice then presents herself as a guide who organizes the exhibition individually for each user.
She introduces the exhibition as a personal test,
which allows the visitor to gain insight into different aspects of his own skills. From this point,
the voice in the phone functions as a personal
guide for each visitor through the exhibition at
the Experimentarium. What the user does not
know is that the description of the exhibition as
a personal test is not a full and entire description of the process that follows. For the next
one or two hours, the visitor will play the main
role in an interactive narrative which changes
according to his interactions with the exhibits
as well as his response to the voice on the mobile phone. The interactive narrative progresses at
the following three levels:
Level 1: testing the visitor’s characteristics
– and ‘getting to know the system’
The visitor is led from one exhibit to another in
order to test different skills – e.g. “Can you recognize tones?”, “How good is your spatial
awareness?”, “How fast can you wheel a chair?”
etc. At each exhibit, the visitor is urged to set
up hypotheses or predictions of his own abilities and characteristics, for example “how long
will it take you to put this three-dimensional figure together? (enter your answer on the keypad of the phone)”, or: “How much lemonade
will you be able to fill in the glass as a result of
your work on the wheelchair?” – “How well
will you be able to follow the lines in the floor
wearing the glasses that trick your brain?”. The
idea of urging the visitor to make predictions
and evaluate his ability to make these predictions is to prompt the reflective processes in relation to each exhibit (Dewey, 1933; Osborne,
2002: 205 ff).
The level ends by the guide preparing a personal profile of the visitor. At this level, the vi-
sitor also becomes familiar with the technical
system as he grows used to getting information from the woman’s voice in his ear and responding to her through the keypad on the
phone.
Level 2: the level of co-operation – and
arousing suspicion
After receiving his personal profile, the visitor
is prompted to contact another (real) visitor
who is in the exhibition; according to the woman who guides them the profiles of the two
visitors appear to match. This introduces the
dimension of cooperation, as both visitors will
be asked to cooperate in learning. Level 2 follows the same principles as level 1: both visitors are prompted to predict their own capabilities before using the exhibits and are evaluated by the woman’s voice afterward. The themes of the interactive exhibits involved at this
level have changed from the (primarily) physical tests of level 1 to exhibits emphasizing the
visitors’ skills at working together, for example
by letting them communicate by whispering
to each other in two receiver dishes (“the whispering gallery”) or by letting their faces melt
together by using the mirrors in the exhibit
called “mixing faces”.
Also, this level deliberately tries to arouse
their suspicion. During their interaction, the
visitors will receive a phone call from a hacker
who interrupts the sequence and arouses their
suspicion of the woman who is guiding them.
Who is this woman? Does she have a hidden
agenda? The hacker will tell the visitors that
they seem to be part of a dangerous experiment being carried out by the woman who is
guiding them. The visitors now have to decide; whom should they trust? If the visitors
trust the supposed hacker, he will show them
a piece of evidence proving that the woman
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who has been guiding them is testing them for
a cunning and evil purpose. This will lead
them to the third and final level. If they don’t
trust the hacker, of course, the game is over.
Level 3: confrontation and insight - who is
really behind the EGO-TRAP?
Guided by the hacker, the visitors will end up
in a secret, dark room where they are confronted with an animated rat! This final level is a
level of insight: It turns out that the woman
who has been guiding the visitors is actually a
mutated rat who has taken control over a science lab. This means that in reality the visitors
have taken on the role of ‘laboratory animals’.
The story ends with the rat challenging the visitors to fight for their freedom by means of a
computer game (which the visitors are determined to win). After this, the game is over. The
aim of this final level is to stimulate the visitors
to make critical, ethical reflections about who is
providing the information – does such a thing
as objective truth exist? How does this relate to
their evaluation of the scientific evidence on
display?
EGO-TRAP –
USHERING IN A NEW ERA
EGO-TRAP is an example of how to use mobile phones in museums. EGO-TRAP is a
kind of role play, where the narrative develops
according to how the visitor uses and responds
to the system. The narrative is formed by the
interactive exhibits already existing at the Experimentarium. Therefore, EGO-TRAP can
be described as a virtual extension, an Augmented Reality, of the exhibition (cf. Bolter &
MacIntyre, 2005; Klopfer & Squire, 2005).
This way of using mobiles as augmenting the
museum experience is ushering in a new era
within museums.
MOBILE
PHONES, MUSEUMS AND LEARNING
As mobile technologies – especially mobile
phones – obviously are a determining factor
for this new era, I will discuss the role of the
mobile phone as a facilitator of learning within
museums in the following.
Mobile technologies – as advantageous
facilitators of museum learning
As mentioned initially in this article, the primary target group of EGO-TRAP consists of
young people (aged 14 to17). Mobile phones
are becoming increasingly popular among
young people, but the fact that young people
are very familiar with mobiles is not the only
reason why mobiles function as advantageous
facilitators of learning within museums. Mobiles also contribute to the improvement of
the learning potential in semi-formal learning
settings, as these new technologies possess the
ability to control a narrative or computer
game, due to the mobiles’ features as computers. Mobile technologies are valuable remedies for creating such an experience of being in
an “I-bubble”. An I-bubble arouses out of the
feeling of having a strictly individual and personal experience, where the world around you
seems to recede into the background. In the
1980s Virtual Reality (VR) was very popular.
VR offered you a new reality which was created purely by computers. None of the things
you could do in VR were tangible and real.
Entering such a VR would allow you to get
the feeling of being in an I-bubble, which also
meant that you would have to leave the real
world or at least shut it out. The advantage of
the mobile phone is that it offers one a similar
feeling of being in an I-bubble without simultaneously requiring one to shut out the
real, tangible world.
Another advantage of mobile technologies
is that they are mobile. They are tiny compu-
5
ANNE KAHR-HØJLAND
6
ters which can easily be brought into the museums without inhibiting the mobility of the
visitor. This, among other things, makes mobile technologies capable of combining the
three elements whose I stress the importance
in the updated version of the ‘learning museum’; namely interactivity, narration and virtuality.
At present, no one doubts the fact that the
use of mobiles in semi-formal learning settings may boost attendance to these places,
mainly because mobiles appeal very strongly
to the young audience (Goodin, 2006: 2).
The question is if a mobile phone contributes
to more than mere fun and games; can a mobile phone, for example, support reflective
learning processes?
Mobile phones are all based on computer
technology. Many of us are not particularly
aware of how much we use computers in our
daily lives. When using a microwave oven, a
sewing machine, a camera or a washing machine, very few of us are aware that we are also
using a computer because we think of ourselves as the ones doing the task, not the computer embedded in the appliance (Norman,
1989: 185). Similarly, very few of us are aware
that the mobile phone in our pocket is a fully
functional handheld computer. As Marc Prensky puts it, today’s high-tech mobile phones
“[…] have the computing power of a mid1990’s PC […] even the simplest voice-only
phones have more complex and powerful
chips than the 1969 on-board computer that
landed a spaceship on the moon” (Prensky,
2005: 1). This feature of the mobile certainly
qualifies it an efficient organizer of a narrative
– or an Augmented Reality.
Of course, communication is also one of
the basic features of the mobile. Actually this
was what the mobile was made for – to com-
municate with others – in the first place.
What differentiates the mobile phone from
for example the PDA (Portable Digital Assistant) is, among other things, the possibility of
receiving and answering phone calls whether
the calls come from a server or from another
human being. In the example of EGO-TRAP,
this feature is utilized in the way the system
communicates with the individual, but even
more important, the phone is used as a mediator between two visitors. The mobile phone
makes it possible to create informal meetings
between the visitors. Seen from a socio-cultural learning perspective, these meetings are
very important, as it is through our meetings
with other people that we negotiate new knowledge, e.g. we construct knowledge from communicating with others (Säljö, 2003; Wertsch,
1998). According to Säljö and Wertch, human
understanding is a result of knowledge and patterns of action grounded in interactions unfolded between individuals in society. Knowledge is not a question of biology, as knowledge is
created in the interplay between individuals.
Säljö and Wertch’s theory is influenced by the
socio-cultural learning theory presented by
Vygotsky. The mediating function of tools is
considered crucial in this learning perspective
(Säljö, 2003; Werstch, 1998). Learning takes
place by means of physical, mental and semiotic tools – in EGO-TRAP another semiotic
tool, in the shape of the mobile phone, is introduced as the mediator of scientific information.
EGO-TRAP has been developed to create
reflective processes in the exhibition. One of
the hypotheses behind the design of EGOTRAP is that the use of a narrative structure
supports the establishment of a ’room for reflection’ (Kahr-Højland, 2006). As will be
commented on later in this article, narrative
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structure has proven to be closely related to
human comprehension. To put it briefly, the
narrative supports the inner processes of meaning-making by structuring information in a
meaningful way, which often leads to tacit
knowledge, whereas conversation with other
people supports the process of making the tacit knowledge explicit (Avraamdiou & Osborne, 2005). EGO-TRAP is modelled according
to the structure of an interactive narrative. At
the same time the meeting with another person is a very essential function, as this meeting
facilitates the establishment of a room for reflection in a more explicit way than the narrative structure does (Allen, 2002: 260 ff.).
The mobile as a digital showcase
As Bruno Ingemann and Lisa Gjedde claim
(Ingemann & Gjedde, 2005: 270), the interactivity as well as the interface of the mobile
may possibly steal all of the attention from the
exhibit whose information it is supposed to
highlight. In the case of EGO-TRAP, a mobile phone is added to an already existing interactive exhibition. One might ask if there is a
risk of the mobile ‘disturbing’ the hands-on
experience in such a way that this experience
is pushed to the rear; will mobile phones steal
all of the attention from existing interactive
exhibits and prevent the visitor from interacting with them?
When I propose mobile technology as an
‘exhibition tool’ that might be fruitful to explore, it is because I believe that among other
things a mobile phone will not draw visitors’
attention away from an the exhibition. Mobiles are most likely here to stay, tools we use
without reflection. To use Donald Norman’s
term, mobiles have turned into a transparent
medium (Norman, 1989: 185). The mobile
has become so familiar to us that we are no
MOBILE
PHONES, MUSEUMS AND LEARNING
longer conscious of our own use of it. This is
what Paul Dourish calls the receding of the
medium:
The most successful technologies are those that recede
into the background as we use them, becoming an
unannounced feature of the world in which we act
(Dourish, 2001: 1).
Today, it may seem unlikely that mobiles will
recede in this way, but Alison Griffith draws
attention to the fact that display cases, when
first introduced as a new medium for presenting objects in museums, were exposed to
massive criticism. It was said that the display
cases stole attention from the objects they
were supposed to highlight (Griffith, 2003:
388). The use of the mobile as a facilitator of
an Augmented Reality in semi-formal learning settings may be considered a kind of ‘digital display case’, meaning that initially the
mobile will face the same problems as the display case did when it was first introduced. Digital media account for a new way of highlighting information, and the challenge for the
mobile is to become as transparent as the –
now inconspicuous – display case.
The interactive museum
The opening of the Exploratorium – the
world’s first science centre – in San Francisco
in 1969 marked the beginning of a new paradigm as regards the organization of museums.
With interactivity and playfulness at its core,
the Exploratorium immediately became a
success, at least according to the number of
visitors: what was immediately evident was
that this type of museum had a strong appeal
to the audience.
The concept of interactive exhibits means
that the visitor has to participate in an active
7
ANNE KAHR-HØJLAND
8
way during his visit at the science centre. An
example of an interactive exhibit could be
wheel chairs presented as your personal powerhouse: you are supposed to wheel a chair
as fast as you can, and as you wheel the chair
lemonade corresponding to the energy you expend will drip into a glass. After wheeling the
chair you will be able to regain the energy lost
by drinking the lemonade (The wheelchair exhibit is situated at the Experimentarium in
Hellerup).
There are many different kinds of interactive exhibits at science centres. Some focus on
the use or functions of the human body, some
are about conditions concerning chemical,
physical or mechanical processes on Earth.
Common to all of them is that they all require
the visitor to use his hands, and hopefully his
mind, and the aim is to communicate science.
The hidden agenda behind this kind of exhibits is a learning strategy emphasizing personal activity as a key to personal engagement,
which again leads to experience-based learning and which helps the visitor to retain the
learning experience (Ansbacher, 2002: 4-7).
What characterizes this kind of interactive
exhibit is that it is not meaningful unless a visitor interacts with it, meaning that it is based
on a constructivist approach to learning
(Hein, 1995: 21-23). Using different kinds of
interactive exhibitions, science centres have
been able to both attract people and hold
them – family visits at science centres often
last about five hours (St John, 1993: 59-66;
Peacock, 2004: 10; Sørensen, 1996: 1-5). Because science centres have been able to hold
the audience so well, the science centre as a
museum genre has gained a foothold. Since
1969 numerous science centres have appeared
all over the world, establishing the science
centre as a sub-genre of museums, a museum
communicating scientific and technical topics
by means of interactive exhibits. Within a period of thirty years more than 800 science
centres have opened their doors all over the
world (Martin & Toon, 2005: 407-408).
Actually, the concept of interactivity as it
appears at science centres has been so strongly
established that it has been affecting more traditional museums, causing the re-mediation
of the traditional display cases. For example
an art museum in Odense, Denmark, had to
employ extra staff for an exhibition which displayed different kinds of installations and
technical models, most of which had knobs
and strings. Apparently the audience were so
familiar with the interactive concept that they
automatically started manipulating the exhibited models even if it was actually meant to
be a ‘hand-off ’ exhibition, where touching
was strictly prohibited (Installationer, Brandt
Klædefabrik, 2000; http//:www.brandts.dk).
As I have already mentioned, the big difference between science centres and traditional
museums is that science centres seek to meet
the audience, the focus here being on the person, who is supposed to transform information into knowledge. Therefore I argue that
the emergence of science centres based on
interactivity marks a paradigm shift within
the field of semi-formal learning settings, as
the processes of transforming information
into knowledge are now considered very important. In this way, what is carried out in
practice at science centres is a direct application of the fundamental educational theories
formulated by John Dewey, claiming that the
process of learning is inseparable from action
and experience (Dewey, 1933: 14-29). Dewey
(1859-1952), who was a very productive and
wide-ranging researcher, worked systematically with, among other things, the concepts of
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MOBILE
PHONES, MUSEUMS AND LEARNING
9
Boys from upper secondary high schools using bicycles and wheelchairs in EGO-TRAP.
Foto: Brøndby Gymnasium.
reflection and experience, and how these phenomena are related to the process of learning.
The theoretical work of Dewey has also had
great influence on educators outside the formal school system (Wahlgren, 2002: 92-101).
Science centres confronting the positivistic
approach to learning
Traditionally speaking, science is associated
with a positivistic approach to knowledge and
learning whereas the humanities commonly
relate to a more interpretive hermeneutical approach to learning (Hiim, 1999: 22; Bruner,
1990: 61 ff.; Bruner, 1996: 94 ff.). It is therefore worth noting that the first efforts to confront the positivistic approach to knowledge
within semi-formal learning settings have actually been in the scientific field. Yet while the
traditional museum has been criticized for focusing too strongly on the information it provides, science centres are criticized or their insistent focus on the receiver. As far as play is
ANNE KAHR-HØJLAND
10
concerned, I presume that no-one working in
the educational field would doubt its importance in relation to the process of learning.
But is stimulating playful interactions enough
when lasting learning is the ultimate goal?
Critics state that games and entertainment
cannot be successfully combined with professional education, as the act of playing and gaming leaves no room for the process of negotiating new knowledge into permanent learning
(Wellington, 1990: 247-252). Bo Kampmann
Walther (2003) distinguishes between playing
and gaming: Playing is characterized as being
“an open-ended territory in which make-believe and world-building are crucial factors” whereas gaming is regarded as “something that takes place on a higher level, structurally as well
as temporally” (Walther, 2003: 1).
Even if the difference between playing and
gaming lies in the degree of complexity, playing and gaming are both peculiar in having
their own order and structure. According to
Gadamer, the actor who plays the game will
automatically be given over to this structure,
having as its consequence that once the game
is running, it will be the game that plays, while the actor just follows the rules of the game
(Wind, 1976: 70). This means that if museum
exhibitions encourage gaming, they should
seek to “scaffold” their visitors at the same
time, cf. Jerome Bruner’s interpretation of Vygotsky’s work. The idea of “scaffolding” was
introduced by Jerome Bruner et. al. in 1976 as
a further development of Vygotsky’s theory
about zone for proximal development (Bruner,
Wood & Ross, 1976: 89-100; Vygotsky, 1978:
84-91). In his theory of how children learn, Vygotsky distinguished between two competencies, one being what the child is capable of doing
on its own, another defined by what the child
is able to do with the assistance of a more skil-
led person (e.g. a teacher or an adult). The latter is regarded as the competence which pushes the progress forward. This means that a
mediator between the child and the world the
child is trying to perceive is capable of bringing the learning process to a higher level than
where it would have been without the mediator. Using Jerome Bruner’s terminology, the
development of the child is facilitated by the
more skilled adult building ‘scaffolds’ of
knowledge for the child (Hallgård Christensen, 1997: 42; Vygotsky, 1978: 86). If museums do not relate their exhibits to some
kind of superior context or structure, there is a
risk that the visitor might be seduced by the
game being played to the detriment of the exhibit. In other words: if the visitor is simply
following the structure of gaming or playing
unconsciously, it is no longer a semi-formal
learning setting – e.g. a place consciously
aiming at making its audience learn something.
The museum will have become similar to informal learning settings, like trips to the forest and
to amusement parks (Kahr-Højland, 2006).
The necessity of structure
So, if we want permanent learning to occur in
museums, we will have to “scaffold” the visitor
in his use of interactive exhibits so as to activate his reflective processes. This “scaffolding”
may consist of some kind of structure within
the organization of exhibits, as the addition of
a structure may help the visitor feel safe and
also automatically allows him to relate the information provided to a superior context; that
is, the presence of a structure may boost his
reflective processes (Perregaard, 2001: 37; Labov, 1967 (1997)).
Generally speaking, in science centres you
will not find any route or guidance as to how
to find your way through the exhibition, even
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if it is often spread over thousands of square
metres and accommodates hundreds of interactive exhibits. Actually this “doing it on your
own”-concept is considered to be a very important part of science centres as semi-formal
learning settings (cf. Alexander, 2006; Issidorides, 2006 ). The exhibition at the Experimentarium in Copenhagen before the introduction of EGO-TRAP, @-bristol in Bristol,
UK; and the Launch Pad at Science Museum,
London, are just a few examples of exhibitions
consisting of apparently non-structured interactive exhibits.
Nevertheless, in my opinion, this free choice concept represents a considerable problem
as far as learning is concerned. As science centres are generally both huge and chaotic in
their construction, they require a considerable
amount of independence from their visitors
which may seem quite overwhelming to
many. Also, studies have shown that there is a
tendency to “random button pressing” (Peacock, 2004: 2) and a reluctance to read instructions, both of which inhibit serious interaction
(Quistgaard, 2006: 26). Seen from an educational point of view, bringing the learner in a
position where he is likely to feel overwhelmed
and insufficient is problematic. Therefore in order to prevent the feeling of insufficiency, I
argue that some kind of superior structure within the organization of exhibits is needed. A
structure may be obtained by combining the
exhibits in a mutual relationship, for example
a storyline where each single exhibit correlates
to a superior meaningful context. As an example of how to structure an exhibition, an
exhibition about dinosaurs at the Experimentarium in Copenhagen had offered two different paths to be followed through the exhibition; the “scary path” and the “less dangerous”
path. Each path consisted of exhibits about
MOBILE
PHONES, MUSEUMS AND LEARNING
dinosaurs demonstrating different aspects of
the dinosaurs (some more bloody than others)
both of which ended up by a chicken run containing chickens, the contemporary descendants of the dinosaurs.
The act of adding a narrative structure to an
exhibition is not new style of presentation in
itself. One often finds a fixed path in a traditional museum. What is new is the combination of a narrative structure and the explorative approach to learning. The challenge thus
consists in creating a structure which is closed
enough to make the visitor feel comfortable
and yet open enough to encourage an explorative approach to the exhibition.
AUGMENTED REALITY WITH AN EDUCATIONAL
AIM
Having suggested that the act of playing is not
to be regarded as similar to the act of learning,
as it is both implicitly and explicitly maintained at interactive science centres all over the
world, my point is that a new way of organizing museum exhibitions is needed: In order
to encourage learning within museums I propose an organization of exhibits which seeks
to combine the three elements interactivity,
narration and virtuality. These elements may
be combined in what I call “Augmented Reality with an educational aim”.
What is meant by Augmented Reality may
best be explained through an example: In
2005 Stephen Dow, Jay David Bolter and
their colleagues implemented a virtual add-on
to the Oakland Cemeteries in the US (Dow
et. al., 2005: 2-10). When people visited the
cemetery, they had the possibility of being
guided from one gravestone to the next by
means of a PDA with headphones connected
to it. During the trip around the cemetery, the
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ANNE KAHR-HØJLAND
12
EGO-TRAP: students logging in and playing The Rat Race computer game. Foto: Brøndby Gymnasium.
dead were “brought back to life” through voices of actors who dramatized the lives of the
dead. In this way the history of the dead along
with the history of the US were revealed to the
visitors and an extra dimension was added to
the experience. The stories that were told were
determined by where the visitor was situated
in the cemetery. In other words, the Oaklandexperience was determined by both the physical setting and the PDAs. The use of the
PDAs and the so-called “spatial narratives” in
Oakland Cemeteries creates a virtual add-on
to the cemetery: when using the PDA, one experiences a new – virtual – dimension of the
cemetery, in this case the stories of the dead,
and the history of the US. The PDAs in this
way support the creation of a narrative – a
narrative which is determined by the place of
Oakland cemetery; thus, the setting for the
experience heavily influenced the design and
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the implementation of the narrative (Bolter &
MacIntyre, 2005: 2-4).
The Voices of Oakland is an example of
how the combined use of narrative and virtual
dimension may provide individualized experiences for the visitor. At Oakland Cemetery
the use of PDAs and headphones succeeded in
establishing an “I-bubble” for the visitor, meaning that the visitor had a unique experience,
as the voices in his ears revealed stories about
the people buried there. At the same time the
narrative was a principal factor in giving the
information presented on each gravestone
new relevance, as each piece of information
was put into a meaningful context provided
by the narrative (Dow, 2005: 6).
Interactivity
In science centres, one finds a strong emphasis
on interactivity, as action and experience are
considered crucial for the process of meaning
making. As already mentioned, the interactive
concept has proven to be a success in many
ways. There is no doubt that hands-on exhibits are essential for the learning museum
(Rennie, 1996: 53-98; Rahm, 2004: 223225), but to some extent this is incompatible
with a high degree of free choice. Following
the constructivist approach to learning held
by among others Hein, Roberts and HooperGreenhill, a widespread use of interactive exhibits within museums should be maintained
(Hein, 2006; Hooper-Greenhill, 1999; Roberts, 1997). As I see it, one of the great challenges of museums in 2007 is to combine traditional and interactive paradigms, ie. focusing on both the receiver and the information
provided. This is where the narrative enters
into this complex of problems, as the narrative
has several basic features which make storytelling an advantageous means of presentation.
MOBILE
PHONES, MUSEUMS AND LEARNING
Storytelling
Bruner has, among others, argued that our
consciousness is basically structured in narratives. In his books The Culture of Education
(1996) and Acts of Meaning (1990), Bruner
deals with the influence of the narrative on
both experiencing and making meaning. Bruner distinguishes between two essential modes of thought in common discourse – narrative and paradigmatic – and he argues that
the narrative mode has been given a far too
low priority in the educational systems of the
Western World. According to Bruner, narratives should be considered the most basic tool
possessed by the human being with which to
create meaning, organize experiences and
understand the world. Bruner claims that we
are all born with the narrative form embedded, a form which we can use to organize
knowledge, and that this narrative predisposition can also be used successfully to acquire
knowledge (Bruner, 1990: 61 ff.; Bruner,
1996: 94 ff ). In this way Bruner suggests coherence between the narrative and human cognition, and in this he is supported by cognitive
scientist Jean M. Mandler. Mandler concludes that all human beings possess an instinctive understanding of what happens in stories
and that from a very early age human beings
develop distinct expectations as to the structure and plot of traditional stories (Mandler,
1984: 4).
If the narrative is a key factor of human
beings’ cognition and learning, it follows that
it would be fruitful to use the narrative as a
tool in an educational context. The narrative
as an educational tool has been investigated
by, among others, Avraamdiou, 2005, Norris,
2004, Bostroem, 2002, Bruner, 1996, Bruner,
1990, Davis, 1999, Brier, 2002, Gjedde, 1999,
Dow, 2005, Klopfer, and Millar, 1999, all of
13
ANNE KAHR-HØJLAND
14
whom emphasize how successful using the
narrative as an educational tool is.
To briefly sum up some of the conclusions
presented by the theorists listed above, the
narrative’s capacity for presenting ideas is based on the following:
● It can put complex phenomena into a framework that is recognizable to the recipient
● It can be decoded easily by its recipient
● It allows the recipient to identify with the
phenomena presented and thereby open to a
deeper level of understanding
● It can contain what I call different layers of
narration, which makes it possible to communicate with a target group consisting of
widely diverse people
● The narrative calls for interpretation rather
than explanation, and in this way it invites
reflection, which will make a thorough
understanding of the phenomena more likely
The narrative is noted for – thanks to the characteristics listed above – its ability to appeal
to humans in general. At the same time a story
is a tool for structuring information; this
function may therefore be used by exhibition
developers to influence the actions and the
mind of the visitor. The narrative, even in a
semi-closed structure, is able to emphasize
some pieces of information more than others.
Using a narrative structure in an exhibition
means that it is no longer solely based on the
act of free playing.
Virtuality
As regards the use of the virtual dimension as
a means of presentation in semi-formal learning settings, one might argue that the virtual
dimension has already been put to use in museums all over the world. In the year 2007, a
well-functioning museum without a homepage on the Internet is hard to imagine.
In this case, however, the use of the virtual
dimension combined with interactivity and
the narrative is more similar to individual
computer-based games than to homepages.
Through a much more widespread and refined use of mobile technologies than is known
today, museums and science centres will be capable of offering their visitors individual experiences. By means of virtual add-on technology, it is possible to create several different virtual add-ons to one and the same physical exhibition or show-room. A more sophisticated
use of the virtual dimension provided by the
mobile phone will make it possible for the visitor to create his own “I-bubble”, that is, his
own unique, personal museum and learning
experiences. He will experience a personal approach that will allow him to provide feedback by means of the keypads of his own mobile phone. In other words: The virtual dimension supports the feeling of individuality.
It supports the idea of meeting all of the visitors individually and where they are, even very
different visitors in the same physical setting.
The reason why I am suggesting a new way
of planning museum exhibitions with interactivity, narration and virtuality at the core is that
these three elements combined support and
promote action and experience as well as structure, reflection and unique, personal experiences, all of which facilitate permanent learning.
The table below distinguishes between the
three different kinds of exhibitions – the traditional museum, the interactive museum and
the interactive/narrative/virtual museum. Please note that whereas paradigm I and II already exist, the third paradigm is a paradigm
which is yet to come (ignoring the first modest step being evident in EGO-TRAP). The
first paradigm has more or less vanished in its
pure shape.
BRAVE
NEW WORLD:
MOBILE
PHONES, MUSEUMS AND LEARNING
Exhibition
Context
Paradigm l
Traditional
Museum
Paradigm ll
Science Centre
Paradigm lll
Interactive/
narrative/virtual
(Augmented
Reality)
Primary
Focus
Information
Audience/receiver
Audience + information
Interactions between
visitors and media +
interactions between
visitors
Media
Display case,
boards supplemented by movies,
tape
recordings etc.
Interactive
exhibits, hands-on
Interactive exhibits +
structure + Mobile
technologies
Learning
approach
Positivist
approach: ‘body of
knowledge’ that
exists outside and
independently of
the audience
Constructivist
approach: learning
is an individual
process occurring
in and directed by
the individual itself
Constructivist
approach + socialcultural learning
approach
The table above distinguishes between the different kinds of exhibitions that characterizes
the museum paradigms I-III.
MOBILES
IN THE MUSEUM
-
WHY BOTHER?
As outlined above, I believe that museums,
as sites for learning, may benefit from combining the focus on information (emphasized in
the first museum paradigm) and the focus on
the visitor (maintained by the second paradigm). Mobile technologies and especially the
mobile phone allows the establishment of a
new ‘augmented museum’ which offers indivi-
dual experiences, hands-on experiences, narrative structures as well as facilitating social learning processes.
EGO-TRAP, which has served as the example of how to put this new paradigm into
practice, is now open to the public at the Experimentarium. At present I am investigating
how young students from upper secondary
high schools interact in the exhibition by means of video recordings and interviews. It is
15
ANNE KAHR-HØJLAND
16
Upper Secondary High School Students using EGO-TRAP. Foto: Brøndby Gymnasium.
still too early to present any definite results
concerning the visitors’ experiences and reflections in the exhibition.
It is possible, however, to point out one of
the perspectives of this kind of mobile facilitated interactive narrative in museum communication: The creation of narratives by using
the vistors’ own mobiles, as in EGO-TRAP,
makes a new kind of virtual extension of museums in general possible. In the future perhaps there will be one single exhibition hall
with myriads of narratives related to it – narratives directed at children and adults. In ot-
her words, it will be possible to experience different kinds of exhibitons and narratives in
the same physical setting. When a family visits
a museum, the mother will experience one
narrative while her husband experiences another and their children yet another – even if
they are in the same room and are able to talk
to each other during the visit. The technical
platform has been put into practice in EGOTRAP – so now we have the possibility of making myriads of narratives that will fit with
the different kinds of exhibitions and visitors
in different kinds of museums.
BRAVE
NEW WORLD:
NOTES
1. The article is based on a lecture held at the NODEM 06 Conference in Norway,
http://www.tii.se/v4m/nodem/index.htm.
2. The exhibition has been developed as part of my
on-going Ph.D.-study, and its aim is to be an
educational tool in out-of-school settings, which
I refer to as semi-formal learning settings (KahrHøjland, 2006: 88-90).
REFERENCES
Allen, S. :Looking for learning in visitor talk: A methodological exploration. In G. Leinhardt, K.
Crowley & K. Knutson (Eds.), Learning Conversations in Museums (pp. 259-303). London:
Lawrence Erlbaum Associates. 2002.
Avraamdiou, L., & Osborne, J.: The Role of Narrative
in Communicating Science. Paper presented at the
Annual Meeting of the American Educational
Research Association. 2005.
Bolter, J. D., & MacIntyre, B.: Augmented Reality as
a New Media Experience. Unpublished Manuscript. GVU Center, Georgia Institute of Technology, Atlanta. 2005.
Dewey, J.: How We Think: a restatement of the relation
of the reflective thinking to the educative process.
Boston: Heath. 1933.
Dourish, P.: Where the Action is: The Foundations of
Embodied Interaction: MIT Press. 2001.
Goodin, D.:Museums Begin Offering Cell Phone Tours.
Associated Press, San Fransisco. 2006.
Griffith, A.: Media Technology and Museum Display: A Century of Accomodation and Conflict.
In D. J. Thorburn, Henry (Ed.), Rethinking
Media Change. The Aesthetics of Transition (pp.
375-390). London: MIT Press. 2003.
Hein, G. E., & Alexander, M.: Museums: Places of
Learning: American Association of Museums
MOBILE
PHONES, MUSEUMS AND LEARNING
Education Committee. 1998.
Hooper-Greenhill, E., & Moussouri, T.: Researching
Learning in Museums and Galleries 1990-1999: A
Bibliographic Review. Leicester: Department of
Museum Studies University of Leicester. 2006.
Ingemann, B., & Gjedde, L.:Kroppen på museum :
Eksperimentel undersøgelse af interaktivitet
mellem brugere og museale genstande og rum. In
B. Ingemann & A. H. Larsen (Eds.), Ny Dansk
Museologi (pp. 165-228.). Århus: Aarhus Universitetsforlag. 2005.
Kahr-Højland, A.: The Personal Exhibition as an
educational tool in a semi-formal learning setting. In E. Bruillard, B. Aamotsbakken, S. V.
Knudsen & M. Horsley (Eds.), Caught in the
Web or lost in the Textbook? (pp. 87-97). Caen,
France: STEF, IARTEM, IUFM de Basse-Normandie, Paris. 2006.
Klopfer, E., & Squire, K.: Environmental Detectives The Development of an Augmented Reality Platform for Environmental Simulations. Cambridge:
Massachusetts Institue of Technology (MIT).
2005.
Norman, D.: The Design of Everyday Things. New
York: Doubleday. 1989.
Osborne, J.: Science without Literacy: a ship without
a sail? Cambridge Journal of Education, 32(2),
203-215. 2002.
Prensky, M.: What Can You Learn From A Cell Phone? - Almost Anything! Nova Southeastern University. 2005.
Säljö, R.: Læring i praksis - et sociokulturelt perspektiv.
København: Hans Reitzels Forlag. 2003.
Wertsch, J. V.: Mind as Action. New York: Oxford
University Press. 1998.
*Anne Kahr-Højland, Ph.D. Student.
DREAM: Danish Research Centre on Education and Advanced Media Materials.
University of Southern Denmark, Odense,
17
ANNE KAHR-HØJLAND
18
Campusvej 55, 5230
Odense M.
For further information please visit:
www.kahr-hojland.dk
www.experimentarium.dk/ego-trap
Address: DREAM: Danish Research Centre on
Education and Advanced Media Materials,
University of Southern Denmark Odense. Email: [email protected].
NORDISK MUSEOLOGI 2007 1, S. 19-29
●
Social media and cultural interactive
experiences in museums
1
ANGELINA RUSSO*, JERRY WATKINS*,
LYNDA KELLY*, SEBASTIAN CHAN*
Abstract: Social media such as blogs, wikis and digital stories facilitate knowledge exchange through social networking. Such media create a new forum within
which dispersed audiences - including youth, regional and rural communities can engage with museums to actively debate notions of identity, and voice these reflections online. Social media can impact on formal and informal learning within
the museum and the effect that this may have on notions of cultural identity. This
represents a shift in the ways in which museums:
● act as trusted cultural online networks;
● distribute community knowledge; and
● view their role as custodians of cultural content.
Museum communication systems such as exhibitions, public programs, outreach
and education seek to provide complex cultural interactive experiences. Social media challenge existing communication models, and few museums have clear strategies for engaging communities in content creation. This paper will investigate
some of the issues surrounding the use of social media in museum programs and
will argue that there are strong epistemological reasons for using social media to
add value to museum programs.
Keywords: Social media, museum communication, web 2.0, museum learning.
BACKGROUND
The social role of museums has changed dramatically in the last decade, but communication and design rationales are still catching up.
Museums no longer fit the early modernist
model of the nineteenth century museum,
with its authoritative narratives; many now offer interactive and open-ended experiences
(Russo and Watkins 2006). Social constructi-
vist approaches to communication have helped museums to connect with the experiences, memories and understandings that visitors bring with them (Watkins and Mortimore 1999; Falk & Dierking 2000; Hein 1998).
They have also have enabled the deconstruction of grand narratives and have affirmed the
role of audiences in social learning. Museums
are more open to cultural diversity, local
knowledge and popular memory. These deba-
ANGELINA RUSSO, JERRY WATKINS, LYNDA KELLY AND SEBASTIAN CHAN
20
tes have tapped a form of community intelligence and have created a path from modernist
certainty and institutional centrality to social
networking and demand-driven intellectual
engagement with culture. In turn, this has
changed the ways that museums respond to
the challenges of increasingly democratised civic engagement. Museums are now sites in
which knowledge, memory and history are examined, rather than places where cultural authority is asserted (Hooper-Greenhill 2000;
Witcomb 1999; Kelly, Cook & Gordon
2006). Museums and visitors collaborate in
the “making of meaning” whether visitors are
local residents who lived through a particular
period of time or school students working on
problem-based research projects (HooperGreenhill 2000; Silverman 1995).
For example, the National Library of Australia2 and Yahoo!7’s Flickr3 recently collaborated to develop “Click and Flick”4, a site where
individuals contribute their images to PictureAustralia5 an online image repository. Previously, PictureAustralia only provided access
to images within existing library, archive, museum and gallery collections. This initiative
addresses issues of democratised civic engagement while posing questions regarding investment in the promotion of community knowledge and negotiated cultural authority.
SIGNIFICANCE
OF SOCIAL MEDIA ON MUSEUM
LEARNING AND COMMUNICATION
Social media have both short and long term
effects on museum learning and communication. In order to realise the immediate opportunities afforded by social media, museums
need to work with designers, communications
experts and educationists to re-engage young
people and communities. This strategy could
encourage audiences to respond to what they
discover and relate it back to themselves in
ways which are meaningful to them. Holden
and Jones (2006: 6) suggest that the modern
institution must “draw from our common
past and cultural heritage to create a diverse
and grounded future”. Social media can capture this social value and explore ways of empowering young people in a more participatory, multi-cultural and engaged society.
In the longer term, social media provide an
exceptional platform from which to explore
the convergence of multimedia design, museum studies, communication, learning and
community informatics to:
● Generate cross-disciplinary connections between museum communication processes,
multimedia design, digital content creation,
smart information use and user-led innovation.
● Position museums to take a primary role in
debate between the world’s leading international cultural institutions on the implications of new social media practices.
● Provide practical examples of ways in which
public investment in museums can engage
technology-saturated young people with social and scientific history.
● Explore notions of identity through social
history and major science issues.
Existing studies suggest that museums enable
cultural participants to explore images of
themselves, their histories and communities
(Falk 2005). Where and how audiences interact with, create and share knowledge are critical issues within the educational infrastructure
available to museum audiences. Rounds (2006)
advances the notion that museum audiences’
identities, motivations and learning are intertwined, and proposes that many individuals
attend museums to confirm and define identi-
SOCIAL MEDIA AND
ties in a prosaic way. Paris and Mercer (2002)
argue that audiences use museums as vehicles
for deconstructing deeply expressed identity.
However, there has been little research on
how social media and digital content creation
can extend learning and build partnerships
between museums and communities of interest. For example, highly successful commercial social media such as Flickr,6 MySpace7 and
You Tube8 make it possible for individuals to
upload personal content to widely accessed
websites and add tags to enable others to search and review this content. These kinds of
social media present opportunities for museums to research new roles in managing the
relationship between cultural heritage and digital cultural content creation. However, museums remain slow to recognise their users as
active cultural participants in many-to-many
cultural exchanges and therefore social media
have yet to make a significant impact on museum communication models, which remain
fundamentally one-way (Russo & Watkins
2006, Russo et al 2006).
Museum learning theories are intertwined
with the notion of ‘communities of practice’
where the importance of learning is not only
central to the individual but within a process
of co-participation within a social context
(Kelly et al 2006). Lave and Wenger propose
that learners should be active contributing
members of communities and that learning is
made possible through involvement with, participation in and acceptance into a community (1991). Such social learning could be readily used to describe museum learning. The issues surrounding the impact of social media
on museum experiences and learning raise the
following questions: could social media affirm
learning experiences within dispersed museum audiences in an environment where it has
CULTURAL INTERACTIVE EXPERIENCES IN MUSEUMS
traditionally proved difficult to sustain communities of practice? Could new communities
of practice be formed around the interplay
between the mediation provided to audiences?
MODELS
OF MUSEUM COMMUNICATION
The ability for an individual to create and display content within an authoritative cultural
environment – such as a museum – reflects a
growing global interest in the sharing of individual and collective experiences. It also represents changes to the ways in which users
interact digitally using different communication models:
● one-to-one (i.e. user to user);
● one-to-many (i.e. museum to user – web
pages and blogs);
● many-to-many (knowledge to knowledge –
wikis).
Historically, the one-to-one and one-to-many
communication models have provided the framework for authoritative cultural knowledge as
provided by museum programs. Thomas
(1998) proposes that museum authority is historically derived from the primacy of object
collections. Museums extend this authority
through their practices of display and interpretation. The recognized authority which museums have within the community provides
audiences with the means to interpret history
and science, which in turn justifies the use of
mediated representations of artefact and culture. The outcome of this cultural transaction
has traditionally placed museums as provider
of both authoritative and authentic knowledge. Such authenticity is critical to the post-museum9 environment in which social media allow for the evolution of a many-to-many
communication model. This shift in cultural
practice, while initially seeming to undermine
21
ANGELINA RUSSO, JERRY WATKINS, LYNDA KELLY AND SEBASTIAN CHAN
22
the primacy of objects, can provide significant
interpretative knowledge. The notion of authenticity – as provided by the museum – organizes collections of narratives into recognizable and authoritative histories, mediating
the relationship between visitors and objects.
Social media can extend this authenticity by
enabling the museum to maintain a cultural
dialogue with its audiences in real time.
An example of this extension of authenticity can be found at the Sydney Observatory
blog site (Powerhouse Museum 2006). In July
2006 the Senior Curator at the Sydney Observatory posted this comment:
There is an email circulating in cyberspace saying that
the red planet Mars will be exceptionally close on 27
August (2006). According to one version “It will look
like the Earth has two moons”!!! Once again this is a
good lesson in not believing everything on the Internet. The email is a hoax…(Lomb 2006).
Over the next month, one hundred and thirty
five visitors to the blog responded to this comment. Some examples of their comments include:
Ah, I thought the email was a little too exaggerated to
be true.... Thanks to the Observatory for setting the
record straight and informing the public (Eve Aug
19th, 2006 at 6:01 pm).
Ah ha …. it sounded too good to be true and I headed
straight on over to the “professionals” here at the Sydney Observatory to set my mind at ease that the email
is as STUPID as I thought it sounded!... Thanks Sydney Observatory…. (Koobakoop Jul 27th, 2006 at
1:26 pm).
It is not insignificant that many of the responses to the Senior Curator’s comments credited
the Sydney Observatory with providing the
“truth” in this matter. This example illustrates
how social media can be used to enable cultural and scholarly dialogue while strengthening
the veracity of museum knowledge. The subsequent communication demonstrates how
the many-to-many model can enhance both
audience interaction and experience and museum authority. At the same time, this example poses new questions for museum authority:
● How much does the museum invest in revealing knowledge held in the community?
● How far is the museum willing to relax its
own authority in these areas of knowledge?
● To what extent is the museum willing to promote community knowledge over its own?
It is also important to consider whether the
Sydney Observatory (or any other institution)
would usually respond in any way to a hoax
email. Most cultural institutions would leave
the job of responding to hoaxes to tabloid media or current affairs/news programs. In this
case, the existence of the blog allowed the Observatory to respond in a way that didn’t threaten its status amongst its peer organizations.
The Sydney Observatory example demonstrates how blogging can be used by museums to
encourage a many-to-many discussion. When
audiences had the opportunity to engage in
cultural debate, they responded in a variety of
ways:
● Asking the community of bloggers whether
they could provide information on other related phenomena.
● Extending the social network by linking others to the museum website.
● Asking the community and/or museum to
verify other related knowledge/websites.
These responses illustrate the reach of cultural
information beyond the blogging community
and the way in which the audience found in-
SOCIAL MEDIA AND
novative links between the information, the
museum and between each other. This example also raises some issues regarding
● the types of social software museums use to
engage with their audiences;
● how social media audiences are differentiated from other audiences within the musuem;
● how social media affect audience ability to
create meaningful cultural experiences;
● how this engagement can be captured to add
greater fidelity to the collection record.
This contextualisation of social media provides an initial framework for considering the
epistemological drivers which could generate
new types of cultural interactive experiences
between audiences and the museum. They
also go some way towards formalising concerns surrounding the perceived threat to museum expertise and knowledge which is often
articulated by museum professionals.
CULTURAL COMMUNICATION AND MUSEUM
LEARNING
While museums have used their outreach and
education programs to innovatively involve
audiences in cultural knowledge and exploration both online and offline,social media networks provide a significant and possibly more
efficient way of “making public” the ways in
which audiences respond to cultural content.
The two examples above demonstrate how social media can facilitate many-to-many communication through their recognised role as
custodian of cultural content.
When social media are used in museums,
they provide an open-ended cultural information space which is structurally ambiguous.
This structural ambiguity can result in many
unforseen issues:
CULTURAL INTERACTIVE EXPERIENCES IN MUSEUMS
the museum is unable to predict the ways in
which social media will be used;
● it is difficult to predict the number of people who will participate (affecting download
speeds and time);
● it is difficult to plan for consistent length/
duration of participation.
These issues are compounded by barriers to
agile business practices within museum bureaucracies which are often slow to respond to
changes in audience behaviour (Weil 2002: 323). Additionally, while audiences can explore
collections and create new content, the resultant information they construct is a product
of individual realizations of the relationship
between phenomena. Unlike museum professionals, and regardless of the scholarship
which may underpin the discussions which
audiences bring to the social media forum,
there remains a notion that this interaction is
in the realm of the amateur.
In the early 1990s, as the World Wide Web
was beginning to be used in major museums
around the world, debates ranged around how
audiences would find their way through a
newly attained freedom to access information,
and what this would mean for cultural institutions (see for example Trant 1998, Teather and
Wilhem 1999).
In the late 1990s Trant (1998: 123) suggested that it was critical to consider the effect of
the World Wide Web on object collections in
particular through the creation of meaningful
pathways into and through digital cultural heritage collections. At that time Trant proposed
that if museums did not take a proactive role
in the establishment of authoritative web-based cultural information sources, their audiences would seek cultural information elsewhere, possibly through less reliable sources. Recently, Trant provided valuable insight into
●
23
ANGELINA RUSSO, JERRY WATKINS, LYNDA KELLY AND SEBASTIAN CHAN
24
the constantly evolving notions of trust in relation to social media in museums:
Trust is built on identity; identity requires identification... Trust is also built upon assumptions that behaviour will be appropriate. Assessments of trust require
a history of an individual’s actions - linking their trace
with a distinct identity… Personalization could be a
great way for libraries, archives and museums to build
connections between collections and individuals, and
between people and collecting institutions... Once
again, though, we need to realise that we’re creating
an on-line space that doesn’t share all the characteristics of our past space, on-line or on-site (Trant 2006).
In the social media environment, one of the
challenges for the museum is to ensure that
the veracity of information surrounding cultural content is not abandoned. This is not a
new challenge but one which is described over
and over as emergent systems, technologies
and paradigms affect the museum program.
Over the past 30 years museum communication has progressed from the 19th century information transmission models used in the
early modernist museums, to social constructivist models which acknowledge the experiences that audiences bring with them when
visiting the museum (Watkins and Mortimore
1999 Falk & Dierking 2000; Hein 1998).
This shift has focused on the partnerships between the museum and its visitors in the “making of meaning” (Hooper-Greenhill 2000)
and is in keeping with more general evolutions in digital media which describe how different modalities combine to create meaning
(Snyder 2002).
INNOVATION
The rise of Museum Studies in the past 30
years has applied the critical theories and key
principles of semiotics and post-modernism
to reframe the larger changes within which the
museum now operates (Pearce 1994, Hein
2000). While the focus on post-modernism
and semiotics has broadened the more traditional one-to-one communication focus of
museum programs, these fields of discourse
do little to contend with the realities of consumer-led changes to audience perceptions and
user interaction with museum content. Therefore this paper proposes that sociocultural
theory can be used as the starting point for an
investigation into the effect of social media on
museum learning. This theory is based on the
idea that human activities take place in cultural contexts through social interactions that
are mediated by language and other symbol
systems, shaped by an individuals’ historical
development. It also understands, accounts
for and makes explicit the ‘unplanned intersection of people, culture, tools and context’
(Hansman 2001, 44), emphasising the importance of culture, environment and history in
every learning context and event (Schauble et
al. 1997). Social learning is considered an active process of reflection leading to self-awareness and change. It is facilitated by a wide
range of tools and as data by Kelly (2007)
shows, is most successful when undertaken by
choice. Sociocultural theory provides an appropriate theoretical framework for an innovative investigation into the ‘unplanned’ social
media environment.
CURRENT
EXAMPLES
The link between such communities and social media can be observed in some international models. For example, the European Union’s Research Network on Excellence in Proces-
SOCIAL MEDIA AND
sing Open Cultural Heritage (EPOCH)10 is
currently trialling models for the evolving digital cultural communication pipeline. EPOCH
aims to foster integration of technology in the
cultural heritage sector; create a joint research
infrastructure, including a holistic approach to
cultural heritage; and raise awareness towards
cultural heritage. The objectives are formed
around two distinct programs: (1) to use technology to enhance preservation and scholarship in cultural heritage; and (2) to bring history to life for the citizen through digital reconstruction, story telling, visitor experiences,
internet applications and education and tourism.
In the USA, the National Design Museum
(Smithsonian Institution) is one of the leaders
in the application of social media to museum
learning programs through its Educator Resource Center. The Center utilises physical
and online resources to link educators to the
museum’s programs, create a community of
practice which shares education experiences
and provide best practice examples of design
education and museum learning. In 2006 the
Museum launched a social media site which
enables educators to connect to each other to
share and distribute knowledge. This project
will extend the evaluation data from this initiative to develop innovative strategies for linking newly established communities of practice to museum collections, knowledge and resources.
The Powerhouse Museum, Sydney is experimenting with social media such as blogs and
folksonomies (user-generated taxonomies) in
order to create and sustain online communities of interest. In 2006 the Museum launched a
new online database OPAC 2.0 which enables
audiences to self-classify the collection. OPAC
2.0 provides a best-practice example of how
CULTURAL INTERACTIVE EXPERIENCES IN MUSEUMS
social media can bring together similar assets
(collections, activists/protagonists, audiences,
content creators) to engage in cultural debate.
Over the next few years, research in the field beyond these current initiatives will be
undertaken by examining the viability and
sustainability of social media as tools for education and communication in museums – and
by extension, in other cultural institutions
such as libraries, galleries and archives. New
interactive technologies should be part of a
new approach to lifelong history and heritage
learning. Museums can use social media to become part of popular knowledge-sharing networks, where people pass on images, information and experiences to a wider public. Working with one another and with educators and
community bodies, museums can lead new
approaches to lifelong historical learning. By
promoting user-led innovation, they can enable audiences to be both critical learners and
creators of digital cultural content.
SUMMARY
The field of social media in museums is still
very much in its infancy. Few scholarly papers
have been written on the subject and while
some museums have incorporated social media into their programs, a discussion of their.
impacts is only just beginning. From the issues discussed in this paper, we propose that the
following areas need further discussion:
● changing communication models;
● connecting youth audiences to museum content;
● barriers to agile business processes in the response to social media;
● strategies for engaging communities in knowledge sharing.
Bradburne (1998) argued for a shift in mu-
25
ANGELINA RUSSO, JERRY WATKINS, LYNDA KELLY AND SEBASTIAN CHAN
26
seum remits from suppliers of information to
providers of useful knowledge and tools
through which visitors can explore their own
ideas and reach their own conclusions. This is
in keeping with Freedman’s suggestion that
increased access to online technologies has
“put the power of communication, information gathering, and analysis in the hands of
the individuals of the world’ (Freedman 2000,
p. 299). Freedman also argued that museums
should become mediators of information and
knowledge for a range of users to access on
their terms, through their own choices, and
within their own place and time. Research has
demonstrated that that the shift from education to learning has required a refocussing on
the visitor or user, not on the delivery systems
(Hooper-Greenhill 2003), and that audiences
are seeking these kinds of interactive experiences from museums (Kelly 2006).
Museum communication systems such as
exhibitions, public programs, outreach and
education seek to provide complex cultural
interactive experiences. As social media facilitate knowledge exchange through social networking, they can be used to encourage audiences to respond to their museum experience
and relate these thoughts back to themselves,
to communities of interest and to the museum itself in ways which are meaningful to
them. Social media provide an exceptional
platform from which to explore the convergence of multimedia design, museum studies,
communication, learning and community informatics to:
● Establish dialogue with / between users
● Build relationships with / between audiences
● Bring together communities of interest
● Enhance external / internal knowledge sharing.
Museums have increasingly directed their com-
munications towards these key areas yet social
media provide web technologies which encourage audiences to participate in museum issues
in a simple and cost-effective way. This article
explores two key shifts in museum practice
which are affected by social media; communication and museum learning. The examples
and discussions provide an insight into how social media can be used to enhance and extend
audience experience.
Given these arguments, it is proposed that
museums could use social media in three specific ways:
to share information between communities of
interest, visitors and museum professionals;
to respond to issues as they become important
to visitors and user-groups;
to create new knowledge and/or new digital
cultural content which enables the interpretation of collections from a visitor perspective.
By promoting user-generated content, museums could enable cultural participants to be
both critics and creators of digital culture. Yet
the widespread viability and sustainability of
social media as tools for curatorial practice,
participatory communication and informal learning in museums, libraries, galleries and archives remains to be determined. Any such
implementation should be part of a strategic
approach to communication by the museum
which addresses changing cultural communication models; engaging communities in
scholarly debate and knowledge sharing; and
connecting audiences to museum content.
When social media are used to create cultural learning experiences in museums, they affect the ways in which audiences participate in
knowledge sharing, communicate with each
other and maintain incentive to engage in the
longer term. This paper has explored examples
which demonstrate an innovative and effecti-
SOCIAL MEDIA AND
ve role for social media in evolving a many-tomany communication model within the museum while maintaining – and perhaps even
strengthening – its voice and authority. Our
research so far indicates there are strong epistemological reasons for social media adding
value to museum programs and that those cultural experiences can extend audience participation in novel and important ways.
NOTES
1. The article is based on a lecture held at the NODEM 06 Conference in Norway,
http://www.tii.se/v4m/nodem/index.htm.
2. http://www.nla.gov.au/
3. http://www.flickr.com/
4. http://www.nla.gov.au/pub/gateways/issues/80/
story01.html
5. http://www.pictureaustralia.org/index.html
6. http://www.flickr.com/
7. http://www.myspace.com/
8. http://www.youtube.com/
9. Hooper-Greenhill uses post-museum to describe
the contemporary museum. She proposes that it
could be regarded as the product of changing
agendas, broadening boundaries and changes in
the relationship between visitors and the museum (Hooper-Greenhill, 2000: 1).
10. http://www.epoch-net.org/
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WEB
RESOURCES
Assembly of the Museums Australia education group
http://maeg.textdriven.com
Sydney Observatory
http://www.sydneyobservatory.com.au/blog/
*Dr Angelina Russo, Senior Research Fellow,
Queensland University of Technology
Address: Queensland University of Technology,
Centre of Excell, Creative Industries Precinct
Musk Ave, Kelvin Grove Brisbane 4059.
E-mail: [email protected]
*Mr Jerry Watkins, Senior Research Associate,
Queensland University of Technology
Address: Queensland University of Technology,
Creative Industries Precinct
SOCIAL MEDIA AND
Musk Ave, Kelvin Grove Brisbane 4059.
E-mail: [email protected]
*Dr Lynda Kelly, Head, Australian Museum
Audience Research Centre, Australian Museum
Address: : Australian Museum, 6 College Street
Sydney (opposite Hyde Park), NSW 2010 Australia.
E-mail: [email protected]
*Mr Sebastian Chan, Manager, Web Services,
Powerhouse Museum.
Address: Powerhouse Museum
street - 500 Harris St Ultimo, NSW Australia
postal - PO Box K346, Haymarket, NSW 1238
tel - 61 2 9217 0109
fax - 61 2 9217 0689
www.powerhousemuseum.com
E-mail: [email protected]
CULTURAL INTERACTIVE EXPERIENCES IN MUSEUMS
29
NORDISK MUSEOLOGI 2007 1, S. 30-45
●
Beyond mere information
provisioning: a handheld museum
guide based on social activities
and playful learning
1
JOLIEN SCHROYEN*, KRIS GABRIËLS*, DANIËL TEUNKENS*,
KAREL ROBERT*, KRIS LUYTEN*, KARIN CONINX*
AND ELKE MANSHOVEN*
Abstract: During a museum visit, social interaction can improve intellectual, social, personal and cultural development. With the advances in technology, the use
of personal mobile handheld devices – such as Personal Digital Assistants (PDAs)
– that replace the traditional paper guidebooks is becoming a common sight at
various heritage sites all over the world. This technology often leads to problems
such as isolating visitors from their companions and distracting visitors away from
their surroundings. We believe careful design of mobile applications and taking
advantage of low-cost networking infrastructure can avoid such isolation of the
visitor from his or her surroundings and encourage interaction with both surroundings and companions. In this paper, we describe our approach to create a mobile
handheld guide that supports the learning process by exploiting social interaction
between visitors and subtly matching the content and concepts shown on the handheld guide with what can be found in the museum.
Keywords: Collaborative learning, social interaction, mobile technologies,
mu-seums, PDA.
1 INTRODUCTION
ARCHIE is a project in which the educational
staff of the Gallo-Roman Museum collaborate
with a research team from the HCI group of
the Expertise Centre for Digital Media (Hasselt
University) in the context of the future expansion of the museum.
The starting point for this interdisciplinary
collaboration is our strong belief that a handheld museum guide is a promising medium to
enhance the visitor’s learning experience.
Recently, the introduction of handheld computer guides into museums has added another
dimension to the experience of visiting a museum. PDA technology allows the dynamic
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presentation of information, without disturbing the physical space or being limited by the
aesthetics of the galleries. These screen-based
multimedia systems also provide opportunities to access multimedia, visuals, photo, video,
text and audio while walking through the exhibitions. The first PDA-based applications in
museums combined all these advantages, but
they also revealed some important shortcomings: the device demands a lot of attention,
tends to displace the surrounding objects and
generates the unintended side effect that it is
quite an isolated, individual experience (Proctor & Tellis, 2002; Vom Lehn & Heath, 2005;
Vom Lehn, Heath & Hindmarsh, 2005; Angliss, 2006a, 2006b).
With the ARCHIE project, we want to deal
with the above-mentioned unintended side effects and explore the different possibilities a
museum guide can offer in the future: a greater versatility for visitors to tailor information
to their needs and interests (personalization),
to discover the exhibits at their own pace (localization) and to communicate and interact
with family or group members (communication).
Though the research on social interaction
and collaboration using new technologies is
quite recent (Hawkey, 2004), there are already
some projects on museum co-visiting. The
Sotto Voce project developed an electronic
guidebook prototype that promotes interaction between museum visitors through content and audio sharing (Woodruff, Aoki,
Hurst & Szymanski, 2001). This study resulted in an interesting set of design principles,
but the collaboration between companions is
maybe a little too passive (following or checking in tasks). The goal of the Cicero Project –
promote social interaction between visitors
through cooperative and educational games –
fits in with our project (Laurillau & Paternò,
2004; Dini, Paternò & Santoro, 2007). Also
the reported findings of the user tests of the
‘Mystery in the Museum’ game in the Solomos Museum are very interesting (Cabrera et
al., 2005). However, we hope to take the idea
of a collaborative learning activity one step
further than the above-mentioned edugames,
which still have to be played at a quite individual level, with only a shared enigma.
In this article, we present the ongoing ARCHIE project and its objectives. One of the
main objectives, stimulating social interaction
by making use of mobile networked devices,
will be thoroughly discussed throughout this
text. The remainder of this article is structured
as follows: section 2 describes the importance
of social interaction and the influence of the
context of use on the learning experience during a museum visit. Next, section 3 gives an
overview of the software system used as a framework to create mobile applications that
support our objectives. Sections 4 and 5 describe two cases being developed on top of our
software system. Section 4 provides a concrete
insight into how the system works, and how it
is being received by our test groups, while section 5 looks ahead and describes a case that is
in an initial prototyping phase. Finally, this article is concluded with a short summary of the
results obtained.
2 THE
IMPORTANCE OF SOCIAL INTERACTION
AND CONTEXT
“The central fact about our psychology is the
fact of social mediation. Higher mental functions in the individual have their origins in the
social life of the individual” (L.S. Vygotsky in
Falk & Dierking, 2000, 37).
With this quotation, Falk & Dierking want
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JOLIEN SCHROYEN, KRIS GABRIËLS, DANIËL TEUNKENS, KAREL ROBERT, KRIS LUYTEN,
KARIN CONINX AND ELKE MANSHOVEN
32
to stress the fact that people make sense of the
world through social interaction with others,
through distributed meaning-making. “For learning, particularly learning in museums, is a
fundamentally social experience” (Falk & Dierking, 2000, 38). Since learning also constitutes the main reason why people attend museums (Falk & Dierking, 2000 and Provincial
Gallo-Roman Museum, 2005), it is clear that
social interaction must be taken into account
when designing an educational mobile handheld guide.
Starting from a social-constructivist approach, Falk & Dierking created their contextual
model of learning in museums, in which three
interweaving contexts contribute to and influence the interactions and experiences that visitors have with objects and the consequent learning and meaning-making (see figure 1). In
time, the learning and meaning-making that
evolves from these overlapping contexts gets
fitted in with both previous and subsequent
impressions and knowledge to create a very
personal, interactive learning experience.
The main objectives of the ARCHIE project
join in with this contextual model of learning.
In the following section we give an overview
of these objectives.
2.1 PERSONAL CONTEXT
The personal context takes into account what
personal background the visitor or learner
brings to the learning experience: his or her
interests and personal motivation, preferred
learning style, prior knowledge and previous
experiences. Within the ARCHIE project, we
recognize the fact that each visitor is different
(age, level of knowledge, interests, etc.) and
that these differences influence the way visitors perceive information and are willing to
interact with it. While most traditional mobile museum guides often offer a tour and presentation that is the same for all visitors, we
want to discover the opportunities and benefits of a personalized approach.
On the highest level, multiple graphical
user interfaces are provided, which all have access to the same content but provide a different presentations and are different in the way
the visitor interacts with them. We refer to
these interactive presentations as interface
“shells”. One shell is oriented towards adults,
who are generally less inclined to engage in
playful learning. It contains a means for finegrained personalization, as will be explained
in the next paragraph, and since less social
interaction is expected from the target group,
it only offers some basic options to do so. The
second shell offers a collaborative and playful
learning experience and is developed with
youngsters in mind. Here, identification with
the overall museum story is an important issue to get these visitors involved. We try to accomplish that by – among other things – letting them create their own personal avatar
that will accompany them throughout the collaborative museum game. Section 3 will elaborate on the structure of the shells and will
explain how they are actually built upon the
same foundations and are seamlessly interchangeable.
The fine-grained personalization that is implemented in the interface for adults involves
rating a whole set of content in terms of topic,
presentation and target audience, followed by
picking the most appropriate one. Since it is
not practical to have a visitor fill in a survey
before starting the actual visit, our system
starts out with a specific, typifying user profile, which will be adapted slightly during the
visit. Similar to the PEACH project, user pre-
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BASED ON SOCIAL ACTIVITIES AND PLAYFUL LEARNING
Fig. 1. The contextual model of learning (Falk &
Dierking, 2000).
ferences are extracted while the user interacts
with the system (Rocchi, Stock & Zancanaro,
2006). Our approach does not expect the visitor to give scores for each item, but observes
the actions of the user, which can lead to minor modifications to the user profile, which in
turn triggers a recalculation of all the content,
resulting in some content taking a more prominent place on the screen of the mobile device. This is similar to what is described in Kuflik et al. (2005), even though our system does
not contain a very extensive user modelling
component.
2.2 PHYSICAL CONTEXT
The physical context refers to the design and
architecture of the museum environment: orientation, construction and lay-out of the exhibit, display of the objects, etc. We take the
physical context into account in two different
ways. First, we use indoor localization to detect which objects are in the vicinity of the visitor. When the visitor approaches an object
or area of interest, a notification will be sent
via the mobile device, and the appropriate
presentation will be loaded. Another application of indoor localization is tracking the trail
followed by the visitor, which can be used to
learn about the user preferences or in what
areas of the museum the visitors wander
around for a long time.
Second, instead of displacing the surrounding objects – as noted above, a common problem with the first PDA-applications – we
take into account the various possible interactions between visitors, PDA and museum.
This serves as a basis for the design of the presentations on the mobile device. For example,
the information presented by the mobile device is dependent on the location of the visitors
and what can be perceived in the physical
world, but also on the location of fellow visitors. This stimulates interaction between
companions. If visitors are at different locations in the museum, the PDA will act as a
communication channel between them (see
section 3).
2.3 SOCIO-CULTURAL CONTEXT
The socio-cultural context accounts for the
socio-cultural mediation and facilitation of learning in museums. The ARCHIE project devotes itself to encourage and stimulate interaction between visitors by use of the PDA. As
mentioned above, user studies of the first
handheld guides in museums stress on the fact
that the PDA generates a quite isolated, individual experience (Vom Lehn & Heath,
2005; Vom Lehn, Heath & Hindmarsh,
2005; Angliss, 2006a, 2006b). Concerning
the predecessor of the PDA, the audio-tour,
Angliss (2006a) suggests that “audio can also
put individual visitors in a bubble, making it
difficult for them to keep track of companions
33
JOLIEN SCHROYEN, KRIS GABRIËLS, DANIËL TEUNKENS, KAREL ROBERT, KRIS LUYTEN,
KARIN CONINX AND ELKE MANSHOVEN
34
or family members, let alone chat about what
they have seen” (p.47). This remark also applies to PDA-based museum visits and indicates
an important obstacle in the use of these new
technologies in museums. After all, most people do bring along companions to a museum
and try to synchronize their visit with each other. Museum-going is a social event: a day trip
for the whole family or for a group of friends.
Companions want to share their experiences
with each other and talk over their impressions. Furthermore, as we stated before, these
conversations between visitors are not only inevitable, they also contribute greatly to their
learning experience.
Morrissey (2002) even argues that social
interaction not only promotes, but is also a prerequisite for intellectual, social, personal and
cultural development. Recent studies with children and object-centred learning also recognize
the importance of social interaction: “the potential of the learning environment and its objects largely depends on the social atmosphere
generated and the support young children receive through positive, reciprocal interactions.
[…] The successful learning setting functions
as a community of learners, where all individuals are respected, their learning is supported,
and opportunities for collaboration are provided” (Piscitelli & Weier, 2002, p. 126). An extensive investigation among visitors and potential visitors to the Gallo-Roman Museum confirms these findings (Provincial Gallo-Roman
Museum, 2005).
3 SYSTEM
OVERVIEW
In line with the Falk & Dierking model, the
ARCHIE Mobile Guide System consists of a
set of three core services (personalization, localization and communication) on top of
which an arbitrary interface shell can be de-
ployed (see figure 2). The interface shell can
be developed quite independently: it only has
to handle events sent by the services it has signed up for. This approach results in a flexible
mobile guide system rather than one particular mobile guide. When deployed on multiple
devices, the interface shells can be linked together by using the communication service,
which handles the interaction between devices, making it possible to create networked
applications such as collaborative games.
Figure 2 shows two interface shells, which are
currently being implemented as part of the
ARCHIE project: the game shell, designed for
youngsters, which includes a collaborative trading game, and the informative shell where
adults can browse the virtual museum space
by manipulating the time-line on their screen.
These shells may look like two completely different mobile guides, but they are both built
on the ARCHIE core services.
Since one of the main interests of the ARCHIE project is interaction between visitors
and the museum, we will have a deeper look
at the communication service. A server application keeps track of the different groups of
visitors. During the visit, the system allows visitors to communicate with other visitors in
the same group in two different ways:
● a direct communication style that is voicebased and uses Voice-over-IP (VOIP). This
allows the visitor to address the other members of the same group directly.
● an indirect communication style that allows
visitors to exchange other types of data related to the interface shell. Through collaborative games, experiences and opinions can be
shared. The synchronization between different clients involved in a collaborative game
depends on the game and should be taken
care of by the developer of the shell.
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35
Fig. 2. Framework overview.
Both types of communication make use of the
wireless network deployed inside the museum, which covers the complete museum
surface that can be visited.
We strived for a low-cost solution and used
standard networking components that can be
bought at reasonable prices. Wireless access
points are used to create the networking infrastructure. Each access point is connected to
the central server using a wired LAN connection. Although the system makes extensive use
of the wireless network, it does not require a
high-performance network infrastructure.
We will elaborate further on the core services in the case study below, covering the collaborative trading game we developed.
4 CASE
STUDY: A COLLABORATIVE TRADING
GAME
To describe our efforts to stimulate learning
through interaction, we will discuss a prototype application we designed to create a collaborative learning activity for school groups (aged
10–14 years). In 2006, a collaborative trading
game for teams of 4 persons was developed. In
collaboration with the educational staff of the
museum, we decided to work on a specific
chapter of the future museum narrative concerning the introduction of social differentiation in society (round 825 BC). The main
message is the introduction of iron and salt in
daily life, which results in new exchange net-
JOLIEN SCHROYEN, KRIS GABRIËLS, DANIËL TEUNKENS, KAREL ROBERT, KRIS LUYTEN,
KARIN CONINX AND ELKE MANSHOVEN
36
Fig. 3. Trade proposal from leader
works and the emergence of a new élite class
as key figures in these contacts.
Every player has an explicit role in the
game: there are three farmers and one leader.
Each one has his own properties and specific
goals that need to be achieved. The game sets
off when the three farmers try to solve a set of
questions about the exhibits. With every right
answer, the farmer gains exchangeable goods
(local products such as cattle, sheep, etc.).
The leader has an overall view regarding the
exchangeable goods earned, and can make a
trade proposal to a farmer. Figure 3 shows a
screenshot of one of the farmers getting such a
trade proposal from the leader. The upper left
of the screen shows the goal of this farmer in
terms of a quantity of iron and salt. The upper
right shows the exchangeable goods the farmer has gained. In the middle, the leader offers a trade proposal to the farmer (2 salt for 6
cows), which the farmer can either accept or
refuse. Only the leader has exclusive contacts
in the exchange networks: he can travel to the
south three times to exchange the local products for iron and salt. While every farmer has
a specific amount of iron and salt as a goal, the
leader’s objective is to keep every farmer satisfied (this means making sure that every farmer
achieves his goals) and to get hold of a bronze
sword. The leader profile in figure 4 gives an
overview of the accomplishment of his goals
(“doel 1” and “doel 2”). The farmer of the waterside region (“zee”) has received half of his
iron and salt and smiles. The other two farmers still look rather glum (no iron and salt
yet: their tub is empty!). The leader has obtained two out of three parts of his bronze
sword.
We designed the game in this way so that
every player is dependent on the concrete actions of other players. It is only through social
interaction and cooperation that they can
come to a good end. The main message is to
learn in a sub-conscious way about unequal
stratifications in society, how they came to existence, how they functioned and more precisely how it must have felt to be in an unequal
position. It is exactly this feeling the visitors
experience when playing the game because of
the unequal amount of influence each player
has when participating in the game.
The game is actually an interface shell that
is developed on top of the ARCHIE framework and makes use of its several core services.
The localization service is used for determining when the game has to be started, namely
when all team members are near the physical
presentation of the museum narrative concer-
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Fig. 4. Leader profile
ned. This is achieved by catching and interpreting the events from the localization service. Personalization is achieved by assigning
each team member a specific role – farmer or
leader – and by providing each person with
his own adapted character or avatar. The communication service makes it possible for teammates to communicate directly to each other
via a chatbox. They can use this Voice-overIP-based communication channel to negotiate
or comment on the trade proposals and/or to
help each other solving the questions. Indirect
communication is carried out by the trade actions, which are necessary to accomplish the
game. By sending a trade proposal to a farmer,
the leader initiates indirect communication.
The farmer replies by accepting or refusing
this trade proposal. The data that is exchanged
between the players is obviously game-related.
In November 2006, the prototype of the
trading game was ready for testing and evaluation. We visited three secondary schools in
Hasselt and Genk: two general schools and
one technical. In all, approximately 70 students, aged 12 to 15, tested the prototype in a
class room, decorated with posters of museum
objects and information to simulate a museum gallery. During the test, the students
were observed and afterwards they were asked
to fill in a questionnaire concerning personal
background, usability and playability of the
trading game. As expected, most of the
youngsters were familiar with ICT. 78% of
them use a computer on a daily basis, 76% the
Internet and 63% a mobile phone. As a result,
these students were not put off by trying out a
new ICT application. Although 80% of the
students declared that they had never used a
PDA before, 82% said it was very easy to use.
In general, the students enjoyed playing the
game. A remark often heard was that the game
should last a bit longer. Moreover, the questionnaire showed that it was not ‘just’ a fun
game: 75% answered the questions about
content correctly. Furthermore, our evaluations showed the participants understood the
unequal stratification in society by playing the
game although it was never mentioned explicitly.
In this paragraph, we will focus on aspects
of the evaluation of the prototype concerning
social interaction and collaboration between
the students and interaction with the surroundings. First of all, the chatbox service was positively evaluated: 88% would certainly use it
during a museum visit. Observations showed
that the chatbox was used by all participants
during the game. In the first instance, the stu-
37
JOLIEN SCHROYEN, KRIS GABRIËLS, DANIËL TEUNKENS, KAREL ROBERT, KRIS LUYTEN,
KARIN CONINX AND ELKE MANSHOVEN
38
dents used it for experimenting with this new
technology and thereafter to pass on game-related information. The farmers commented
on the proposals from the leader and spurred
him/her on to trade with them. The test setting in a rather small room in comparison to a
museum floor did not allow us to test the use
of this application in the way we intended: to
support and stimulate communication between visitors who are not at the same location.
In the following prototypes, we will reserve
the use of the chatbox in particular to games
where the players have to swarm about a huge
museum floor and cooperate to achieve their
goal. Using the chatbox in this context can
clearly contribute not only to the enhancement of social interaction during a museum
visit, but also to the learning activity.
Concerning the interactions between the
players and the museum exhibits – the information posters on the walls – we can state that
there was generally a good balance between
looking at the screen and looking around. Exceptionally, one team did not automatically
look around to examine the museum, even
though the PDA explicitly asked them to. The
provisional test setting probably did not invite
these students to explore their surroundings
because of the limited space that was available.
We expect that this problem will not occur
when the game is played in the actual museum environment that is more suited for exploration.
The observations certainly confirmed that
the game provoked collaboration and social
interaction among its players. A great deal of
these interactions related to the leader role in
the game. Although there was an introduction
movie explaining the goals and the operating
procedure, the leader needed further explanation. The questionnaire confirmed these ob-
servations: 9 out of 17 leaders asked for clarification, while only 1 out of 50 farmers stated
that he did not understand the introduction
movie. The timing also shows a gap between
farmers and leader. The average farmer needed
about 9 minutes to answer his questions, whereas it also took about 9 minutes to receive his
first trading proposal from the leader. The farmers then tried to summon their leader to trade with them. The students clearly did not experience this as a big problem, but we still
have to take this into account in future designs. We noticed youngsters do not read onscreen, nor listen to long audio captions,
which confirms our idea that it is important
to work more visually and to make it more appealing to avoid long introduction instructions. We should also take great care regarding
the difficulty of the tasks we offer: they should
be sufficiently challenging, intuitively designed, and the different roles should be in harmony with one another.
5 GAME
SHELL: PLAYFUL AND COLLABORATI-
VE LEARNING
After developing and testing this first prototype, we started working on the entire interface
shell intended for children and youngsters
aged 10 to 14. To get better acquainted with
their needs and expectations, we conducted a
brainstorm session with four boys and three
girls (12 to 16 years) and invited them to
think aloud about gaming in a museum.
What are their main expectations towards a
museum game?
● it has to be lots of fun, with enough challenges and plenty of variety
● promote unconscious learning (young
people do not want to get the impression
that they are learning)
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MERE INFORMATION PROVISIONING: A HANDHELD MUSEUM GUIDE
BASED ON SOCIAL ACTIVITIES AND PLAYFUL LEARNING
integrate objects in the museum (exhibits)
within the game
● provide an adaptable personal character/
avatar
● integrate a help menu within the game
● etc.
We took these remarks, plus the evaluation of
the collaborative trading game, into account
when designing a game-shell concept, intended to support a one-and-a-half-hour museum visit by the target group. The game shell
consists of various independent collaborative
games, which each focus on a specific, key
chapter of the future museum narrative. These games are tied together by the overall museum story, but each focus on important aspects of a certain time span, covering – in a
nutshell – local history from Neanderthal times until the end of the Roman Empire. The
games are meant to be played in teams of 3 to
4 youngsters. A uniform graphic design is
maintained throughout the entire game shell.
Even this graphic design contributes to the learning experience, as it is closely matched to
the content of both the game and the museum
narrative. Every game is located in a suitable
landscape, given the relevant historical place
and time. The features of the landscape and
the objects in that landscape evoke the historical circumstances (figure 5).
The brainstorm session confirmed our expectation that youngsters are not opposed to
learning new things about history in general.
However, when visiting a museum they do
not always want to be aware of the fact that
they are learning. They still associate a museum visit with a passive activity (“observing”)
rather than with an interactive activity. We tried to meet this concern by carefully and gradually designing the game shell in various
ways as an (inter)active and playful learning
●
experience. First of all, to enhance the commitment of the players to the game and to create a personal touch each player gets to adapt
his/her own avatar which accompanies
him/her throughout the entire PDA tour (figures 6 and 7).
In every game of the game shell, the avatars
of a team find themselves in a different historical period, facing a challenge specific to that
period. Via these personalised avatars, the players can imagine themselves in the historical
circumstances we evoke, and can contribute
to a solution. Furthermore, to create a sense of
competition between the teams, we developed
an overall scoring system in which players can
gain points in the different categories ‘smart’
Fig. 5. Landscape with personalised avatar and
Roman army.
39
JOLIEN SCHROYEN, KRIS GABRIËLS, DANIËL TEUNKENS, KAREL ROBERT, KRIS LUYTEN,
KARIN CONINX AND ELKE MANSHOVEN
only in terms of the messages of the museum
narrative but also of skills the students develop during their PDA-based museum visit.
Throughout the game shell, the youngsters
are challenged to refine skills such as closely
observing museum exhibits, cooperating,
autonomously exploring the museum, processing information, etc. Each successive game
takes the students up to the next level. The
players even acquire the skill to use the PDA
technology and all its functions gradually,
simply by using their interface shell on the
PDA. Step by step, more complex functions –
such as scrolling through a landscape and
using the chatbox – are introduced.
We are currently developing a second pro-
40
Fig. 7. Avatar team.
Fig. 6. Adapting personal avatar.
and ‘strong’ and can obtain a special ‘teamwork’ bonus. In this way, we induce competition without focusing on one specific point
and one specific skill, thus offering different
players the chance to excel. Finally, we take
great care that the game shell is a playful learning experience and not a history lesson disguised as a game. This is done by avoiding
long, dry informative parts and by integrating
the museum content fully with the PDA games. We strive for a subtle match between the
key messages in the museum narrative and the
messages of the games, without explicitly lecturing about any content.
Learning therefore occurs gradually throughout the game shell, without the students
being too conscious that they are learning, not
BEYOND
MERE INFORMATION PROVISIONING: A HANDHELD MUSEUM GUIDE
BASED ON SOCIAL ACTIVITIES AND PLAYFUL LEARNING
totype application – a collaborative farming
game. This game covers the first farming settlement in our region from 5300 BC and onwards. The main message concerns the transition made by these farmers from a nomadic lifestyle to a sedentary one. For the first time in
local history, people begin to master their surroundings (grub up trees, for example) to create villages and fields. The players take on the
role of early farmers, in search for the ideal
starting conditions and the ideal circumstances to ensure a good yield from their fields. To
strengthen the impact of this transition from
being completely dependent on nature to
being able to control and organise their surroundings, the students are now given the opportunity to scroll through the landscape horizontally, whereas in the previous games – situated in nomadic times – the landscape automatically shifted vertically. This is a clear example of how unconscious learning can be stimulated by means of the PDA and the visualisations.
With the difficulties of the trading game in
mind, we choose to strive for a less complex
and more intensive collaborative activity that
also involves face-to-face communication.
The students have to exchange the personal
information they acquired – via a museum exhibit or via PDA – on the spot to create the
best possible location for their farms and fields. Each farmer has his or her specific task to
fulfil, but to obtain a good result, the 3 farmers have to cooperate to arrange their shared
farming landscape. Farmer 1, for instance, has
to grub up trees to make room for the fields
(to be positioned by farmer 2) and the farm
(to be positioned by farmer 3) (see figure 8).
In order to choose the right trees to be cut – so
the fertile soil is emptied – farmer 1 needs the
information farmer 2 and 3 obtained. Farmer
41
Fig. 8. Task of farmer 1.
2 needs the information of farmers 1 and 3 to
know where to situate the fields so they can
get as good yields as possible (see figure 9).
The players thus have to rely on the information of their team members to make the most
profitable decisions.
6 CONCLUSION
In this article, we presented the ARCHIE research project and its objectives. We developed a framework that provides us with the basic
services to create a context-aware interactive
mobile museum guide that stimulates interaction between visitors and their companions
and between visitors and the museum. The
basic services included by the framework are
JOLIEN SCHROYEN, KRIS GABRIËLS, DANIËL TEUNKENS, KAREL ROBERT, KRIS LUYTEN,
KARIN CONINX AND ELKE MANSHOVEN
that goes beyond merely information provisioning to a playful learning experience, based
on social activities.
42
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
Fig. 9. Task of farmer 2.
location detection, communication between
mobile devices and personalization. This framework is used to develop different types of
interface shells that are interactive graphical
presentations tailored towards a specific target
group.
We have developed several interface shells,
such as the game shell for youngsters and the
informative shell for adults. The trading game
was tested thoroughly and the results of these
tests are used to steer the ongoing developments, as shown by the farming game that is
currently being created. Our approach tries to
involve the different target groups as much as
possible by means of brainstorm sessions and
regular end-user tests. Especially in the game
shell, this results in a handheld museum guide
Part of the research at EDM is funded by ERDF
(European Regional Development Fund), the
Flemish Government and the Flemish Interdisciplinary Institute for Broadband Technology
(IBBT).
The authors would like to thank Heleen Van
Loon who helped lay the foundations of the
work presented here and Mieke Haesen who
shared her expertise in usability testing and evaluation of interactive mobile applications. We
would also like to thank the museum staff of
the Provincial Gallo-Roman Museum for close
collaboration and the O.-L.-Vrouwlyceum
(Genk), Middenschool Kindsheid Jesu (Hasselt) and Technisch Instituut St.-Lodewijk
(Genk) secondary schools for evaluating the
software discussed in this paper.
NOTES
1. The article is based on a lecture held at the NODEM 06 Conference in Norway,
http://www.tii.se/v4m/nodem/index.htm.
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Proctor, N., & Tellis, C. (2003): The State of the Art
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Provincial Gallo-Roman Museum (2005): Quantitative learning target group research, unpublished
findings, Tongeren.
Rocchi, C., Stock, O., & Zancanaro M. (2006):
Adaptivity in Museum Mobile Guides: the Peach
experience, mobile guide 06, Turin, Italy.
Thom-Santelli, J., Toma, C., Boehner, K., & Gay, G.
(2005): Beyond Just the Facts: Museum Detective
Guides, HCI Group, Cornell University. Retrieved January 26, 2006, from Re-thinking Technologies in Museums at www.idc.ul.ie/museumworkshop/
Van Driel, H. (2001): Digitaal communiceren. Amsterdam: Boom.
Vom Lehn, D., & Heath, C. (2005): Accounting for
New Technology in Museum Exhibitions. International Journal of Arts Management, 7(3),
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Vom Lehn, D., Heath, C., & Hindmarsh, J. (2005):
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DETAILS ABOUT THE AUTHORS
*Jolien Schroyen
Educational Assistant
[email protected]
In 2003 Jolien obtained a master’s degree in
History at the KULeuven. She also obtained a
43
JOLIEN SCHROYEN, KRIS GABRIËLS, DANIËL TEUNKENS, KAREL ROBERT, KRIS LUYTEN,
KARIN CONINX AND ELKE MANSHOVEN
44
teaching certificate and an abridged bachelor
degree in Theology and Religious Studies in
2004. In September 2004 she started working
as a teacher and a teacher trainer. She began
her work as a researcher and educational assistant for the ARCHIE project in April 2007.
Address: Expertise Centre for Digital Media
(EDM)
Hasselt University, Campus Diepenbeek
Wetenschapspark 2
BE-3590 Diepenbeek, Belgium
Tel: +32 (0) 11 26 84 11
Fax: +32 (0) 11 26 84 99
*Kris Gabriëls
Computer scientist
[email protected]
He obtained a master’s degree in Musicology at
the KULeuven in 2001 where she also completed a teacher training course in 2003. In January 2006 she obtained an additional master’s degree in computer science at Hasselt University.
Since February she is working as a researcher investigating innovative mobile technologies with
applications in cultural heritage. She joined in
the ARCHIE project in February 2005.
Address: Expertise Centre for Digital Media
(EDM)
Hasselt University, Campus Diepenbeek
Wetenschapspark 2
BE-3590 Diepenbeek, Belgium
Tel: +32 (0) 11 26 84 11
Fax: +32 (0) 11 26 84 99
*Daniël Teunkens
Computer scientist
[email protected]
He obtained a master’s degree in computer science in 2000 from Hasselt University. He immediately started working as a researcher at the
Expertise Centre for Digital Media. Before joining the ARCHIE project as a researcher in
May 2005, he has been involved in a wide
range of various research projects where he was
responsible for bringing innovative ICT solutions to the end-user.
Address: Expertise Centre for Digital Media
(EDM)
Hasselt University, Campus Diepenbeek
Wetenschapspark 2
BE-3590 Diepenbeek, Belgium
Tel: +32 (0) 11 26 84 11
Fax: +32 (0) 11 26 84 99
*Karel Robert
Graphic Designer
[email protected]
She studied Graphic Design at Sint-Lukas in
Brussels, where he obtained his master degree in
2005. In the ARCHIE project he translates heritage concepts into concrete visual representations and is experienced creating rich graphical
designs for mobile devices with limited screen
size. He brings a touch of frivolity to the designs.
Address: Expertise Centre for Digital Media
(EDM)
Hasselt University,
Campus Diepenbeek
Wetenschapspark 2
BE-3590 Diepenbeek, Belgium
BEYOND
MERE INFORMATION PROVISIONING: A HANDHELD MUSEUM GUIDE
BASED ON SOCIAL ACTIVITIES AND PLAYFUL LEARNING
Tel: +32 (0) 11 26 84 11
Fax: +32 (0) 11 26 84 99
Kris Luyten
Professor in Computer Science
[email protected]
He obtained a master’s degree in computer science at Hasselt University in 2000, before going
on to gain a Ph.D in human-computer interaction at Hasselt University in 2004. Since 2006
he is a professor at the same university, where he
conducts research into (among other things) model-based interface development, context-sensitive interactive systems and interactive distributed
work spaces.
Address: Expertise Centre for Digital Media
(EDM)
Hasselt University, Campus Diepenbeek
Wetenschapspark 2
BE-3590 Diepenbeek, Belgium
Tel: +32 (0) 11 26 84 11
Fax: +32 (0) 11 26 84 99
*Karin Coninx
Professor in Computer Science
[email protected]
She gained a Ph.D in Information Technology
following a study into Human-Computer Interaction in immersive virtual environments. Since
1998 she has worked as a full-time professor at
the Hasselt University and in that capacity lectures on various general information technology
subjects and specialized subjects relating to
man-machine interaction. As group leader of
the human-computer interaction group of the
Expertise Centre for Digital Media at the
UHasselt, she is responsible for various research
projects relating to interaction in virtual environments, mobile and context-sensitive systems,
interactive work spaces, user-centred development and the model-based realization of user
interfaces.
Address: Expertise Centre for Digital Media
(EDM)
Hasselt University, Campus Diepenbeek
Wetenschapspark 2
BE-3590 Diepenbeek, Belgium
Tel: +32 (0) 11 26 84 11
Fax: +32 (0) 11 26 84 99
*Elke Manshoven
Customer Relations Assistant
[email protected]
She obtained a master’s degree and teaching certificate in History at the KULeuven in 1997.
She also obtained (among other things) a Public
Relations and Communication Sciences certificate from Hasselt University and graduated as a
nature guide.
Since 1999 Elke has worked in the Customer
Relations department of the Provincial GalloRoman Museum where she helps coordinate the
ARCHIE project.
Address: Provincial Gallo-Roman Museum
c/o Wijngaardstraat 65
BE-3700 Tongeren, Belgium
Tel: +32 (0) 12 67 03 46
45
NORDISK MUSEOLOGI 2007 1, S. 46-57
●
“The Nordic concept” in relation to
the arts. Politics and exhibition
policy in the Third Reich
HANNA PIRINEN*
Abstract: Nazi Germany used official cultural cooperation for ideological propaganda purposes. Germany did not enter into any distinct cultural agreements with
the Nordic countries, but cooperated in separate projects such as art exhibitions.
This article focuses on an exhibition of Finnish art organized in Germany in
1935 and on an exhibition of German art correspondingly organized in Finland
in 1936. The article discusses the compilation of an exhibition as a statement of
opinion. Compiling an exhibition is always a matter of making choices: decisions
have to be made on the theme of the exhibition, any larger entity it is to be linked
with, what should be included and what should be left out. An exhibition always
represents something; it can thus never be non-aligned or ‘innocent’. An art exhibition that forms part of cultural cooperation organized by a totalitarian system is
an example of an enforced display of ideology.
Keywords: Exhibtions, cultural cooperation, cultural policy, Nazi Germany,
political art, propaganda.
The rise to power of the National Socialist
Party in Germany in 1933 heralded a massive
political upheaval which had an impact on all
segments of cultural and artistic life as well as
everywhere else. Nazi Germany’s domestic
and foreign policy both involved single-minded politico-cultural propaganda. Propaganda
aimed abroad was the responsibility of the efficiently organized cultural administration
run by the Foreign Ministry and the Ministry
for Public Enlightenment and Propaganda,
plus numerous associations subservient to the
party together with their various subdivisions.
Nazi Germany entered into cultural agree-
ments with Spain and several countries in eastern Europe. As a result, a conscious political
programme was created for national cultural
exchange, with officials active in running it
(Barbian 1992). Germany did not enter into
any cultural agreements with the Nordic
countries, and there was thus no official basis
for widespread cooperation between cultural
organizations, university departments or other
institutions. Instead, cultural cooperation was
channelled into other forms of activity, such
as arranging guest appearances, exhibitions
and trade fairs in various fields.
This article explores the use of cultural co-
“THE NORDIC
operation by National Socialist Germany as a
means of spreading Nazi propaganda. I shall
be focussing on two exhibitions in particular:
an exhibition of Finnish art organized in Germany in 1935 and an exhibition of German
art correspondingly organized in Finland in
the following year. I shall also be touching on
an exhibition of Finnish graphic art that toured Germany in 1936. By analysing the exhibition organization, I shall discuss the cooperation between the two countries and the political role of cultural institutions in the public
sector. Using the two above exhibitions as case
studies, I aim to analyse the political aims that
were propounded in official public cultural efforts.
During the period studied, the National Socialist political programme known as the ‘Nordic concept’ (Nordische Gedanke), which was
rooted in race theory but which was expanded
into a varied and subtle tool for ideological propaganda in the mid-1930s, had a key role.
The programme was principally the creation of Alfred Rosenberg, the party’s main ideologist. This article analyses art exhibitions as
a means of implementing the aims of Rosenberg’s ideology. My discussion is linked with
American analytical historical research. Hayden White has highlighted the emphasis on a
romantic vision of history so typical of Fascism and the dominance of ‘visionary politics’
as a response to a Realpolitik presentation of
history (White 1987: 72-75).
A scientific study in the field of history on
Nazi German cultural propaganda in Finland
between 1933 and 1940 has been published by
Britta Hiedanniemi. The roles of key figures
from cultural life and the world of art who cooperated with Germany have been charted in
monographs. Detailed research on cultural exchange has been complicated by the fairly tho-
CONCEPT” IN RELATION TO THE ARTS
rough destruction of official German documented sources in the final phase of the war.
The documents that are available are mainly
contemporary printed sources such as newspaper and magazine articles and printed exhibition catalogues, plus diaries and memoirs and a
very small amount of correspondence from private archives (Hiedanniemi 1980; Wuorimaa
1967; Levanto 1991; Kruskopf 1998).
At the international level, research on the
influence of National Socialism on the art
world in Finland is a theme of topical importance. In the last few years, such national research has been carried out in several countries
as part of an international project. For example,
the Geschichte der Kunstgeschichte im Nationalsozialismus joint project carried out by German
universities and research institutions has documented sources and collated the information
studied into a single database (www.welib.de/
gkns/index.htm). The Swedish Sveriges förhållande till nazismen, Nazityskland och förintelsen
project is a broad undertaking made up of
smaller research projects (www.historia.su.se/
swenaz/publ/ Nazismen.pdf).
BUILDING
LINKS WITH THE NORTH
The terms ‘national’ and ‘racial’ were key concepts that were used as rhetorical instruments
in the National Socialist theory of history. In
relations with Scandinavia, one of the key
terms was ‘Nordic’. In Nazi race theory, the
‘Nordic’ race, as defined by race theoretician
Hans F.K. Günther in his writing on the
Nordic concept in 1925, was ranked the highest. The party’s principal ideologist, Alfred
Rosenberg (1893-1945), developed and reshaped the definition of the Nordic race in his
ideological best-seller Der Mythus des 20. Jahrhunderts (The Myth of the Twentieth Centu-
47
HANNA PIRINEN
48
ry, 1930). The book mixed together mythical
and racial elements of history with theories of
art. The mystification of Nordic and Germanic race and blood had a key role in this.
Rosenberg adopted the term nordisch (‘Nordic’), derived from Günther’s racial theory, as
part of his own cultural and political programme, which was given the name ‘The Nordic concept’ in line with its model. Unlike Günther, Rosenberg included the Finnish-speaking
‘East Baltic’ portion of the Finnish population
in the Nordic race; Günther had only included the Swedish-speaking population of Finland. Rosenberg considered the Finns’ task as
guardians of the eastern corner of the new Europe a very important one and took the view
that the opposition to Communism demonstrated in the Finns’ struggle for independence
in 1918 supported the acceptance of the Finns
as one of the leading nations on the European
mainland. In Nazi ideology, the term ‘Nordic’
thus became separated from its racialist roots
to become characterized as a political and
indeterminate ideological qualifying concept.
Thus also the Nordic concept programme, as
managed by different users, developed into a
complex tangle in which two other distinct
strands could be distinguished, in addition to
the Rosenberg core.
The party’s foreign policy agency, Aussenpolitisches Amt der NSDAP, set up a special department to handle relations with the Nordic
countries in 1934, with Thilo von Trotha, Alfred Rosenberg’s private secretary, as its head.
The cultural history trend was specifically personified by von Trotha and his interpretation
of the Nordic concept, and many other ingredients were mixed in with the race theories of
Günther, including nineteenth-century Nordic Romanticism, which in its day had explored links between Germanic and ancient Scand-
inavian culture. The third trend in the Nordic
concept covered the fairly practical operating
concept of the National Socialist Nordische
Gesellschaft of Lübeck. This association ran its
own business operations and managed a network of businesses which traded in the Nordic countries. The association also took an active part in Nordic cultural work with the Baltic
countries and organized a total of 200 separate events in Baltic coastal towns, including the
annual Nordische Tage event in Lübeck, which
was launched in 1934 (PA, Letter from Dr.
Timm to the AA 7.5.1934; Wuorimaa 1967:
59-60; Hiedanniemi 1980: 27, 36-37; 60-63).
The German National Socialists invested
substantial resources into fostering Scandinavian relations. Alfred Rosenberg became the
key figure, and his influence extended to all
sub-areas of Nordic cooperation. Among other things, he was in the leadership of the
Nordische Gesellschaft, the regionally organized
party association focusing on Scandinavian relations.
Alfred Rosenberg was an avowed anti-Semite who felt a deep repugnance not only to Judaism but also to the Christian Church. Indeed, he became the spiritual leader of the National Socialist neo-pagan movement. His
dream of the future was to distil symbols from
Nordic tales and legends to replace the Old
Testament symbols of the Judaeo-Christian
religion. This National Socialist religion was
to have cherished the tales of Odin, linking
them with ancient legends and the teachings
of Meister Eckehart, and also with a wide
range of Germanic cultural tradition up to the
time of Walter von der Vogelweide. Rosenberg
believed that these ingredients would later
metamorphose into religious symbols. Rosenberg’s writings aroused considerable opposition from the Church and in cultural circles.
“THE NORDIC
Rosenberg wrote a pamphlet to counter
Christian opposition. Indeed, a good deal was
written about the National Socialists’ relationship with the Church, in the Finnish press
as elsewhere. Sentencing Evangelical priests to
jail or concentration camp received substantial news coverage (Rosenberg 1936: 614; Rosenberg 1935; Denzler & Fabricius 1993).
There was considerable competition for influence amongst the Nazi élite. Propaganda
Minister Josef Goebbels and Alfred Rosenberg
represented opposing views on art and were
heated opponents in many disputes on other
matters, too. Goebbels’ influence grew as the
Nazi cultural administration expanded, and
he gained control of the Reichskulturkammer.
Correspondingly, Rosenberg’s influence declined by 1935 as the organization he headed,
Kampfbund für Deutsche Kultur, lost its significance as the field of political action changed.
Once the National Socialists had achieved a
dominant position, the operating practices
used in the combative stage were no longer required. (Brenner 1963: 78-86; Lane 1985: 176177; Petropoulos 1996: 34). The eclectic ideological aspects espoused by Rosenberg were sidelined in party policy: the public reasons given
for this were political arguments veiled in rationalism, though privately and unofficially Rosenberg’s mystical writings were laughed at and
considered to be a hotchpotch of humbug. Hitler’s and Rosenberg’s views on the importance
of race to ideology differed from each other.
Rosenberg was keen to develop racial doctrine
into a mystic cult, whereas Hitler declared
that Nazi racial doctrine was a matter of tending and guiding the moral stature of a people defined by blood. Hitler did not warm to
the notion of Scandinavia as the racial homeland of the purest Germanic people. He turned his gaze to the south, as his own ideals
CONCEPT” IN RELATION TO THE ARTS
were above all shaped by Classical Antiquity
(Bollmus 1989: 226-227; Demandt 2002: 282283, 291, 297).
EXHIBITIONS AS
INSTRUMENTS OF
NAZI
PRO-
PAGANDA
Confused in its basic concept and split up into
several different schools of thought, the
‘Nordic concept’ programme soon plunged
into a political crisis. In the Nordic countries,
overt Nazi propaganda was met with repugnance. Effectively, the only instrument left to
the Germans was cultural exchange, subtly infused with elements of propaganda. Official
art exhibitions in Finland and Germany were
organized as harmonious demonstrations of
cultural cooperation.
A major exhibition of Finnish art was organized in Germany in 1935, showing 220 pictures and 50 pieces of sculpture. The main organizer of the exhibition was the Finnish government, with the Nordische Gesellschaft and
the N.S. Kulturgemeinde as partners in charge
of the practical organization. The patrons of
the exhibition were Reichsleiter Alfred Rosenberg for the Germans and the Finnish Ambassador in Berlin, Aarne Wuorimaa, for the
Finns. Both countries appointed an honorary
committee of the great and good for the exhibition. The group that actually did the work
in Finland included representatives of the Ministry for Foreign Affairs and the art world
and a representative from the Ateneum Art
Museum. The commissioner for the exhibition was Dr. Bertel Hintze, who held the post
of Chief Curator at the Helsinki Kunsthalle.
The text in the exhibition catalogue was written by Edvard Richter, secretary to the National Art Committee (Exhibition catalogue
1935; Hiedanniemi 1980: 92-94).
49
HANNA PIRINEN
50
Fig. 1. The gala opening of the exhibition of Finnish art in Berlin in May 1935. Aarne Wuorimaa, the Finnish
ambassador, is speaking, and Reichsleiter Alfred Rosenberg can be seen in uniform in the front row. Photo: Central
Art Archives, Finnish National Gallery.
The exhibition opened at the N.S. Kulturgemeinde gallery on Tiergartenstrasse in Berlin
on May 11, 1935. From Berlin, the exhibition went on to Düsseldorf and Hamburg in
its entirety. Altogether, 16 German cities expressed an interest in hosting the exhibition.
Besides the opening celebrations, the party
organizations arranged a series of other events.
Reichsleiter Rosenberg hosted a breakfast at
the Aussenpolitisches Amt. The event brought
together all the front-line politicians and cultural bodies involved in propaganda. In response, the Finnish ambassador gave a tea party at the Finnish embassy. Those present included diplomats from the Czech, Lithuanian
and Latvian embassies and staff from the German Foreign Ministry and the party’s foreign
affairs agency.
“THE NORDIC
A corresponding exhibition of German art
was organized in Finland in 1936, with some
400 works by 64 artists on display at the Helsinki Kunsthalle. A lecture associated with the
exhibition was given by the German professor
of art history Alfred Stange (1894-1968), illustrating National Socialist ideas about art.
Stange, who had been appointed to his post at
the University of Bonn the previous year, had
carried out a thorough political overhaul of
his department in accordance with National
Socialist ideology. He was also instrumental in
bringing about a wider process of change in
the realm of science throughout the Third
Reich. Stange’s department carried out studies
in the geography of art with the aim of demonstrating “the German heritage” in French
art. Stange was in close contact with Alfred
Rosenberg. During the war, the art department at the University of Bonn was involved
in campaigns to photograph French art and
architecture in occupied France. It was at
Stange’ s initiative that a research centre for
art history was set up in Paris. At this centre,
German National Socialist art historians wrote scientific evaluations and conveyed information exploited in the seizure of works of art
and items of cultural heritage (www.welib.de/
gkns/tkg-bonn.html).
At the exhibition of German art in Helsinki, a good deal of attention was paid to
looking after official relations between the
two countries. German officials were represented on the honorary committee by Konstantin Freiherr von Neurath, Reich Minister
for Foreign Affairs; Dr. Wilhelm Frick, Reich
Minister of the Interior; and Bernhard Rust,
Reich Minister for Science, Education and
Culture. The political élite, on the other hand,
was represented by Hermann Göring, Minister President of Prussia and Commander in
CONCEPT” IN RELATION TO THE ARTS
Chief of the Air Force, and Reichsleiter Alfred
Rosenberg. The Finnish side was represented
by the Finnish Ambassador in Berlin, Minister Aarne Wuorimaa.
In projects such as these exhibitions, it was
the party cultural organizations that did the
actual work. In both the Finnish exhibition in
Berlin and the German exhibition in Helsinki, the same two party organizations – the
Nordische Gesellschaft and the N.S. Kulturgemeinde (particularly the department of visual
art) – were in charge of the arrangements.
Conflicts of interest had arisen between the
two organizations, and in fact funding had
been obtained from other German sources
too, to cover the escalating exhibition costs
(Hiedanniemi 1980: 92-94).
The exhibition of Finnish art only visited
Berlin, Düsseldorf and Hamburg, even
though many cities besides these three would
have been happy to host it. In order to cater
to this demand, the Lübeck head office of the
Nordische Gesellschaft turned its attention to
Finnish graphic art. A successful exhibition of
Finnish graphic art had been held in Prague
and Bratislava in 1935, and the Nordische Gesellschaf was interested in bringing this exhibition to Germany, since the organization had a
comprehensive network of branch offices
throughout the country and the resources to
make the practical arrangements. The graphic
artists agreed to the request, and the aim was
to open the exhibition in Lübeck in conjunction with a national meeting of the Nordische
Gesellschaft. The organization planned to invite the chancellor of the Third Reich, Adolf
Hitler, and the President of the Finnish Republic, P.E. Svinhufvud, to be patrons of the
exhibition (STG, letters from Dr. Timm to
Lennart Segerstråhle 21.5.1935, 1.6.1935;
CCA, STY II, file 1, exhibition catalogue;
51
HANNA PIRINEN
52
Fig. 2. The exhibition of German art was hung in the Helsinki Kunsthalle in March 1936. Bertel Hintze is here
having lunch with the Germans Alexander Funkenberg and Günther Thaer.
CCA, ABH, file 13, letter from NG Reichskontor Lübeck to Bertel Hintze 20.12.1935).
GERMANIC
IMAGES
There was a good deal of coverage of the exhibition of Finnish art in Germany and the exhibition of German art in Finland in both the
Finnish and German press. When reading the
German newspaper articles, the contemporary
political restrictions on public speech should
be borne in mind. Goebbels, the propaganda
minister, had brought the German media
under his control. He expressed his opposi-
tion to art reviews in a variety of contexts, and
this led to a ban on the publication of art criticism towards the end of 1936. Criticism “after the fact”, and assessments that projected
art expertise, were forbidden. The National
Socialist party felt that its worldview offered a
comprehensive ideology which allowed the
evaluation of works of art in the context of an
overall concept of culture. Instead of reviews
written by critics, newspapers published explanatory and descriptive texts written by ‘art
editors’ (Kunstschriftleiter). These writers were
not allowed to hide behind pseudonyms; their
whole names had to be published. Art editors
“THE NORDIC
had to be well informed about the field of art
they were writing about and at least thirty
years old (Wulf 1963: 126-131; Brenner
1963: 108).
Newspaper articles provide a more extensive source for investigating how Finnish and
German art was actualised. To today’s reader,
these exhibition reports and criticisms seem
naïve and appear to be dictated by the political situation. However, the newspaper articles
reveal the kind of network of consciousness,
narrative and openly expressed goals in which
national art was actualised.
The commentary on the Finnish exhibition
as a whole highlighted the visionary power of
Akseli Gallen-Kallela as an interpreter of the
Kalevala epic. Appreciation of folk poetry was
ranked high in the National Socialist conception of art. Thus the links between GallenKallela’s works and the Finnish narrative tradition and the imagery of the Kalevala were
highly praised. The artist was extolled as a
mystic from the Finnish forests and an interpreter of Finnish tales. The fighting spirit of
the heroic figures described in the epic was admired, and similarities were identified between its characters and those of the ancient Germanic tradition. The monumental style of
Gallen-Kallela’s frescoes and his sizable major
works was admired, as too were the clear surface compositions and dramatic lines of his
symbolist paintings.
German influences on the work of Finnish
artists who had studied in Germany – such as
Fanny Churberg, who had studied in Düsseldorf, – were emphasised. Individual artists
highlighted included the painter Sulho Sipilä,
both for his career as captain of a battleship
and for the almost mystical nature of his matter-of-fact style (Thaer 1935a: 402-403; Thaer
1935b; Scholz 1935).
CONCEPT” IN RELATION TO THE ARTS
The art historian Waldemar Hartmann,
who was editor of the culture section of Völkischer Beobachter, the main mouthpiece of
the National Socialist party, had written for
the catalogue of the One Hundred Years of German Art exhibition held in Helsinki. The preface outlines national contacts in trade and
culture. The Finnish war of independence and
the political Nordic concept programme were
highlighted as factors that cemented friendly
relations. Hartmann makes a case for the political idiom of the exhibition, reflecting the
German national tradition in general and its
appearance in German Romanticism in particular. Nationally, the focus is on portraiture
and landscape painting. National Socialist art
history emphasised the realisation of national
values in art. Relinquishing foreign models
and alien themes was considered a good thing:
the world of Antique myth had been supplanted by German landscapes and images of national life (Hartmann 1936, 6-7).
At the Helsinki exhibition, the German organizers gave particular attention to a newcomer who was ideologically suited to the National Socialists. Wilhelm Petersen (born 1900), a
fairly young painter from northern Germany,
submitted 23 paintings to the exhibition. His
work consisted of seascapes and coastal subjects and mythological themes. Because of his
Nordic racial and spiritual heritage, he was expected to become a national-epic painter, and
his independence from all foreign influences
was considered an asset. Petersen had had an
exhibition at home in Germany in 1936, attracting a good deal of attention in the German press. He was generally seen to embody
the ‘Nordic concept’, and on the orders of Alfred Rosenberg methodical efforts were undertaken to hail him as the greatest artist in the
Third Reich.
53
HANNA PIRINEN
54
Finnish reviews of the exhibition took note
of phenomena in the National Socialist concept of art. Besides cautious criticism and diplomatically veiled phrases, there were also
sympathetic views of National Socialist arts
policy. Ludwig Wennevirta, art critic for the
extreme right-wing paper Ajan Suunta, explained the basis for the National Socialist concept of art described by the German guest lecturer Professor Alfred Stange in a separate article before the actual commentary on the exhibition, in which he gave special attention to
the new German painting. Wennervirta named Wilhelm Petersen as the chief exponent
of this, and in his summary he confesses his admiration for the National Socialist worldview
(Wennervirta 1936).
In the independent cultural magazine Forum, V. Arti (a pseudonym for Kaarlo Väinö
Valve) took the view that the Germans were
miles ahead of the Finns in terms of both
technique and cultural ideas. He considered
their artistic outlook to be powerful, direct,
free from sentimentalism, honest and aware of
nature. According to Arti, German art was not
overburdened with refinement in comparison
with Romanesque art, particularly Italian.
The reviewer considered this to be a unifying
factor between Finnish and German art. Arti
was ready to put German art forward as a
paradigm for the future (Arti 1936).
That the National Socialist conception of
art prioritized the emotional projection of the
viewer, “the human proximity of art and its et-
Fig. 3. Wilhelm Petersen: Thor and the Midgard Serpent. Paavolainen 1936, page 107.
“THE NORDIC
hical values”, over artistic value bemused critics accustomed to the conventional evaluation approach in art history. Stiff criticism was
avoided, however, and reviews were couched
in cautious turns of phrase – or, as one of the
most influential characters in the Finnish art
world of the 1930s, professor of art history,
cultural-political persona and art critic Onni
Okkonen (1886-1962) put it, they focussed
on technique. Okkonen’s general assessment
of the official art of the Third Reich was cautious in the extreme although he considered
contemporary German graphic art to be of a
technically high standard (Okkonen 1936a;
Okkonen 1936b).
In the exhibitions organized in GermanFinnish cooperation in 1935 and 1936, National Socialist propaganda exploited the
‘Nordic concept’ as the ideological basis of the
foreign policy programme . The Finnish writer and critic Olavi Paavolainen reported on
his experiences in Germany in spring 1936 in
his book Kolmannen Valtakunnan vieraana (A
Guest of the Third Reich). He saw the ‘Nordic concept’ as a sort of immense flight from
reality into the world of illusion. One of his
contemporaries had defined it as ‘Gothic romance’. Similarly, in Sweden the ‘Nordic concept’ was rejected right from the start “with
icy disdain for this expedient myth.”(Paavolainen 1936: 93, 98).
Nazi cultural propaganda aimed at the
Nordic countries failed to achieve the desired
result. The volume of criticism increased, and
the Germans had to admit that the ‘Nordic
concept’ had foundered. In 1937, Rudolf
Holsti, the Finnish Minister for Foreign Affairs, began building a more neutral public
image for Finnish foreign policy, which led to
a cooling in relations with Germany.
By 1938, after the propaganda programme
CONCEPT” IN RELATION TO THE ARTS
had failed, National Socialist cultural propaganda aimed at other countries was changed.
The Nordische Gesellschaft magazine Der Norden stopped employing overt Nazi propaganda after noting the criticism it had attracted in
the Nordic countries.
No sooner had the political concept come
to a dead end than Nordic mythology as a
subject for the visual arts began to wear out.
Subsequently, the focus of National Socialist
art shifted to sculpture.
National Socialist admiration for sculpture
could be seen in foreign relations, too. German desires for a presentation of Finnish
sculpture were repeated in various contexts.
Sculpture was already prominently featured at
the Finnish exhibition in Berlin in spring
1935. Wäinö Aaltonen’s statue of the runner
Paavo Nurmi had been installed in the exhibition gallery courtyard, and more of Aaltonen’s
major works were on show inside. One of these was even bought by Alfred Rosenberg himself. Correspondingly, a bronze statue of a seated girl by Fritz Klimsch was purchased for
the Ateneum collection at the exhibition at
the Helsinki Kunsthalle (Catalogue nr. 138,
50cm, inv. B I 416). German interest in Finnish sculpture can also be seen in cultural exchanges: Dr. Bertel Hintze was invited to lecture on contemporary Finnish sculpture in
Germany in 1942 (CCA, ABH, file 13, letters
from NG Reichskontor Lübeck to Bertel
Hintze 30.5.1942, 5.8.1942).
Contemporary sculpture was also at the
forefront of the German exhibition in Helsinki in 1936. Fritz Klimsch, Thorak and Richard Scheibe had established themselves in
the field of monumental sculpture. In heroic
imagery, a fighting spirit and an athletic body
were much admired. They portrayed Wehrhaftigkeit, a valiant and militant bearing, and
55
HANNA PIRINEN
56
Wehrgedanke, a warlike disposition, while proclaiming the superiority of the Aryan race and
its ability to reach great heights of sporting
achievement. Depictions of the nude female
body in German art had earlier been fairly rare
but became more common with the advent of
Nazi ideas about art (Hartmann 1936: 6-7;
Paavolainen 1936: 118-122).
In terms of cultural history, the 1930s were
a golden age for organized cultural policy and
political art. The National Socialist ‘Nordic
concept’ programme, which flourished for a
period of four years from 1934 to 1938, is a
distinct example of a cultural propaganda project. It was a phenomenon connected with the
mainstream of 1920s National Socialist racial
theory and cultural policy, which both proclaimed the threat of spiritual decay in culture
and of racial contamination. Fostering the
priority of the Nordic race was proposed as a
way of saving the situation, and art was harnessed as an instrument for carrying out this
work. The Nazis spoke heatedly about the
general crisis in art and culture as one of the
symptoms of a larger crisis in society as a whole. The basis for Nazi theories about art consisted of classification into different categories
and a sort of artistic triage to determine which
art is acceptable and which should be condemned (Auslese). Abstract and modern art was
condemned as degenerate, since its typically
deformed shapes were identified with the physically handicapped and the fantasies of the
mentally diseased (Brenner 1963: 36-39, 108116; Petropoulos 1996: 31-33).
BIBLIOGRAPHY AND
SOURCES
Abbreviations
AA = Auswertiges Amt
AHB = Archive of Bertel Hintze
CCA = Central Art Archives
PA = Politisches Archiv des Auswärtigen Amtes
STG = Suomen Taidegraafikot ry: arkisto (Archive of
the Association of Finnish Printmakers), Jyväskylä,
Finland
STY = Suomen Taideyhdistyksen arkisto
Archival materials
Politisches Archiv des Auswärtigen Amtes Berlin,
Germany (PA)
Kult, Institute und Vereingungen: Nordische
Gesellschaft R 65.814
Suomen Taidegraafikot ry: arkisto (Archive of the Association of Finnish Printmakers), Jyväskylä, Finland
Archive of Lennart Segerstråhle: Correspondence
Finnish national Gallery, Central Art Archive, Helsinki, Finland (CCA)
Archive of Bertel Hintze (ABH) Correspondence: File 13 NG Reichskontor Lübeck
Suomen Taideyhdistyksen arkisto (Archive of the
Finnish Art Society), (STY) Part II, File 1
BIBLIOGRAPHY
Arti, V [=Valve, Kaarlo Väinö]: ”Saksan taiteen näyttely Taidehallissa”. Forum 1936/4.
Barbian, Jan-Pieter: “Kulturwerte im Zeitkampf. Die
Kulturabkommen des ”Dritten Reiches” als Instrumente nationalsoziatistischer Aussenpolitik”.
Archiv für Kulturgeschichte 1992/2, 415-459.
Bollmus, Reinhard: “Alfred Rosenberg – Chefideologe des Nationalsozialismus?” Die braune Elite I.
Wissenschaftliche Buchgesellschaft: Darmstadt
1989.
Brenner, Hildegard: Die Kunstpolitik des Nationalsozi-
“THE NORDIC
alismus. Rowolt: München 1963.
Demandt, Alexander: “Klassik als Klischee. Hitler
und Antike.” Historische Zeitschrift Band 274
(2002), 281-313.
Denzler, Georg & Fabricius, Volker: Christen und
Nationalsozialisten. Frankfurt a.M. 1993.
Exhibition catalogue 1935: Nationale Finnische Kunstausstellung in Deutschland veranstaltet von der
Finnischen Regierung in Gemeinschaft mit der
Nordische Gesellschaft und der NS.-Kulturgemeinde (1935).
Hartmann, Waldemar: ”Saksan taiteen näyttely Suomessa 1936”. Sata vuotta Saksan ta idetta. Tysk
konst under 100 år 7.3.-29.3.1936. Taidehalli.
Konsthallen, 1936.
Hiedanniemi, Britta: Kulttuuriin verhottua politiikkaa. Kansallissosialistisen Saksan kulttuuripropaganda Suomessa 1933-1940. Otava: Helsinki1980.
Kruskopf, Erik: En konstens världsman.Bertel Hintze
1901-1969. Svenska litteratursällskapet i Finland: Helsingfors 1998.
Lane, Barbara Miller: Architecture and politics in Germany 1918-1945. Harvard University Press:
Cambridge 1985.
Levanto, Yrjänä: Kirjoitetut kuvat. Ludvig Wennervirran taidekäsitys. Helsinki 1991.
Okkonen, Onni: ”Saksan taiteen näyttely I.” Uusi
Suomi 8.3.1936.
Okkonen, Onni: ”Saksan taiteen näyttely II.” Uusi
Suomi 21.3.1936.
Paavolainen, Olavi: Kolmannen valtakunnan vieraana. Gummerus, Jyväskyla 1936.
Petropoulos, Jonathan: Art as Politics in the Third
Reich. University of the North Carolina Press,
USA 1996.
Rosenberg, Alfred: An die Dunkelmänner unserer Zeit
eine Antwort auf die Angriffe gegen den “Mythus
des 20. Jahrhunderts”. 22. Auflage . Hoheneichen-Verlag, München 1935.
Rosenberg Alfred: Der Mythus des 20. Jahrhunderts
CONCEPT” IN RELATION TO THE ARTS
95.-98. Auflage. Hoheneichen-Verlag: München
1936.
Scholz, Robert: “Ein Gang durch die Finnische Kunstausstellung.” Völkischer Beobachter 14.5.1935.
Thaer, Günther (1935a): “Finnische Kunst geht ihren Weg. Gedanken zur Berliner Kunstaustellung.” Nationalsozilistische Monatshefte 1935,
Heft 62/ Mai 1935.
Thaer, Günther (1935b): “Finnische Kunst als Kulturbild.” Deutsche Allgem. Zeitung 10.5.1935.
Wennervirta, Ludvig: ”Sata vuotta Saksan taidetta.”
Ajan Suunta 1.4.1936.
White, Hayden: The Content of the Form. Narrative
Discourse and Historical Representation. The John
Hopkins University Press, Baltimore and London
1987.
Wulf, Joseph: Die bildenden Künste im Dritten Reich.
Eine Dokumentation. Sigbert Mohn: Gütersloh
1963.
Wuorimaa, Aarne: Lähettiläänä Hitlerin Saksassa.
Otava: Helsinki 1967.
Material published in internet
Geschichte der Kunstgeschichte im Nationalsozialimus: Sveriges förhållande till nazismen, Nazityskland
och Förintelsen. www.historia.su.se/swenaz/publ/Nazismen.pdf.
*Hanna Pirinen
Senior assistant, Ph.D., Docent in Art History
Address: University of Jyväskylä
Department of Art and Culture Studies
P.O Box 35 (JT)
FIN- 40014 Jvyäskylän yliopisto
[email protected]
57
NORDISK MUSEOLOGI 2007 1, S. 58-73
●
Research into art looted by the nazis
– an important international task
MAARIT HAKKARAINEN AND TIINA KOIVULAHTI*
Abstract: In the period 1933–1945 the Nazis orchestrated the most massive art
theft in world history. The exact number of looted art objects is not known, although estimates vary from hundreds of thousands to millions. A huge number of
art objects looted by the Nazis are still missing. They have been spread around the
world through a variety of different channels and can still be found in the art market. Such looted art objects have also ended up in museum collections. All countries have a moral duty to participate in the efforts to identify and restitute objects looted from their owners by the Nazis.
Keywords: Provenance, Nazi era, National Socialism, looting, confiscation,
art, World War II, Third Reich, collecting, museum, holocaust.
Research into art looted by the Nazis- is topical even today, 60 years after the end of the Second World War, and an important task. Vivid international discussion on property seized by the Nazis started again in the 1990s,
when the relevant archives became accessible
for researchers and plenty of new information
was published. There are still many unresolved questions concerning Nazi looting, which
need the attention of scientists from various
disciplines worldwide.
Between the years 1933 and 1945 the Nazis orchestrated the most massive art theft in
history. The operation began in Germany
and at the end of the 1930s it also took place
in the countries occupied by the Nazis. The
subjects for this looting were primarily the
Jews, but also many other groups, organiza-
tions and communities that qualified as enemies of the Third Reich. Several state collections in occupied countries were also plundered.
The exact quantity of looted art objects is
unknown. Estimates vary from hundreds of
thousands to millions of pieces of art. After
the Second World War, the Allies returned
identifiable objects to the governments of the
countries from which they had been stolen.1
Despite the efforts of the Allies, a huge number of art objects looted by the Nazis are still
missing. They have been spread around the
world through various channels and can still
be found on the art market. Works of art looted by the Nazis have also ended up in museum collections around the world via donations and purchases
RESEARCH
THE
DEAL PROJECT
–
OF NAZI-LOOTED ART
RESEARCH INTO ART
LOOTED BY THE NAZIS IN FINLAND
In Finland, the looting of art during the Nazi
era has been subject to research for several
years. The research project ”Distributors of
European art legacy – Finland as relocation region of Nazi-looted art, DEAL” was established at the University of Jyväskylä in 2001 by
four researchers. The project was financed by
the Emil Aaltonen foundation. Two of the
DEAL researchers, Dr. Hanna Pirinen and
Dr. Tomi Mertanen, studied the points of
contact between German and Finnish political and art life during the 1930s and 1940s.
Their aim was to create an overall picture of
the German-Finnish cultural relations and the
impact of Nazi ideology on the general lines
of art policy. With the research of Tiina
Koivulahti Ph.Lic. and Maarit Hakkarainen
Ph.Lic., Finland rose to the international challenge of studying Nazi looting. Because Finland was not directly affected by seizures
undertaken by the Nazis, the matter of lost
cultural heritage has to be treated from the
point of view of asking whether Finland was
one of the countries that relocated Nazi-plundered art. The project clarified the possible
routes and the channels whereby Nazi-looted
art was acquired in Finland. The research also
analyzed the art trade and art collecting. Relations between Finnish art collectors and Nazi
Germany, as well as the impact of these relations on art acquisition, were therefore also
examined. The project aimed at adding knowledge about Nazi confiscations, to improve expertise focusing on Nazi-era provenance research in Finland and by doing so to link Finland with the international field of research
concerning this subject.
27 Finnish museums participated in the
–
IMPORTANT INTERNATIONAL TASK
DEAL provenance research and there are approx. 400 foreign works of art with gaps in
their provenance for the Nazi-era, 1933–1945,
as subjects of research.2 The Nazi-era provenance research has not been undertaken in
Finnish museums before. Foreign works of art
have mainly come to the Finnish museum collections as donations from private collectors.
According to archival material, private collectors did not pay much attention to the provenance of the works of art they acquired. Neither did the art dealers: it is only in recent years
that the international art market has acknowledged the need of provenance research, even
though works of art confiscated by the Nazis
have been available on the international art
market since before the Second World War.
The method behind Nazi-era provenance
research, as used by the DEAL project, was
developed in the 1990s to identify objects looted by the Nazis. In this method, the object itself is a primary source of information. In provenance research, all the inscriptions and markings on an object must be documented because they are traces of the history of that object.3 In addition to object documentation, all
relevant archival material, bibliography and
databases must be studied. This kind of provenance research requires expertise on Nazi-era
art looting and co-operation within the international research field.
ART
FROM INTERNATIONAL MARKET
The works of art confiscated by the Nazis
spread into international art trade as early as
the 1930s. The Nazis sold or bartered degenerate works of art, as well as other art considered undesirable, on the European art market,
thus acquiring foreign currency.4 This chapter
is not going to deal with all international con-
59
MAARIT HAKKARAINEN AND TIINA KOIVULAHTI
60
nections between the art trade and Nazi Germany but will bring forward the forced sales
of Jewish property as well as links between the
spreading of Nazi-confiscated art and black
market trading after the war.
Forced auctions of Jewish property
It was previously thought that Finland was to
some degree aloof from the international art
trade, making it unlikely that Nazi-looted objects would have ended up in Finland via the
international art market. The DEAL project
has come to a different conclusion, however;
Finnish art dealers and collectors travelled
abroad acquiring art, establishing contacts to
foreign art dealers and actively following the
art auctions arranged in the art centres of Europe.5
For Finnish buyers, the London art market
was probably the most important place for acquiring foreign art in the second half of the
1930s. Finnish art collectors acquired art from
the London market by themselves but occasionally they also used middlemen, such as German-born Louis Richter, who acquired works
of art for them.6 The works of art acquired
from the London market are often considered
as safe investments and thus hardly worth a
closer look for the provenance researcher focusing on the Nazi era. The matter is not so
simple, though. The fact is that the Nazis liquidated Jewish property in the 1930s not only
in Germany but also abroad – for example in
London.7
In the 1930s, the Nazis created laws to legalize the persecution of Jews and the expropriation of their assets. Hundreds of auctions of Jewish property were held between 1933 and
1938 across Germany, particularly in Berlin
and Munich, centres of the art trade. Jews were
forced to sell their treasures at auctions to sur-
vive. From these sales, they got only a fraction
of the value of their sold treasures.8 It is known
that objects were also purchased from such
auctions, destined for Finland.9
As Mr. Lucian Simmons from Sotheby’s
auction house recounts, “There are many examples of sales of property by oppressed Jewish
collectors within Germany, sales taking place
in Switzerland, in Sweden10 and even in London. What happened is that the collector
would be told that he had to consign his properties in London, where he would take a better price in foreign currency, which would then
be repatriated to Germany to pay the flight tax
so he could then leave.” Because the Jews consigned their works of art using their own names, it was practically impossible for the buyer
to know whether the seller had been forced to
sell his property or not.11, 12
For the leaders of the Third Reich, the forced sales of Jewish property were not the only
way to spread art on the international art market. Expropriated and seized art objects were
liquidated abroad before and during the Second World War, both by the Nazi regime officially and illicitly by the members of Nazi party.13
Black market
During the war, the circle of Finnish art collectors extended; new groups of people became interested in acquiring art. The fear of inflation and the lack of investments made art
a generally attractive object for purchase since the value of art objects was stable and there were no limits on their acquisition.14 A
contemporary described the wartime situation in Finland in 1942 thus: “This is a very
odd situation. There is lack of everything but
too much money. Not much to buy. People
buy works of art like maniacs.”15 The black
RESEARCH
OF NAZI-LOOTED ART
market dealers also acknowledged this situation.
After the war, the situation in Central Europe was chaotic and the black market flourished. At the end of the Second World War, the
Nazi’s art collecting points were left unguarded. As a result, a lot of objects were stolen
from these collecting points by both civilians
and military personnel, and many of those objects ended up on the black market.16 At that
time, it was possible to buy fine-quality objects very cheaply on the streets. Because there
was a lack of groceries,, one could also barter
food for art. According to a Finnish art dealer,
a lot of old paintings were brought from Central Europe to Finland after the war because
they were cheap to acquire: “With seven loaves of bread, one was able to buy a painting.”17
A Finnish sailor, Uuno Tiainen, is known
to have taken advantage of such opportunities
offered by the Central European art market.
Both during and after the Second World War,
he acquired works of art mainly from Germany, Poland and the Netherlands. The collection includes approx. 40 paintings and sculptures of mixed quality. Mr. Tiainen never used
money for acquiring such art. When leaving
Finland, he took food and cigarettes with him
so that he could barter them for art abroad.
He had some permanent contact persons in
different ports of Europe to deal with. To
avoid customs officers, he smuggled the objects back into Finland.18 The provenance research on Mr. Tiainen’s collection is still unfinished and it is too early to say whether any
Nazi-plundered works of art have ended up in
this collection.
Plenty of works of art have come to Finland
via a wide range of channels and routes of acquisition from the 1930s until the present
day. The history of the ownership of these ob-
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IMPORTANT INTERNATIONAL TASK
61
Edouard Manet (attr.) “Portrait of a young girl”, late
1870’s. Photo: Kari Jämsén.
jects is usually unknown. For this reason, the
provenance research on foreign art objects is
important.
The DEAL project has already been able to
identify some Nazi-looted objects in Finland.
The next example describes the history of two
paintings looted from a family that was designated as an enemy of the Third Reich.
CASE
COLLOREDO-MANSFELD
The art collection of the diplomat Urho Toivola was bequeathed to Kuopio Art Museum in
1989. In Toivola’s collection there are several
old foreign paintings of fine quality, among
them Mihály Munkácsy’s (attr.) “Moses and Israelites” and Edouard Manet’s (attr.) “Portrait
of a young girl”. While examining the pain-
MAARIT HAKKARAINEN AND TIINA KOIVULAHTI
62
Mihály Munkácsy (attr.) “Moses and Israelites”, 1868.
Photo: Kari Jämsén.
tings by Munkácsy and Manet, it was noticed
that these works of art bear identical wax seals.
After heraldic examination, they proved to be
seals of an Austrian-Czech Prince, Josef F.H.
Colloredo-Mansfeld (1813–1895).
Prior to the Second World War, the Colloredo-Mansfeld family had owned an art collection consisting of several thousands of objects. Since the collection was very precious to
the family, no work of art was ever sold from
it. The Second World War was crucial to the
Colloredo-Mansfeld family; all of their property, both in Czechoslovakia and Austria,
was expropriated by the Nazis.19 The reason
for the confiscation of Colloredo-Mansfeld
property lay in the Declaration of the Czech
Nobility, which the members of the family
signed in 1938. This declaration proclaimed
allegiance to the Czech nationality and demanded that the Sudetenland should not be
united with Germany.20
Several Nazi agencies specializing in the confiscation of cultural property operated in Czechoslovakia. The main organization responsible
for the confiscation of Colloredo-Mansfeld art
collection was Einsatzstab Rinnebach, which
was a subordinate of ERR (Einsatzstab Reichsleiter Rosenberg), the Nazis’ most effective art
plundering agency.21 The Nazis left the majority of looted art objects in collecting points,
such as castles and monasteries, in the protectorate of Czechoslovakia.22 The Nazis most probably sheltered the art works of the ColloredoMansfeld family in Czechoslovakia during the
war because the protectorate was considered a
safe storing place for confiscated works of art.
After the war, the position of Czech aristocrats persecuted by the Nazis improved for a
while. The Czechoslovakian government returned some looted property to aristocrats, including the Colloredo-Mansfeld family. The
situation changed, however, when the Communist Party ascended to power. The Communist government began to nationalize the
property of Nazi collaborators and traitors to
the country.23 The Colloredo-Mansfeld family,
whose entire property was expropriated by the
Nazis during the Second World War, was now
also accused of collaborating with the Nazis.
As a result, their property in Czechoslovakia
was expropriated again in 1947–48.24
An interesting question is how the paintings that had formerly belonged to the Colloredo-Mansfeld family ended up in the art collection of the Finnish diplomat Urho Toivola.
The results of research indicate that Mr. Toivola bought the Munkácsy and Manet paintings while he was serving as the Finnish ambassador in Communist Czechoslovakia from
1953 to 1957. As a result of political and social changes, there was plenty of fine art, including Nazi-looted objects stolen from collecting points, available at low prices in Czechoslovakia in the 1950s. The Communist government took advantage of the nationalization of
works of art to improve the country’s econo-
RESEARCH
OF NAZI-LOOTED ART
my by selling huge quantities of art abroad or
to foreigners in the country. The black market
flourished and works of art changed owners at
a rapid rate. In addition, stolen objects ended
up in the public art trade.25
Mr. Toivola bought several works of art during his years in Czechoslovakia. In the case of
the paintings by Manet and Munkácsy, the
channel that he used to acquire these is still
unclear. It is possible that his status as a diplomat meant that Urho Toivola may have been
offered works of art during his posting in Prague by a Czechoslovakian officer, for example.
Nationalized works of art are known to have
been in the possession of Czechoslovakian government officers. By selling those objects to
foreigners, they acquired foreign currency.26 It
is obvious that Mr. Toivola, as an art collector,
knew the Czechoslovakian art market well and
therefore he might have acquired Manet and
Munkácsy from the public art market within
the country.27
The case of the Manet and Munkácsy paintings indicates how Nazi-looted objects may
have come to Finnish collections after the Second World War from countries previously
occupied by the Nazis. It also points out the
influence of social changes on the spreading of
objects once confiscated by the Nazis.
INTERNATIONAL ASPECTS
ON NAZI-ERA PRO-
VENANCE RESEARCH
Importance of provenance research on museum
collections has been on subject of international
debate since the 1990s. The Washington Conference on Holocaust-Era Assets in 1998 was
the most important opener of the discussion
in this field. It was a conference of 44 governments and 13 non-governmental organizations. All the participating states, including
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IMPORTANT INTERNATIONAL TASK
Finland, Sweden, Norway and Denmark, endorsed “Eleven Principles on Nazi-Confiscated Art” at the conference. These Principles
are mostly related to museums. According to
these, all public collections should be researched to identify looted works of art. The research should concentrate on works of art acquired by museums from 1933 until today and
that have gaps in their provenance between
1933–1945.28 In the Washington Conference,
the participants morally undertook to find
and return looted cultural goods.
After the Washington Conference, the International Council of Museums (ICOM) also reacted to the demands of provenance research. It
created recommendations concerning Naziconfiscated works of art. ICOM encourages
museums to actively investigate and identify all
acquisitions of dubious provenance. It points
out that museums should also make relevant
information accessible and actively address the
return of all Nazi-looted objects of art.29 The
ICOM Code of Ethics stresses that museums
should not acquire, evaluate, authenticate or
exhibit cultural objects that do not have a satisfactory provenance.30
British museums and galleries were the first
institutions internationally to agree to research their collections to ensure that they do
not contain works of art that might have been
looted by the Nazis. In 1998, the National Museum Directors’ Conference (NMDC) draw up
a Statement of Principles on the spoliation of
art during the Holocaust and the Second
World War period. One result of this is that
Britain’s national museums and regional museums are investigating and documenting
their collections. The reports on the research
being undertaken by UK museums are published on NMDC’s website. There is also a searchable database of works of art with uncertain
63
MAARIT HAKKARAINEN AND TIINA KOIVULAHTI
64
provenance on the website (www.nationalmuseums.org.uk/spoliation.html).31
The American Association of Museums
(AAM) has also created guidelines concerning
“The Unlawful Appropriation of Objects During the Nazi Era”. Most museums in the United States have begun to follow these guidelines32 and have incorporated Nazi-era provenance research into their standard research on
collections.33 The AAM has created a Nazi-Era
Provenance Internet Portal (www.nepip.org)
with a searchable registry of objects in United
States museum collections that were created
before 1946 and changed hands in Continental
Europe during the Nazi era (1933–1945).Several other countries, in addition to the United
Kingdom and the United States, have also taken steps to implement the Washington
Conference Principles on Nazi-Confiscated
Art.
The restitution of cultural property looted
during the Second World War has been subject of international resolutions. In 1999, the
Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe adopted Resolution 1205 calling for the
restitution of looted Jewish property in Europe. There is still a lot of work to do in this field. For example, the restitution procedures
vary from country to country and this causes
problems for the claimants. For this reason,
the European Parliament is working to establish uniform legal standards for the restitution of seized cultural goods.34 The European
Parliament calls on its member states “to make
all necessary efforts to adopt measures to ensure the creation of mechanisms which favour
the return of the property referred to in this
resolution and to be mindful that the return
of art objects looted as part of crimes against
humanity to rightful claimants is a matter of
general interest for the purposes of Article 1 of
Protocol 1 to the European Convention of
Human Rights.”35
Against this background, it is paradoxical
that in 2005 a working group of museum experts, set by the Council of the European Union, published recommendations on collection
mobility for European museums in the framework of the working plan for Culture
2005–2006, which, among other things, aims
to adopt a Europe-wide legal system of immunity from seizure while lending objects to
exhibitions inside EU.36According to Mr. Ronald de Leeuw, chairperson of the working
group: “At this moment museums and private
owners increasingly refrain from lending objects to exhibitions if their safe return cannot
be guaranteed.37 To facilitate European collection mobility, the working group wants “to secure the objects against any legal claims by
former owners or claimants who dispute the
legitimacy of the current ownership”. The report states that “the claimant takes advantage
of the fact that the object is temporarily in a
different country with a different set of laws
and requests its seizure. Since the most recent
enlargement of the European Union, immunity from seizure has become even more
important, particularly in view of the involuntary removal of objects around the world since
the Second World War”.38 The report gives the
impression that museums approve illegal possession and the exhibiting of objects looted by
the Nazis. In this matter, moral and ethical aspects are consciously ignored. The ICOM
Code of Ethics says: “Museums should avoid
displaying or otherwise using material of questionable origin or lacking provenance. They
should be aware that such displays or usage can
be seen to condone and contribute to the illicit
trade in cultural property.”39
In May 2006, the Conference on Jewish
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OF NAZI-LOOTED ART
Material Claims Against Germany and the
World Jewish Restitution Organization began
to work with relevant Jewish communities
around the world to bring increased attention
to the restitution of looted movable cultural
and religious property. According to these organizations, there have been some positive steps
towards the identification and restitution of
movable cultural property plundered from
Jews, but the progress has been slow. There remains a very considerable amount of looted
movable cultural property that has not been recovered and that is still in private and public
hands. The Conference on Jewish Material
Claims Against Germany and the World Jewish
Restitution Organization will focus on the systemic issues involved in art restitution with the
intent of improving and creating processes to
enable more owners and heirs to recover their
property. A worldwide intensified effort for the
restitution of cultural property looted from
Jews will help ensure that families can re-acquire treasures that rightfully belong to them.40
FOCUS
ON NATIONAL MUSEUMS
From international point of view provenance
research of national collections is seen both politically and morally important. To prove
themselves worth public trust the national museums should actively investigate the provenance of objects in their possession.
Unfortunately, researching provenance of
works of art in Finnish national collections
has not been possible so far.41 There are hundreds of works of art with unknown provenance in Finnish national collections. Some of
them are connected with names of art dealers
who co-operated with the Nazis and that is
why they would need the immediate attention
of provenance researchers.
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IMPORTANT INTERNATIONAL TASK
As an example of work of art which should
be prioritized in provenance research is Giovanni Domenico Tiepolo’s painting “Trojan Horse”, acquired by the Finnish National Gallery
from a Finnish auction house in 1996. Some
pieces of the history of the painting are already
known, but there is a gap in the provenance of
the painting between years 1938–1948.42
Before the Russian revolution of 1917, the
“Trojan Horse” painting was probably owned
by a Russian noble family. In the 1920s, the
USSR state sold the painting in Paris. It was
bought by the Parisian art dealer Mario D’Atri, who had Nazi contacts. The Tiepolo’s
painting was shown in the exhibition “Paintings, Drawings and Prints by Giambattista
and Giandomenico Tiepolo” at the Art Institute of Chicago in 1938.43 After the exhibition
tour in the U.S.A. the trail of the painting
disappeared, however. It seems as if D’Atri tried to sell the painting in New York, without
success, and that the painting then returned to
Paris. To whom D’Atri sold the painting in
Paris and when is not known.
Nazi-registered art dealer Herbert Ulrich
from East Berlin acquired the “Trojan horse”
painting in 1947.44 A year later, Ulrich sold it
to the Finnish diplomat Tauno Sutinen via a
middleman named Georgi Ribaroff.45 By the
time the painting was sold by Herbert Ulrich,
the artist was no longer known. It is unclear at
which stage between 1938 and 1948 the information disappeared. It would be extremely
interesting to know how the painting ended
up in the hands of art dealer Ulrich in Berlin.
It is known that at the end of 1990s the
World Jewish Congress received a claim from
a Jewish family concerning the Tiepolo painting. That is why the WJC started to clarify
the case of the “Trojan horse”.46 There are still
many unsolved questions in the provenance of
65
MAARIT HAKKARAINEN AND TIINA KOIVULAHTI
66
the painting, but the DEAL project is looking
for answers to these.
As long as the national museums are not
making efforts to clear up the provenance of
works of art in their collections, they cannot
be sure that no objects looted by the Nazis
have ended up in their custody47.
The absence of Finnish national museums
was an unexpected obstacle for the DEAL
project, and meant that the original research
plan could not be proceeded with. The licentiate research conducted by Koivulahti and
Hakkarainen, completed in December 2006,
therefore did not include the provenance research in Finnish national collections. Due to
these obstacles, the interest of the two researchers has been directed towards new research
questions: the theory of provenance research
and the power relations between objects of art
and communities or individuals. Alongside
such research, any ethical disadvantages will
be noticed and brought out, and the wrongdoings will also be recognized. Koivulahti and
Hakkarainen’s licentiate research focused on
provenance research, preceded by extensive field work that was an essential stage in clearing
up whether any art looted by the Nazis has ended up in Finland. An integral part of this research was developing a method to identify
Nazi-looted objects from Finland particularly.
ADVANTAGES
OF PROVENANCE RESEARCH
It must be stressed that 27 Finnish museums
were willing to participate in the DEAL provenance research project, despite their limited resources. On this basis, it seems as if provenance
research is actually question of assigning priorities. These regional and foundation-owned
museums have found the research a great opportunity to get new information on collec-
tions and in this way increase the museal value
of their collections. Thanks to the 27 museums participating the DEAL project research, Finland is now the first Scandinavian
country where the art objects housed in museums are being researched for Nazi-era provenance.
If these museums choose to follow international developments in the museum field,
they need to incorporate the provenance research into standard research on their collections and also to take financial responsibility
for this research. Only in this way can they ensure that their collections are built up in accordance with universally recognized moral
principles.
What provenance research means for victims
of the Nazi era
The Nazi-era persecution affected several millions of people in Europe. Those victims of the
Nazis who survived the Holocaust lost their
personal heritage, collective memory and identity. Every document relating to their past,
such as a work of art, that is subsequently
found is therefore specially precious for them
and their families.48 The art collections that
were stolen represented an important aspect of
the cultural lives of their owners, and the communities in which they lived, and were often
assembled and treasured over several generations.49 For this reason, the sentimental and
symbolic value of recovered works of art is extremely high. The monetary value is irrelevant
in this context. The following example sheds
light on the issue.
The Neumann-family
A few years ago, an American named David
Neumann contacted the DEAL project. He
had seen a picture of a graphical work entitled
RESEARCH
OF NAZI-LOOTED ART
“Lake scenery with pine trees” with the Neumann signature in the Lost Art database. This
work of art belongs to the collections of the
Pietarsaari Museum, which has allowed the
DEAL project to transparently research its objects. Mr. Neumann recognized the picture as a
work by his grandfather, Berthold Neumann
(1868–1934), a German artist. To confirm this
attribution, Mr. David Neumann sent copies
of official documents signed by Berthold Neumann to DEAL-project researchers. The signatures were identical with the signature on
the “Lake scenery with pine trees” work. Mr.
Neumann stated “My family lived in Berlin
and was persecuted by the Nazis, had their assets seized by the Nazis, and was finally driven
from Germany and then Holland for various
countries in the period 1933–1940”.50
Mr. Neumann was interested in knowing
the history of this work by Neumann. Unfortunately, no detailed information on the acquisition of Neumann’s work, which was bequeathed to the museum by the sailor Uuno Tiainen, could be found. Nor does the Neumann family possess any documents about the
lost property. When the family fled Nazi Germany, the family members were allowed to
carry little but their passports.51 The Neumann case is very common in the sense that
victims of Nazi persecution rarely have any
evidence whatsoever about their lost property.
Even though there is no certainty whether
this particular work previously belonged to
the Neumann family, the object – and the finding of it – is especially meaningful for this family.52 The work of art is unique, since there is
so little of Berthold Neumann’s work that survived the war. For the family, the object is a document from the life of their deceased grandfather. It is also documentation of the history
of the family, its values and memories.53 For
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IMPORTANT INTERNATIONAL TASK
the Neumann family, the sentimental value of
this work of art is enormous.
The new information received has given this
work of art a special significance. The story told
by the Neumann family sets the work in a new
light. Knowing the history of the artist and his
family reminds anyone looking at the object of
the people who were persecuted by the Nazis,
and of their descendents still looking for documentation of their destroyed history. Along
with its sentimental value, the graphics work
has become more than a museum object.
In issues connected with the Holocaust era,
moral and ethical obligations are always present. According to Ronald S. Lauder, the
chairman of the Commission for Art Recovery, “The problem of stolen art must be recognized as a moral issue that can be solved only
with morality as its primary basis. Art must
not be withheld from the victims of the Holocaust or their heirs on the basis of legal technicalities, such as statutes of limitation, laws
that purport to confiscate or nationalize stolen
art or post-war ‘global’ settlements.”54
NOTES
1.
Rothfeld 2002: http://www.archives.gov/publications/prologue/2002/summer/nazi-looted-art2.html.
2. Provenance is the full history of an item from
the time of its discovery or creation to the present day, from which authenticity and ownership
is determined. Works with gaps in their ownership history between 1933-1945 are the subject of
Nazi-era provenance research.
3. Some markings may even straight indicate Nazihistory; such are for example suggestions to persons subject to Nazi-looting or persons linked
with Nazi art dealings. Not all Nazi-confiscated
67
MAARIT HAKKARAINEN AND TIINA KOIVULAHTI
68
objects were marked, though, and therefore every
object with gap in the provenance between 19331945 must be researched.
4. [Art dealers Association of America] 1997,
www.artdealers.org/press/looted.html (April
2004). Fishko Robert, ”Looted art and the art
dealer”, interview of Hector Feliciano.
5. Several foreign dealers also came to Finland to
sell works of art to collectors. Good political, trade and cultural relations between Nazi-Germany
and Finland created contacts also between German art dealers and Finnish people. Dr. Erik
Burg Berger was one of the several art dealers
from Middle-Europe who came to Finland to sell
art objects to Finnish collectors and art dealers
regularly during the second half of 1930’s. [Letters from Erik Burg Berger to Bertel Hintze
1935-1938. File 5. Archive of Bertel
Hintze.CAA.]
Dr. Burg Berger is worth mentioning while researching Nazi-confiscated art since he was in
touch with Karl Haberstock, one of the most notorious of Nazi art dealers, but also some other
prominent dealers who acquired art for
Hitler.[Cultural Property Research Foundation]1998,
http://docproj.loyola.edu/oss1/toc.html, The
ALIU final report 1.5.1946, p.21, p.38. (October 2005).
6. Testimonial on Mr. Louis Richter from Dr. Hintze, 14.6.1946. File 29. Archive of Bertel Hintze.
CAA.
7. Simmons 2005: 114.
8. Watson and Thomas 1999: http://www.museumsecurity.org/ww2/holocaust-claim.htm, “Holocaust widow set to win back UKP.3m painting”;
“Discovering truth about the auctions of despair”, Times of London, June 3, 1999.
9. Receipts. File 30. Archive of Bertel Hintze.CAA.
10. The role of neutral countries like Sweden, Spain,
Switzerland, Portugal, Turkey and Latin Ameri-
can countries as recipients and distributors of
Nazi-looted art was brought up in the reports of
Allied intelligence service reports in 1940’s.
http://docproj.loyola.edu/laiot.html.
11. Simmons 2005: 114.
12. Since London was the centre of international art
trade in 1930’s naturally also German art dealers,
like Karl Haberstock, the most prominent Nazi
art dealer, made business there.[Petropoulos
2000, 78].
13. Petropoulos 1996: 76.
14. Eric Idestam’s radio lecture ”Vanhojen taulujen
keräily” 3.1.1953. Archive of Eric Idestam. NBA.
; ”Ostokyky heikentynyt. Taidekaupoissa varovaisuutta, osto- ja myyntiliikkeissä hiljaista.” Uusi
Suomi 29.10.1947.
15. Voionmaa 1971:186.
16. Feliciano 1997: 176.
17. Interview of Wenzel Hagelstam 4.6.2001.
18. Interview of Pekka Toivanen 9.4.2003.
19. Letter from Jerome Colloredo-Mansfeld to Koivulahti 28.2.2000.
20. E-mail from Derek Colloredo-Mansfeld to Koivulahti 5.10.2004.
21. Cepicka 1998: 49.
22. Cepicka 1998: 47.
23. Larmola 2003: 310.
24. Letter from Jerome Colloredo-Mansfeld to Koivulahti 28.2.2000.
25. E-mail from Ondrej Vlk to Koivulahti
19.12.2003; Ondrej Vlk’s announcement
26.5.2004.
26. Letter from Felix Nevrela to Koivulahti
29.2.2000.
27. Letter from Eduard Palin to Urho Toivola
20.5.1956. NA.
28. Washington Conference Principles on Nazi-Confiscated Art 1998:
www.state.gov/www/regions/eur/981203_heac_a
rt_princ.html.
29. ICOM Recommendations concerning the Re-
RESEARCH
OF NAZI-LOOTED ART
turn of Works of Art Belonging to Jewish Owners 1999:
http://icom.museum/worldwar2.html.
30. According to the ICOM “Code of Ethics” “Every
effort must be made before acquisition to ensure
that any object or specimen offered for purchase,
gift, loan, bequest, or exchange has not been illegally obtained in or exported from, its country of
origin or any intermediate country in which it
might have been owned legally (including the
museum’s own country). Due diligence in this regard should establish the full history of the item
from discovery or production. (Acquiring collections, 2.3.Provenance and Due Diligence:
http://icom.museum/ethics.html).
31. New Research to Uncover Looted Treasures in
England’s Regional Museums 2002: http://nationalmuseums.org.uk/pr_spol_research_June02.ht
ml.
32. Yeide 2000: http://www.vilniusforum.lt, Vilnius
International Forum on Holocaust Era Looted
Cultural Assets.
33. Guidelines Concerning the Unlawful Appropriation of Objects During the Nazi Era 2001:
http://www.aam-us.org/museumresources/ethics/nazi_guidelines.cfm.
34. Resolution 1205, Looted Jewish cultural property 1999:
http://assembly.coe.int/Main.asp?link=http://assembly.coe.int%2FDocuments%2FAdoptedText%2Fta99%2FERES1205.htm.
35. European parliament resolution and report of
committee on legal affairs and the internal market 2003:
http://www.europarl.eu.int/meetdocs/committees/juri/20021007/477224en.pdf ; In addition
there are international recommendations like the
Washington Conference Principles on Nazi-Confiscated Art (1998) and the Vilnius Forum Declaration on Holocaust Era Looted Cultural Assets (2000) which advice how to deal with the is-
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IMPORTANT INTERNATIONAL TASK
sues of restitution. Also the ICOM “Code of Ethics” offers guidelines for restitution of cultural
property. In connection with restitution issues of
Nazi-looted cultural property there are several
international conventions like the Hague Convention on the Protection of Cultural Property in
the Event of Armed Conflict (1954), UNESCO
Convention on the Means of Prohibiting and
Preventing the Illicit Import, Export and Transfer
of Ownership of Cultural Property (1970) and
Unidroit Convention on Stolen and Illegally Exported Cultural Objects (1995).
36. Lending to Europe, Recommendations on collection mobility for European museums 2005, 7,
15.
37. Introduction to the Report Lending to Europe Recommendations on Collections Mobility for
European Museums by Ronald de Leeuw, Director Genral, Rijksmuseum, Netherlands, 2005.
http://www.culture.gov.uk/mobility/conf_papers.htm.
38. Lending to Europe, Recommendations on collection mobility for European museums 2005, 13.
39. [ICOM] Code of Ethics.
http://icom.museum/ethics.html4.5 Display of
Unprovenanced Material.
40. Issues relevant to the restitution of cultural property include;
-Public awareness of and attention to the unfinished nature of the restitution of cultural and religious property looted from Jews.
-Impediments to the identification of movable
cultural and religious property looted from
Jews.Museums, libraries, archives, auction houses
and dealers should open their records, and those
public and private museums and other institutions that have not engaged in provenance research on collections should do so or should certify
that they have no looted items
-Institutions currently holding looted items do
not always engage in adequate provenance rese-
69
MAARIT HAKKARAINEN AND TIINA KOIVULAHTI
70
arch. This is critical in enabling families to find
looted art.
-The creation of a hospitable climate for individual claims in all countries, and the establishment of practical, non-litigation claims processes
is a priority. In some cases this may require legislative changes
-Governments now holding looted movable cultural and religious property are not always willing to return the assets. Restituting this looted
property is a fundamental principle.
-Where Jewish owners, individuals or legal persons, or their heirs cannot be identified, the cultural or religious property should not be permitted to become the property of those governments
but should be returned to the Jewish people.
(Artworks and Other Cultural Property Restitution and Compensation,Conference on Jewish
Material Claims Against Germany,Looted Jewish
Art and Cultural Property Initiative, May 15,
2006, http://www.claimscon.org/?url=looted_art).
41. Letter from the chief director of the National
Museum of Finland Ritva Wäre and the chief director of the Finnish National Gallery Tuula Arkio to DEAL-project 14.9.2004. The national
museums have suggested that DEAL-project may
research their collections free of charge if the researchers are able to do it according to the museums’ timetables. Due to busyness of the museum staff and due to considerable amount of
works of art, relevant for research, mere documenting phase would take many years and therefore the suggestion of the national museums’ can’t be considered. The DEAL-project must make
the research within the framework of project financing. The documenting phase can’t be neglected because the inventory of works of art in
Finnish national collections is insufficient with
respect to provenance research.
42. By now Tiepolo’s “Trojan Horse” is the only ob-
ject in the collections of Finnish National Gallery which the DEAL-project has been allowed to
research free of charge.
43. E-mail from Bart Ryckbosch to Hakkarainen
6.4.2005.
44. Inventory book 1946-1949. Archive of Kunsthandlung Herbert P. Ulrich (C.
Rep.105,Nr.23062). LB.
45. [MOT,Yle 1] :
http://www.yle.fi/mot/100599/2a_.htm. Letter
from Georgi Ribaroff to Tauno Sutinen
30.6.1948.
46. E-mail from Bart Ryckbosch to Hakkarainen
6.4.2005.
47. The ICOM’s president Alissandra Cummins has
emphasized the importance of provenance research recently. Ms. Cummins tells that for many
years the International Council of Museums
(ICOM) has insisted that museums and their
staff must take great care to ensure that additions
to their collections are always both legal and ethical. Since the adoption of the 1970 ICOM Recommendation on the Ethics of Acquisitions
museums have been advised that “there must be
a full, clear and satisfactory documentation in relation to the origin of any object to be acquired”.
The ICOM Code of Ethics for Museums
(ICOM, 2006), binding as a condition of membership in the ICOM, strengthened this provision. According to Ms. Cummins museums
must take all reasonable steps to ensure that their
previous history does not include illegal acquisition or transfer contrary to the laws of the country of origin or of any intermediate country
through which they have transited. [ICOM]
Alissandra Cummins, Promoting the use of Mediation in Resolution of disputes over the Ownership of objects in Museum Collections, January 2006,
http://icom.museum/mediation_eng.html.
48. Sola 1997, 17.
RESEARCH
OF NAZI-LOOTED ART
49. [CAR] the chairman Ronald S. Lauder,
http://www.comartrecovery.org/.
50. Email from David Neumann to DEAL-project
15.1.2004.
51. Email from David Neumann to DEAL-project
15.1.2004.
52. The words of Mr. Neumann express the importance of provenance research for those persons as
subjects of Nazi-persecution and their descendants:
“This is truly a tribute to the importance, efficacy, and the usefulness of the database at
www.lostart.de at the Koordinierungsstelle für
Kulturgutverluste in Magdeburg, GE. We are
grateful that your program at the University of
Jyväskylä placed this work on that database. I
would say that the Dept. of Arts and Culture
Studies of the University of Jyväskylä have made
this a lovely occasion for his grandchildren and
their families. I hope that one of our family will
one day have a chance to visit Finland and see
the work in person.” Email from David Neumann to DEAL-project 20.1.2004.
53. Email from David Neumann to DEAL-project
15.1.2004.
54. [CAR] the chairman Ronald S. Lauder,
http://www.comartrecovery.org/.
BIBLIOGRAPHY AND
SOURCES
Abbreviations.
CCA = Central Art Archives, Helsinki, Finland.
NA = National Archives, Helsinki, Finland.
NBA = National Board of Antiquities, Helsinki, Finland.
LB = Landesarchiv Berlin, Germany.
Letter archive of Hakkarainen and Koivulahti,
Jyväskylä
Colloredo-Mansfeld, Derek, 5.10.2004.
Colloredo-Mansfeld, Jerome, 28.2.2000.
–
IMPORTANT INTERNATIONAL TASK
Nevrela Felix, 29.2.2000.
Ryckbosch, Bart, 6.4.2005.
Vlk, Ondrej,19.12.2003.
Interview
Art dealer Hagelstam, Wenzel, 4.6.2001.Helsinki.
Finland.
Museum director Toivanen, Pekka, 9.4.2003. Pietarsaari. Finland.
Researcher Vlk, Ondrej, 26.5.2004. Documentation
Centre for Property Transfers of Cultural Assets of
WW II Victims. Czech.
Archival material
Central Art Archive, Helsinki (CAA)
Archive of Bertel Hintze
Correspondence:
File 29, Testimonial on Mr. Louis Richter from
Bertel Hintze, 14.6.1946
File 30, receipts.
File 5. Letters from Erik Burg Berger to Bertel
Hintze 1935-1938.
National archive of Finland, Helsinki (NA)
Archive of Rakel and Urho Toivola:
Letter of Eduard Palin to Urho Toivola
20.5.1956.
National Board of Antiquities, Helsinki (NBA)
Archive of Eric Idestam:
Eric Idestam’s radio lecture ”Vanhojen taulujen
keräily” 3.1.1953.
Landesarchiv Berlin, Germany (LB)
Archive of Kunsthandlung Herbert P. Ulrich (C.
Rep.105, Nr.23062).
Inventory book 1946-1949.
Articles
Cepicka, Ladislav, 1998: Czech Republic. Spoils of
War 5. Koordinierungsstelle für Kulturgutverluste, Magdeburg.
”Kymmenien miljoonien arvosta salakuljettavat merimiehet tavaroita Suomeen vuosittain”, Helsingin
71
MAARIT HAKKARAINEN AND TIINA KOIVULAHTI
72
sanomat 20.9.1935, nr 253.
[Marianna] ”Salakuljetus epäedullista liiketoimintaa… Petsamon tie, Helsinki ja Tornionjokilaakso salakuljettajien pääpaikkoja”, Helsingin Sanomat 21.6.1941, nr 164.
”Ostokyky heikentynyt. Taidekaupoissa varovaisuutta, osto- ja myyntiliikkeissä hiljaista.” Uusi Suomi
29.10.1947.
Simmons, Lucien, 2005: “Lost Heritage and the Art
Market”. The Lost Heritage of Cultural Assets, Proceedings of the international academic conference in
Brno 2003. Tilia Publishers, Prague 2005.
Books
Feliciano, Hector, 1997:The Lost Museum. Basic
Books, New York.
Larmola, Heikki, 2003: The ”Czechoslovak path”: A
Communist route to power monopoly in 19431948 within the framework of “Mitteleuropa”, great power setting, and the Soviet sphere of interests.
University of Helsinki.
Lending to Europe. Recommendations on collection mobility for European museums, 2005.Netherlands
Ministry of Education, Culture and Science.Tripiti, Rotterdam.
Petropoulos, Jonathan, 1996: Art as Politics in the
Third Reich. University of the North Carolina
Press, USA.
Petropoulos, Jonathan, 2000: The Faustian Bargain.
Allen Lane. The Penguin Press, Great Britain.
Sola, Tomislav, 1997: “Essays on museums and their
theory”. Gummerus Kirjapaino Oy, Helsinki.
Voionmaa, Väinö, 1971: Kuriiripostia 1941-1946.
Tammi, Helsinki.
Material published on the internet
[The American Association of Museums], 2001.
Guidelines Concerning the Unlawful Appropriation of Objects During the Nazi Era.
http://www.aam-us.org/museumresources/ethics/nazi_guidelines.cfm
[Conference on Jewish Material Claims Against Germany], 2006. Artworks and Other Cultural Property Restitution and Compensation. Looted Jewish Art and Cultural Property Initiative, May
15, 2006. http://www.claimscon.org/?url=looted_art.
[Council of Europe], 1999. Resolution 1205, Looted
Jewish cultural property,1999.
http://assembly.coe.int/Main.asp?link=http://assembly.coe.int%2FDocuments%2FAdoptedText%2Fta99%2FERES1205.htm
[Cultural Property Research Foundation], 1998.The
ALIU final report 1.5.1946. http://docproj.loyola.edu/oss1/toc.html
[European Parliament], 2003. European parliament
resolution and report of committee on legal affairs and the internal market. http://www.europarl.eu.int/meetdocs/committees/juri/20021007/4
77224en.pdf
[The International Council of Museums], 1999.
ICOM Recommendations concerning the Return of Works of Art Belonging to Jewish Owners. http://icom.museum/worldwar2.html
[The International Council of Museums], 2004.
ICOM Code of Ethics.http://icom.museum/ethics.html
[The International Council of Museums], 2006.
Alissandra Cummins, Promoting the use of Mediation in Resolution of disputes over the Ownership of objects in Museum Collections.
http://icom.museum/mediation_eng.html.
[Leeuw, Ronald de], 2005. Introduction to the Report Lending to Europe - Recommendations on
Collections Mobility for European Museums. Increasing the Mobility of Collections Conference,
Manchester, UK. http://www.culture.gov.uk/mobility/conf_papers.htm.
[MOT,Yle 1], 1999. Letter from Georgi Ribaroff to
Tauno Sutinen 30.6.1948.
http://www.yle.fi/mot/100599/2a_.htm
[National Museum Directors’ Conference], 2002.
RESEARCH
OF NAZI-LOOTED ART
New Research to Uncover Looted Treasures in
England’s Regional Museums. http://nationalmuseums.org.uk/pr_spol_research_June02.html
[Rothfeld, Anne], 2002. Nazi Looted Art, The Holocaust Records Preservation Project, Part 2.
http://www.archives.gov/publications/prologue/2002/summer/nazi-looted-art-2.html.US
National Archives & Records Administration.
[United Nations], 1998-2005. Principles Recognized
in the Nürnberg Tribunal, Article 6(b) of the
Nürnberg Charter, 1939.
http://www.un.org/law/ilc/texts/nurnfra.htm
[United States of America, Dept. of State, Bureau of
European Affairs], 1998, Washington Conference Principles on Nazi-Confiscated Art. 1998.
www.state.gov/www/regions/eur/981203_heac_a
rt_princ.html
[Watson, Peter and Thomas, Sharne], 1999. Holo-
–
IMPORTANT INTERNATIONAL TASK
caust widow set to win back UKP.3m painting;
Discovering truth about the auctions of despair,
Times of London, June 3, 1999. http://www.museum-security.org/ww2/holocaust-claim.htm,
23.9.2005. Museum Security Network.
[Yeide, Nancy], 2000. Presentation.Vilnius International Forum on Holocaust Era Looted Cultural
Assets http://www.vilniusforum.lt
*Maarit Hakkarainen Ph.Lic. and Tiina Koivulahti Ph.Lic.
Address: Dept. of Arts and Cultural Studies
PL 35 (JT)
FI-40014 University of Jyväskylä
E-mail: [email protected], [email protected]
73
RAPPORTER NORDISK MUSEOLOGI 2007 1, S. 74-81
●
●
From a history of war into a
multicultural urban environment:
A cultural impact assessment of the conservation of
the Swedish-Russian Fortress of Lappeenranta, Finland
SUVI NIINISALO*
Abstract: Finland, under Swedish rule at the time, started constructing the Lappeenranta Fortress in the 1720s for defence against an eastern threat. A small
town had been founded on the site as early as 1649. In 1741, the Russians invaded the fortress in a fierce battle. Russians, led by Aleksandr Suvorov, started to
improve the fortress in the late 18th century. The oldest buildings in the fortress
date back to this time. When Finland was annexed into the Russian Empire as an
autonomous grand duchy, the fortress was employed as a correctional facility for
prisoners. After the Second World War, the fortress was left to deteriorate, but in
the 1970s a 30-year conservation project was launched. This article explores the
effects of this conservation work on the city of Lappeenranta as well as on its inhabitants.
Keywords: Fortress, conservation, impact study, cultural impacts.
The Fortress of Lappeenranta has been under
conservation work since 1976 by the Finnish
National Board of Antiquities, and by the city
of Lappeenranta. At the beginning, it was believed that the project would take a few years
at most. Little by little, both parties began to
fully realize the possibilities that the Fortress
presented, and the conservation work has
continued ever since. Before the conservation,
the fortress peninsula was the “backyard” of
the city – a deteriorated, grubby and neglected
place. Now, nearly 30 years later, the site has
changed. It is a culturally rich area that serves
simultaneously as a major historical monu-
ment, a tourist attraction, a work place for artisans, a residential area and, above all, a centre for cultural services and events.
Over the course of centuries, the Fortress of
Lappeenranta was built by Finns, Swedes and
Russians on its current hillside location by the
lake. Most of the constructions, walls and buildings were built under Russian rule between
1741 and 1917. The fortifications were officially renounced in 1835. In 1819, a women’s prison was founded in the Fortress, and in 1881 it
was turned into a male prison. The Fortress has
also held prisoners during the Civil War (1918),
and many of them were killed or executed at the
FROM A HISTORY
OF WAR INTO A MULTICULTURAL URBAN ENVIRONMENT
75
Fortress of Lappeenranta, summer 2005, Raimo Suomela, City of Lappeenranta, Technical Services, Department
of Surveying and Real Estate.
site. It also served as a prison during the Second World War. The reputation of the Fortress was therefore harsh and grim in the eyes
of the Lappeenranta citizens, which drove the
Fortress into a state of decay in the mid 1950s
and 1960s.
In 1976, systematic restoration, conservation and renovation of the Fortress were started. The aim was to preserve the former military fortifications intact and as a monument
of the Swedish-Russian military architecture
for posterity. At the same time, the aim was to
turn it into a lively and pleasant area for the
citizens and tourists to enjoy. According to the
plan, old buildings were converted into housing, artisan shops and different kinds of art
schools for children and youth. As a result of
this renovation effort the Fortress has changed
considerably over the past 30 years.
HOW TO ASSESS
CONSERVATION?
THE IMPACTS OF
A year ago, in the spring of 2004, I was given
the assignment in the South Karelian Institute
to assess the impacts of the conservation of the
Lappeenranta Fortress. In the same year, the
institute published a report on this research
SUVI NIINISALO
76
called Takapihasta kaupungin helmeksi, Lappeenrannan Linnoituksen restaurointityön vaikutustutkimus (From a Backyard to the Jewel of
the City; the Cultural Impact Assessment of
the Conservation of Lappeenranta Fortress).
This is the first assessment of cultural impacts
of conservation work that the National Board
of Antiquities has commissioned on a site it
has restored.
The time frame for the research was four
months. Since this is the first impact assessment that the Board of Antiquities has commissioned on a site it has restored, the board
could not define in detail the objectives of the
study. For instance, an assessment of the financial impacts of the conservation would
have produced clear figures on how the city of
Lappeenranta had benefited from it. This, however, would have required time and a detailed analysis of material including the financial
investments in the conservation of the Fortress. Specific figures on the money spent in
the area could not be provided by the city, according to the head architect of city of Lappeenranta, Seppo Aho.
The actual conservation project was initiated in the 1970s to provide work for the
unemployed for the winter. Employment was
thus the primary goal of the project until the
1990s when it received EU funding. The conservation and restoration of the area was not
therefore systematic but was insted a bonus.
With the EU funding, the project could be realized more flexibly and the special requirements of the Fortress could be taken into consideration. Because the conservation work has
continued for 30 years, the motives for utilizing the area have changed along the way. Initially in the 1970s, the area was designed for
the use of small enterprises and industries. In
the 1980s, the focus was on the public use of
the area including museums, archives and the
local office of the Finnish National Broadcasting Company Yleisradio. Only during the
1990s did the emphasis of the area turn to
tourism, and – consequently – more systematically planned cultural services. Currently, all
of these aspects can, in a way, be seen in the
Fortress.
In Finland, cultural impact assessments
com-missioned by a state authority (e.g. the
National Board of Antiquities) are still a new
phenomenon. There has been little public discourse and research on the matter, and many
concepts have yet to be defined. Cupore (the
Foundation for Cultural Policy Research) has
recently become actively involved in cultural
impact assessments. The foundation has published two studies on the subject, one of
which was used as material for this research.
The task was therefore difficult: how to assess the impacts of restoration that has continued for close to thirty years? It was clear from
the start that the conservation work cannot be
studied as a separate issue; it is an intricate
part of the Fortress as an entity, which in turn
has developed over time into what it is today.
The conservation work is thus only one phase
in the history of the Fortress, which dates
back centuries. This means that the conservation mostly affects the Fortress area itself – its
appearance and image as well as the attitudes,
values and beliefs of those who work and live
in the area, as well as those who are visitors. A
wider framework for these effects is provided
by the changes in the attitudes, values and beliefs of the inhabitants and authorities of Lappeenranta.
My study was focused on cultural impacts,
i.e. possible changes in people’s attitudes, values and beliefs. The effects on attitudes, values and beliefs are always cultural and culture-
FROM A HISTORY
OF WAR INTO A MULTICULTURAL URBAN ENVIRONMENT
specific. Possible changes in these attitudes,
values and beliefs were indicators in this study
and they were charted with a survey. To what,
then, can the results of the study be compared? No such survey had been conducted before the conservation began. Therefore, historical documentation plays an important role.
In fact, in the first part of the study I present
the historical phases of the conservation of the
Fortress. The source material includes a rather
extensive collection of newspaper articles and
official documents which display the views of
authorities and citizens in detail.
As stated above, the first part of the study is
on the history of the conservation work. The
most central phases of the conservation and
related decision-making are introduced. In the
past thirty years, the Fortress has become the
most important tourist attraction in Lappeenranta, so I have also discussed the impact of
the conservation on local tourism. The second part of the study consists of the survey
results. Four different groups were surveyed:
people who live or work in the Fortress, inhabitants of Lappeenranta and visitors to Lappeenranta. The purpose of these surveys was to
ascertain the opinions, attitudes, values and
beliefs concerning the Fortress and how they
may have changed during the conservation
process. Over two hundred people were surveyed, so those who were most involved in the
conservation play an important role in the
study.
cult to recollect the former appearance of an
area. Furthermore, memories are gilded by the
passage of time – nostalgia usually makes people look at matters from a favourable point
of view. Conservation has had a great impact
on the appearance of the Fortress. Today, it is
a welcoming area which is well taken care of.
The restored berms indicate to the viewer that
the site is a historical monument. What in the
early 1970s was a deteriorating relic is now a
unique, well-preserved site. This, in turn, demonstrates that people want to remember
their past – even its less pleasant sides – and
honour it.
During the conservation work, the area was
excavated. This has considerably increased
knowledge about the history of Lappeenranta
and the Fortress. The excavations revealed a
great deal about past methods of constructing
berms, roads and buildings. All this information tells the citizens of Lappeenranta tales
about their past. This historical information
may be considered as the very foundation of
the identity of the inhabitants of Lappeenranta. The history of the city is important; recognizing the uniqueness of one’s home town can
lead to making use of its advantages in, for instance, building the city’s image or making the
city more attractive to inhabitants and tourists. In my opinion, Janne Vilkuna, Professor
of Museology at the University of Jyväskylä,
put it well when he said that museums are a
system of coordinates that helps people locate
themselves in the instantaneous point of convergence of past and future; when we understand where we come from and where we are,
we may also be able to plan which route we
take in the future. I believe the same can be said
about other aspects of our cultural heritage, as
well.
The inhabitants of the Fortress and of Lap-
FROM BACKYARD
TO
JEWEL
First and foremost, when discussing the fortress conservation work we need to keep in
mind that it actually took place. People’s memoryes are relatively short, and without documentation (photographs etc.) it is often diffi-
77
SUVI NIINISALO
78
peenranta in general consider the Fortress as
an integral part of the city and its mentality. It
is where the construction of the city began
and the part that was not demolished during
the 1950s and 1960s when efficiency was emphasized. During that period, old wooden houses were torn down and replaced by more efficient urban construction. Older buildings were
considered to occupy too much space, to be
inappropriate in a modern urban environment and to be out-dated and to show poor
taste. Consequently, the Fortress is an important mental landscape that the inhabitants of
Lappeenranta wish to preserve in its current
state.
According to the survey, the Fortress is
highly valued by its inhabitants, who feel it
plays a significant symbolic role in their identity. They are proud to live in an area of historic importance and feel that the conservation
has made the neighbourhood more pleasant.
Thanks to the conservation efforts, the inhabitants have become more interested in their
neighbourhood and more willing to take care
of it.
The inhabitants and visitors in Lappeenranta consider the conservation a success.
They view the Fortress as an important and
valuable piece of local history, and the restored appearance emphasizes its uniqueness.
The Fortress is regarded as a vital part of Lappeenranta and its future maintenance a very
important issue. According to those surveyed,
the conservation has made the area and even
the entire city more attractive. Also outsiders
appreciate the city more. This indicates how
much attitudes can change with time. The
Fortress used to be the “backyard” of the city
because of its history as a prison, but now it is
found intriguing despite – or perhaps due to –
this history. In a way, the conservation work
may have given the Fortress a clean slate and
even its darker sides can now be discussed without prejudice.
The conservation scheme has had a clear
impact on tourism in the Fortress. It is difficult to measure exactly how much the conservation effort has increased tourism in the city
of Lappeenranta because many different factors contribute to tourism and the period we
studied was quite long. However, due to the
conservation work the Fortress has become
the most important tourist attraction in the
city. It has also been presented as a regional attraction in several brochures and communications. A general change in attitude was necessary for the Fortress to become the tourist attraction it is now.
Due to the restoration, the Fortress is a clear entity of its own, and as such it is easier to
market. The restoration of the Fortress also
triggered the restoration of the surrounding
areas: beautiful residential areas are being built
in Rapasaari and Pikisaari, and the former industrial harbour is currently used for leisure
and tourism. In 2003 the harbour was chosen
as guest marina of the year. The Fortress is an
ideal tourist attraction because it is located
near the city centre and offers a great deal to
see, from a nature trail to artisans’ shops. Tourists bring money to the city and the Fortress.
The ones who profit most from the tourism
are locals who produce cultural products in
the region. Most of those active in the area are
cultural professionals, such as artisans and artists.
The state has funded the conservation of
the Fortress with employment funds. Substantial funds have also been granted by the EU,
especially at the turn of the millennium.
When the conservation work was started, the
National Board of Antiquities required a plan
FROM A HISTORY
OF WAR INTO A MULTICULTURAL URBAN ENVIRONMENT
79
A picture of the Fortress of Lappeenranta in the so-called Mordinov Atlas from the year 1780. Regional
Museum of South Karelia.
for how the Fortress area would be used so
that funds could be applied for as easily as
possible. In 1978, the Fortress planning and
conservation committee proposed that the
area be used mainly for cultural, administrative and residential purposes as well as smallscale industry. This was the policy applied for
quite a long time, but recently culture and ser-
vices have been emphasized. This plan on the
use of the area would hardly have been made
at the time if not for the conservation work.
The emphasis on culture is considered a
part of the current image of the Fortress. The
area is seen as a cultural heritage site, and therefore it is only natural that the Fortress harbours cultural services. These services, such as
SUVI NIINISALO
80
artist studios, art schools, artisan shops, museums and city archives, create synergy in the
area. In addition, the cultural emphasis contributes to the image of the Fortress as the city’s cultural centre, which also supports the
marketing of the area.
During the course of the conservation
work, approximately ten people have been
employed using state employment funds. However, the impact of the conservation on employment is for the most part indirect – for instance on tourism and related industries. In
addition, it is difficult to determine whether
the conservation affected the value of real estate since all of the buildings (except the Orthodox Church and rectory) are owned by the
city and a special rent policy is applied to
them.
CONCLUSIONS
This study on the impact of conservation is
the first one the Board of Antiquities has commissioned on a site it has restored. This may
be due to the fact that conservation can be
considered a value in itself. The Board of
Antiquities is accountable for its actions and
must present facts and figures to demonstrate
the profit and additional value derived from
e.g. conservation projects. These kinds of studies are still a new phenomenon in cultural fields of activity. Nevertheless, they can help people understand and appreciate the fact that
time and money are invested in cultural sites.
They can also develop the entire cultural heritage sector.
At present, many factors in addition to the
conservation contribute to the value of the
Fortress. For the people of Lappeenranta, the
Fortress is also an important part of their
identity. Currently, people are able to face the
darker sides of the history of the Fortress, such
as the prison camp during the Civil War in
1918, as part of the site’s attraction. The Fortress is important to the inhabitants of Lappeenranta also because the local office of Finland’s National Broadcasting Company (Yleisradio) and the city’s most important museums
are located there. The Regional Museum of
South Karelia has been situated in the Fortress
since the 1950s and Yleisradio since the 1970s,
and they have contributed to the strong status
and value of the Fortress. Nevertheless, their
role in the actual conservation project of the
Fortress was minor. The restoration work was
carried out by the city of Lappeenranta
(consulting the museum on occasions) and
the berms were restored by the Board of Antiquities.
The Fortress is currently one of the most
highly valued areas in Lappeenranta where the
citizens often spend their free time. The persistent conservation work is finally showing
concrete results. Nevertheless, there are still
some issues that need to be considered. For
example, should the city of Lappeenranta build new buildings in the area in order to make
it livelier? How should the Fortress be supported in the cold and dark wintertime? And
most importantly, now that the restoration
project is coming to an end, what kind of development is good and sustainable for the Fortress itself and for the whole community in
the future?
Further information on the Fortress of Lappeenranta, the museums in South Karelia and the
city of Lappeenranta is available on the Internet:
http://www3.lappeenranta.fi/linnoitus/english/i
ndex.html
http://www.lappeenranta.fi/?deptid=10973&la
nguageid=4
FROM A HISTORY
http://www.ekarjala.fi/museot/eng/index.html
This article is based on the following report
published by the South Karelian Institute:
Niinisalo, Suvi, 2004. Takapihasta kaupungin
helmeksi. Lappeenrannan Linnoituksen restaurointityön vaikutustutkimus. ISBN 951-764973-8. Lappeenranta University of Technology.
*Suvi Niinisalo, MA Suvi Niinisalo, Researcher,
South Karelian Institute,
Lappeenranta University of Technology
Address: PL 20 , 53851 Lappeenranta
Puh. 05 621 7006, 050 3812 744
www.lut.fi/eki. E-mail: [email protected]
OF WAR INTO A MULTICULTURAL URBAN ENVIRONMENT
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FORSKNINGSNETVÆRK NORDISK MUSEOLOGI 2007 1, S. 82-86
●
●
Making National Museums (NaMu)
– ett internationellt program för jämförande studier rörande
nationalmuseernas framväxt och funktion
PETER ARONSSON*
Abstract: The purpose of the program is to develop the tools, concepts and organisational resources necessary for investigating and comparing the major public
structure of National Museums, as created historically and responding to contemporary challenges of globalisation, European integration, and new media. What
are the forces and values of traditional national display in dealing with challenges
to national, cultural and political discourse? This will be achieved by a series of
conferences providing a venue for younger scholars and eminent researcher from
Europe to gather and develop the multi-disciplinary competence necessary to
understand and compare the dynamics of national museums in a framework for
broader historical culture and identity politics.
Keywords: National museums, nationalism, narratives, integration.
Alla länder har något som man kan kalla för
nationalmuseer. Om det är nya stater som
kämpar för erkännande så kallas de också ofta
för Nationalmuseum i singularis och bär på
besvärjande, övertygande och sammanhålla
berättelser. Saker och ting representerar nationens väg från samling till samtid. Finland och
Ungern har tydliga sådana, men Sverige eller
England och Frankrike har det inte. I de gamla imperierna har man inte på samma sätt varit tvungna att samlat tala om vilka man är
och i mångnationella stater är det också svårare att betona den delade kulturens som bas för
statens legitimitet. Lite självgott tas istället det
egna landets gåvor för givna, men man vill
förstås visa upp det bästa man har av förhistoriska fynd, folkkultur, kvalitetskonst och
tekniska innovationer. Mångfald, excellens
och universella värden blir viktigare verktyg
än enhet, unik historia och delad kultur.
När den gamla staten som vilade på ärftlig
kungamakt gradvis ersattes av en nation som
vilade på folkets enhet, ett delat språk och en
delad historia så blev kraftfulla representationer av denna enhet en väsentlig del i nationsbyggandet. Därför blev folkskola, historiska
romaner och inte minst museer som publika,
manifesta och prestigefyllda palats med nationens vackraste och mest representativa föremål viktiga platser för att tala om inte bara vad
man är, utan vad man vill vara: ideal utformas,
skillnader mellan regioner, klasser och kön
hanteras. Skillnader som kan utmana nationens enhet kan oftast inte förnekas eller förti-
MAKING NATIONAL MUSEUMS (NAMU)
gas utan ges mening inom ramen för en nationell helhet, som musikinstrumenten i en orkester eller blommorna på en äng. Helheten
kräver dessa delar.
De olika samlingarna i nationalmuseerna
formar för en betraktare en representation av
nationen och talar om vilka delar den består
av, vem som är vän och vem som är fiende och
anger normer för vad som är bra och dåligt i
estetisk, vetenskaplig, kulturell och historisk
mening. Naturligtvis är en annan av deras angivna och underförstådda huvuduppgifter att
hantera förändring. Det är när förändringstakten är som snabbast som behovet av att förstå det förflutna som avstamp, förklaring,
tröst eller kontrast blir som mest akut.
När många länder idag uppfattar sig som
mer hjälplösa inför globala krafter både vad
gäller ekonomi och kultur samtidigt som individerna ställer krav på upplevelser av nya slag
och nya grupper vill vara representerade i det
offentliga rummet så ställs de nationella museerna och aktörerna bakom dessa inför utmaningar att förhålla sig till. Betyder det att de
nationella berättelsernas tid är förbi, att det är
individuella öden, nya minoriteter, regionala
krafter och turismen som ensamt styr över innehållet? Traditionerna är starka och förändring kan mötas på många olika sätt. Museerna uppfattar oftast sitt uppdrag som en blandning av flera olika krav: vetenskapliga, vårdande, publikt roande, fostrande och kunskapsöverförande. Dessutom kan man bemöta globaliseringen antingen genom att utforska
mångkulturella förhållanden, eller förstärka
presentationen av den nationella historien. Så
möter exempelvis den svenska och danska regeringen globaliseringen med kulturarvssatsningar med helt olika retorisk innebörd. I
Danmark lanseras en officiell kulturkanon
medan den officiella retoriken i Sverige är mer
entydigt mångkulturell och avvisande till uttryckliga nationella anspråk som medel för den
integration bägge länderna önskar. Blir det
ändå en likartad verksamhet eller tar andra
krafter vid för utformningen av museernas aktiviteter? Politikerna är nämligen inte de enda
som påverkar verksamhetens utformning.
Universitetsdisciplinernas kunskapsideal, de
museiprofessionellas egna normer och institutionernas egen historia är ytterligare några aktiva krafter som formerar nationalmuseerna
genom komplexa förhandlingar om form och
innehåll.
Besökarna förbehåller sig sen rätten att
uppleva museerna utan hänsyn till intentioner, men genom att infoga dem i sina erfarenheter så blir även andra delar av populärkulterens representationer medförhandlare i dialogen om vad nationalmuseer egentligen betytt
och betyder.
MARIE CURIE
Forskning om dessa komplexa frågor sker i
många olika discipliner och länder, men ofta
avskilda från varandra av nations- och disciplingränser. EU-kommissionens 6:e ramprogram stödjer genom Marie Curie NaMu med
att låta forskarstuderande möta både nydisputerade och mer seniora forskare i sex internationella workshops 2007-2008. Målen är att
både individerna därigenom ska öka kvalitén i
sin forskning och att kunskapsfältet i sig ska ta
form, bli mer synligt och effektivare i kunskapsuppbyggnaden genom att en rad givna
gränser överskrids. Vi kan få ett bättre underlag för att se likheter och skillnader i utvecklingen av nationalmuseer över hela världen,
men hög relevans för hur Europa förstår och
spelar sin roll i världen.
Det sker genom att en kärna av frågor att
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PETER ARONSSON
84
arbeta med identifieras och att samarbeten organiseras. I förlängningen kommer ny forskning att etableras genom dessa insatser, något
som faktiskt redan blivit fallet trots att programmet startade först i januari 2007. De
huvudfrågor som ska besvaras rör både förhållanden då de flesta nationella museerna skapades på 1800-talet och idag:
1. Hur ser arbetsdelningen mellan olika nationella museer ut och vad säger det oss om
det nationella projektets innebörd i olika
länder? Vilka museer betraktas som delar i
det vi här kallar ”nationalmuseum”?
2. När vi tittar på museernas hela verksamhet,
från arkitektur, till utställningar, samlande,
programverksamhet och utställning, vad är
det då för ”berättelse” om nationen som gestaltas? Vad håller man fram för positiva
värden och identiteter och vad undertrycks?
Vad vill man åstadkomma?
3. Museerna finns inte i ett tomrum utan tävlar med andra former av historiebruk i skolan, romaner , statyer, och senare i massmedia. Hur står sig och förändras deras roll
och möjlighet att besvärja verklighetsbeskrivningarna på avsett sätt?
Genom att sätta in svaren på dessa frågor i en
jämförelse mellan länder som utvecklats väldigt olika så kan vi lära mer om hur nationalmuseerna bidrar till en nationell historiekultur och förmår eller inte förmår bidra till förändring av minnespolitiken i tider av förändring. Vi kommer också att få syn på styrkan i
museitraditionerna i sig själva jämfört med
den handlingsrepertoar som förmår finna nya
väger för att hantera konflikter och olikheter.
SEX
INTERNATIONELLA WORKSHOPS
Programmets utveckling kan bäst följas på
www.namu.se. De forskare som registrerar sig
har tillgång till allt material och dokumentation, men mycket är också tillgängligt för allmänheten. Progammet ser i sin helhet ut som
följer:
1. Setting the frames: nations, sciences and
professionals defining National Museums
Linköping University, Sweden, 26-28 February 2007. How are we to understand
and define the national museum concept?
Can both self-definitions and structural
functional features be pursued at the same
time and how are these to be delineated
more precisely? How are politicians, the public sphere, university disciplines and civil
society negotiating the concept of National
Museum in different nations?
2. National museum narratives. Museum studies, Leicester University, 18-20 June 2007.
This workshop will explore the explicit and
implicit narratives of nation to be found in
national museums and give opportunity to
compare different methodologies presented
by keynote speaker, by presenting your own
work and through field work in London.
3. European national museums in a global
world. Department of culture studies and
oriental languages, University of Oslo, Norway, 12-14 November 2007. The intention
of the conference is to explore how the museum has dealt with the Other. How are
internal and external enemies dealt with?
What happens when European national
museums are confronted with expectations
of responding to multi-cultural processes in
a globalized world. This exploration will
have two main directions: 1) What kind of
political, rhetorical and practical strategies
do national museums develop being met by
such expectations? and 2) To what extent is
it possible to combine the concept of a national museum with a multi-cultural ap-
MAKING NATIONAL MUSEUMS (NAMU)
proach? What is the role of a European dimension versus universalised citizenship
and human rights?
4. Comparing European national museums:
territories nation-building and change Linköping University, Sweden, 18-20 February 2008.
Museums interact intensively with different roads to the nation-state and different
perceptions of roles in the European community. Here patterns of museum culture
will put side by side with variations in nation-building and variations in the making
of national communities. What role does
national museums play in negotiating difference within nations and what role does
it play in the overall culture to define national identity, European values and human rights.
5. European National Museums in a technological world Museum studies, Leicester
University, 16-18 June 2008. The dream of
an integrated knowledge space drawing
particularly upon the wealth of material
held in national institutions raises many issues for these institutions. If access to a nation’s culture becomes international, does
the national museum inevitably justify the
claim of being a ‘universal (world/global)
museum’? In the borderless world of networked media, what distinguishes a national museum? Does a transformation take
place? How will the concept of the national
museum develop beyond the simple representation of existing ideas and collections?
How do new information architectures on
the web reconstitute the old architectures of
Europe’s national museums?
6. Concluding conferens: European national
museums encountering a globalized culture
Department of culture studies and oriental
languages, University of Oslo, Norway, 1719 November 2008
Två konferenser har hållits när detta skrivs.
Den första konferensen i Norrköping arbetade
intensivt med över 40 papers, från 17 olika
länder och ännu fler universitetsdiscipliner.
Många av dem kommer att publiceras på Linköping University Electronic Press (www.ep.
liu.se). Bland huvudtalarna fanns professor
Tony Bennett, Stefan Berger, Esther ShalevGerz som fördjupade diskussionerna kring
vad ett nationalmuseum kan vara, hur jämförelser kan designas och hur uttrycksformerna
för kollektivt minne kan variera och spela politisk roll.
Den andra konferensen i Leicester utforskade en helt annan arbetsmodell. Deltagarna,
också denna gång med en kärna av 30 forskarstudenter och 10 nydisputerade, blev första
dagen stimulerade av välrenommerade keynote speakers som gav sin syn på temat National Museum Narratives: Donald Preziosi,
Chris Whitehead, Peter van Mensch och Eilean Hooper-Greenhill. Nästa dag tillbringade
vi i London där sju grupper besökte olika nationella museer först i gemensam tropp och
sen individuellt. Meningen var att utforska
både vad museerna berättar för en besökare
och vad våra olika bakgrunder disciplinärt och
nationellt betydde för våra tolkningar. Deltagarna hade dessförinnan presenterat sin pågående forskning på utförliga posters. Även
dessa finns tillgängliga på hemsidan. Övningen visar hur annorlunda läsningen av museets
budskap blir beroende på om man själv är
kunnig om bakgrunden, striderna, historiografin kring institutionerna, eller om man väljer den tillfällige besökarens ögon. Den enhetlighet som arkitekturen och stadsrummet skapar löser snart upp sig i överlagringar av olika
ideologier, strategier, finansiärer och praktiska
85
PETER ARONSSON
86
hänsynstaganden som skapar ofta djupt motstridiga budskap på museerna. I London är
också pendlingen mellan universella anspråk
på upplysning, förnuft eller estetik i intensivt
samspel med glidande identifikationer med
engelskt, brittiskt och mänskligt. Dessa analytiska otydligheter kan man misstänka vara
synnerligen identitetspolitiskt produktiva.
FRAMTIDEN
Starten på programmet har varit mycket lovande. Det har en stark kommitté med internationella rådgivare och entusiastiska deltagare att
luta sig mot i det fortsatta arbetet. Kontakter
tas varje gång som syftar till fördjupad forskning. I Norden har detta krönts med framgång
genom forskningsprogrammet Nordic Space
som givit medel för ett fyraårigt projekt som ska
utforska den roll föreställningar om Norden
spelar i olika nationella museala kontexter
(www.aronsson.st/artiklar/NordicSpace.htm).
Deltagarna i projektet kommer från hela Norden och kontakter finns redan med ett systerprojekt som undersöker utställningar av Norden i Nordamerika samt en brittisk grupp som
intresserar sig för en parallell användning av det
keltiska i olika brittiska kontexter. En hypotes
som vi undersöker är hur den plastiska föreställningen om en delad nordisk kultur kommit
att fungera som en fredsförhandlande föreställning i en region som mycket väl kunnat slitas
sönder av krav på restitution av inte bara museiföremål utan territorier. Myter och museer är
viktiga – men hur?
*Peter Aronsson, Professor i Kulturarv och
historiebruk
Address: Tema Q, Kultur och samhälle
Linköpings universitet, SE-60174 Norrköping
Tel: +46 11 363096
www.isak.liu.se/temaq, www.namu.se
E-mail: Peter Aronsson [email protected]
MUSEOLOGISKE
UDDANNELSER
●
NORDISK MUSEOLOGI 2007 1, S. 87-91
●
Museumsutdanning i Norge
– eksisterer det?
MERETHE FRØYLAND*
Det har lenge vært et ønske i Norge om en
grunnutdanning og et samordnet etterutdanningstilbud innen museumsområdet, slik biblioteksektoren har. Både den offentlige utredningen (NOU) fra 1996, Museum – mangfold,
minne, møteplass og de følgende Stortingsmeldingene som omhandler museumsfeltet, etterlyser slik utdanning.
Behovet for museumsfaglig kompetanse har
ikke blitt mindre etter at Museumsreformen
ble satt i gang i 2002. Museumsreformen er en
statlig storsatsning på museumsfeltet som har
bidratt til at museumslandskapet i Norge har
endret seg betydelig disse årene, fra over 250
museer med indirekte statlig driftstilskudd, til
ca. 100 museer med direkte statlig driftstilskudd i 2006 over Kultur- og kirkedepartementets (KKD) budsjett. Målet med reformen er å etablere sterkere fagmiljøer som vil
styrke museene som aktive og aktuelle arenaer
for kunnskap og opplevelse. Det betyr at museene har behov for ansatte med en museumsfaglig kompetanse som gjør dette mulig. På
grunn av reformen har behovet for museumsfaglig utdanning blitt enda sterkere.
EN
OVERSIKT OVER TILBUDET I
NORGE
Nedenfor følger en oppsummering av tilbud
innen museumskunnskap, museumsformidling eller museologi gitt innenfor universitetsog høyskolesektoren (UH-sektoren). Annen
museumsrelevant utdanning som konservering, er holdt utenfor denne oppsummeringen. Dette er ikke ment å være en fullstendig
liste. Det finnes flere mindre kurs/studier som
ikke er tatt med. I tillegge finnes det enkeltpersoner som gjennom master- og doktorgradstudiet innenfor andre fagfelt, har valgt å
ta utgangspunkt i museene. Disse er heller
ikke tatt med i denne oversikten.
Utdanning i Museumsformidling ved
Høgskolen i Oslo
(60 studiepoeng)
Dette er et videreutdanningstilbud med tittelen
Museumsformidling som tilbys av Avdeling for
journalistikk, bibliotek- og informasjonsfag ved
Høgskolen i Oslo. Studiet er på 60 studiepoeng
og er først og fremst for ansatte på museer, men
andre som er interessert i formidling gjennom
kulturinstitusjoner kan også søke.
Studiet er utviklet ved Avdeling for journalistikk, bibliotek- og informasjonsfag ved Høgskolen i Oslo, i samarbeid med Statens senter for arkiv, bibliotek og museumsutvikling
(ABM-utvikling), Avdeling for estetiske fag og
Avdeling for lærerutdanning. Det første kullet
startet høsten 2003 og avsluttet sin utdanning
våren 2006. Høgskolen har planer om å videreutvikle studiet til et mastertilbud innen museumsformidling.
Museenes fire hovedoppgaver er dokumentasjon, bevaring, forskning og formidling. I
MERETHE FRØYLAND
88
dette studiet legges hovedvekten på formidling. Studiet skal belyse museenes rolle som
kultur- og kunnskapsformidlere og vise hvordan museene kan bidra til å sette viktige samfunnsspørsmål på dagsorden. Formidlerens
oppgave er å engasjere et bredt og sammensatt
publikum. Studentene vil derfor analysere
museenes mål og målgrupper og vurdere bruk
av forskjellige formidlingsmetoder kjent fra så
vel tradisjonell folkeopplysning som fra mer
underholdningspregede, kommersielle tiltak.
Studiet vil spesielt belyse den utfordrende
rollen formidleren har. Etiske spørsmål vil stå
sentralt. Det vil også være av betydning å studere og drøfte hvordan formidlingsarbeidet
drives ved forskjellige museer. I den sammenhengen studeres bl.a. hvordan dette kommer
til uttrykk i museenes strategiplaner og i det
daglige arbeid ved institusjonene. Studiet vil gi
innblikk i de mulighetene som ligger i forskjellige former for formidling, men også belyse de
fysiske og økonomiske rammebetingelsene
som formidleren må forholde seg til. Det finnes mange små museer, samlinger og kulturinstitusjoner som har hatt meget begrensede muligheter til å arbeide systematisk med formidling og utadrettet virksomhet. Intensjonen er å
gi deltakende studenter anledning til å bygge
et nettverk som kan bidra til å styrke disse mulighetene også ut over studietiden.
Fagets kunnskapsbase hentes fra teori om
læring, didaktikk, formidling og markedsføring. Det legges vekt på basiskunnskaper om
blant annet kultur- og utdanningspolitikk og
kultur- og vitenskapshistorie. Dette skal gi
grunnlag for praktisk formidlingsarbeid som
formgivning av utstillinger, muntlige presentasjoner og bruk av digitale formidlingsformer.
Gjennom studiet skal studenten tilegne seg
kunnskaper om og kvalifikasjoner innrettet
mot å planlegge, tilrettelegge og gjennomføre
formidlingsoppgaver til ulike målgrupper i
ulike typer museer med vekt på samlingenes
egenart og aktuelle utfordringer.
Studiet består av 4 moduler og går over to
år. Studiet er organisert i tre samlinger for
hvert semester, for å gjøre det mulig å kombinere med jobb.
Studiet er organisert i fire moduler på 15
studiepoeng hver: Museum og samfunn, Utstillinger – utvikling og utforming, Målgrupper og Museumsformidleren.
Museum og samfunn omfatter museenes
virksomhet, visjoner, mål og strategier sett i
et historisk og samfunnsmessig perspektiv.
● Utstillinger – utvikling og utforming omfatter planlegging av utstilling, bruk av ulike
virkemidler i utstilling, samt enkel farge- og
formlære.
● Målgrupper dreier seg om å involvere publikum, med spesiell vekt på barn og unge. Det
dreier seg også om hva vi kan forvente av de
ulike aldersgruppene og av andre grupper
som innvandrere/minoriteter, samt målgrupper med spesielle behov. Emnet omfatter også
læreplaner/rammeplaner, fra grunnskolen til
den videregående skolen, samt publikumsundersøkelser.
● Museumsformidleren omfatter læringsteorier, praksisteori, formidlerrollen, ulike typer
undervisningsopplegg, samt formidleren i
dagens praksis.
Studiet kvalifiserer til formidlingsarbeid i ulike typer museer, fra naturvitenskapelige, etnografiske og historiske museer til kunstmuseer,
samlinger av forskjellige slag, kulturinstitusjoner, gallerier og lignende.
●
Mål
Ved avsluttet utdanning skal studenten
MUSEUMSUTDANNING I NORGE –
ha tilegnet seg økt innsikt i og forståelse for
de mulighetene som museene representerer
for formidling av kunnskap
● ha tilegnet seg kunnskap om museenes rolle
både i historisk og samfunnsmessig perspektiv
● ha tilegnet seg kunnskap om og ferdigheter i
sentrale pedagogiske teorier og metoder I
museumsformidling
● kunne innrette formidlingsmetodene etter
ulike målgruppers behov
● kunne reflektere kritisk over de muligheter
som ligger i museenes utadrettede virksomhet og bidra til å utnytte disse mulighetene
best mulig
● ha tilegnet seg kunnskap om forskjellige former for evaluering av museenes formidlingsarbeid og virkemidler for oppfølging av
disse
● ha fått erfaring med bruk av forskjellige virkemidler i forbindelse med utforming av utstillinger
● kunne gjennomføre formidlingsoppgaver
● vise en yrkesetisk holdning preget av respekt
for de grupper og enkeltpersoner som besøker museet
● ha tilegnet seg kunnskap om teamarbeid og
kunne bidra til samarbeid mellom ulike profesjoner innen museets arbeidsfelt
Studiet ble første gang tilbudt i 2004 og fikk
Høgskolens pris for læringsmiljøet i 2007.
●
Les mer om studiet:
http://www.hio.no/enheter/avdeling_for_jour
nalistikk_bibliotek_og_informasjonsfag/for_s
tudenter_jbi/museumsformidling
ABM-utdanning ved Høgskolen i Vestfold –
videreutdanning
30 studiepoeng
Studiet er en etterutdanning med tittelen For-
EKSISTERER DET?
midlingskunnskap for ABM- feltet (Arkiv, Bibliotek, Museum) og er på 30 studiepoeng. Målgruppa for studiet er ansatte i ABM-sektoren
og har en studieavgift.
Kurset vil omfatte emner som bidrar til å
belyse ABM-sektorene og deres samarbeid
med utgangspunkt i faglig kunnskap, og vil
utvikle evnen til å formidle, særlig innen historie. Innhold/emner i studiet er:
● Arkiv-kunnskap
● Bibliotek-kunnskap
● Museums-kunnskap
● Skoleverkets behov overfor ABM-feltet
● Bruk av historiske kilder
● Historiefortelling
● Formidling av de vanskelige historiene
● Rollen som samfunnsaktør
Målet med studiet er at studentene skal
kunne tilrettelegge for aktiv formidling i sin
ABM-sektor, særlig overfor skoleverket
● ha kunnskap om hele ABM-feltet
● kunne igangsette samarbeid på tvers av sektorene
● ha kjennskap til ulike måter å formidle historie på
Studiet blir første gang tilbudt høsten 2007.
●
Les mer om studiet: http://www-lu.hive.no/
samfunnsfag/ABM
Museologisk utdanning ved Universitet i
Oslo
20 studiepoeng
Studiets tittel er Museumskunnskap og tilbys
ved Institutt for kulturstudier og orientalske
språk (IKOS) ved Universitetet i Oslo (UiO).
Det foreligger planer om mastergrad i museologi, men tidspunkt er foreløpig ikke avklart.
Museumskunnskap er et tverrfaglig kultur-
89
MERETHE FRØYLAND
90
studium. Emnet er et møtested for bl.a. fagene arkeologi, kulturhistorie, kunsthistorie og
kunstkonservering. Studiet belyser museumsog samlingshistorie, museumsfilosofi og museumspolitikk.
Museumskunnskap vil i kombinasjon med
museumsrelevante fag være egnet som teoretisk bakgrunn for ulike museumstilknyttede
oppgaver. I tillegg vil det kunne ha en allmenn
nytteverdi gjennom trening i kritisk tenkning
og analytisk tilnærming til et kunnskapsfelt.
Gjennom studiet skal studentene reflektere
over museenes plass i det kulturpolitiske bildet globalt, nasjonalt og lokalt. Studentene
skal gjennom studiet skaffe seg innsikt i ulike
museers opphavshistorie, innsamlings- og utstillingsproblematikk og museer som kilde til
kunnskap og kulturformidling. Museumsfilosofiske og museumspolitiske spørsmål vil også
stå sentralt i studiet.
Studiet har vært gjennom en rekker endringer, men har vært et tilbud siden begynnelsen av 1990-tallet.
Les mer om studiet: http://www.uio.no/studier/emner/hf/ikos/MUSKUN2000/
Museologi ved Universitetet i Bergen
15 studiepoeng
Dette er et kurs med tittel KUVI203 / Museologi som tilbys ved Historisk- filosofisk fakultet ved Universitet i Bergen og er på 15 studiepoeng.
Målgruppa er studenter ved UiB som har
basiskunnskaper innen kulturvitenskap.
Modulen skal gi forutsetninger for å forstå
museenes funksjon og virksomhet og den rollen de spiller i samfunnet. Museologi er et fordypningsemne som tematiserer museenes betydning og rolle i samfunnet som et felt for
produksjon av forestillinger om fortid og sam-
funnet. Det blir vektlagt følgende tema:
1. Begrepet museologi (museet sin rolle i samfunnet, budskap og virksomhet)
2. Museumstyper og museumshistorie
3. Musealisering (materiell kultur, transformering av vanlige ting til kulturarv, hvilke
gjenstander kommer på museum, og hva
gjør dem meiningsfulle som museumsgjenstander).
4. Formidling (Utstillingsprinsipp – hvilke grep
ved utstillinger får fram bestemte budskap?
Utstillingsstrategier og utstillingsspråk. Nye
formidlingsformer)
5. Aktuelle utfordringer: Museet sin kulturelle
betydning i dag.
Les mer om studiet:
http://studere.uib.no/?link_id=405&sublink_id=&toplink_id=&mode=show_page&c
ontent_id=525&&modus=vis_emne&kode=
KUVI203
Museologi ved Norges Teknisk-Naturvitenskapelige Universitet (NTNU)
15 studiepoeng
Studiet har tittelen Kulturminneforvaltning og
museologi er knyttet til Arkeologi.
Målet med kurset er å gi fordypet innsikt i
forvaltningsteori- og praksis og museumskunnskap med særlig vekt på formidling.
Kurset er delt inn i to moduler. Modul I omhandler kulturminneforvaltning og retter seg
mot forvaltningsteori i form av vernefilosofi,
byråkratisering og kulturminnefeltet som politikkområde, noe som innebærer forvaltningshistorikk og forvaltningssystemets oppbygging.
Modulen omfatter også gjennomgang av relevante lovverk og prosesser som konsekvensutredning, planprosess, dispensasjon og skjøtsel.
Videre berøres også forhold som prosjektutforming og registerproblematikk.
MUSEUMSUTDANNING I NORGE –
EKSISTERER DET?
Modul II, med tema Museologi retter seg
primært mot ulike sider ved formidling av fortidskunnskap. Hovedtema er ulike formidlingsmåter som utstillingsvirksomhet, populærvitenskapelige publikasjoner og foredrag,
omvisninger, formidling i feltsituasjon og mediahåndtering. Modulen omhandler også forhold som motiver bak, behovet for og effekten
av formidling.
og den andre planene er å bygge videre på
Museumskunnskap ved Universitetet i Oslo
til et masterstudiet i museologi. Dersom disse
planene blir en realitet vil vi endelig kunne si
at Norge også har museumsutdanning. Dette
vil være viktige bidrag til den museumsfaglige
kompetansen de norske museene har behov
for.
Les mer:
http://www.hf.ntnu.no/hf/adm/studier/studiehandboka/bok/s20072008/studieplaner/forord_historie_kultur/arkeologi/vis_emne?emnekode=ARK3314
*Førsteamanuensis Merethe Frøyland
ENDELIG
ET TILBUD?
De fleste museumsrelevante kurstilbud i Norge blir arrangert av museumsorganisasjoner og
institusjoner utenfor UH-sektoren. I tillegg
tilbyr Statens senter for arkiv, bibliotek og
museumsutvikling (ABM-utvikling) stipend
til de som ønsker å ta en museumsrelevant utdanning i utlandet. Flere har benyttet dette
tilbudet og tatt en utdanning blant annet i
Sverige eller England.
Tilbudet innenfor UH-sektoren, er som
oversikten over viser, nær knyttet til et utdanningsforløp innenfor historiefag og/eller arkeologi. Det er først i 2004 med studiet i Museumsformidling ved Høgskolen i Oslo, at vi
får et større utdanningstilbud på tvers av faggrenser. Men ingen av disse tilbudene er å betrakte som et fullverdig utdanningstilbud, og
det dekker på langt nær det behovet museene
har i dag for kompetanse.
Foreløpig foreligger det to planer for masterstudier innen museumsutdanning. Den ene
planen er å utvide Museumsformidlings-studiet ved Høgskolen i Oslo til et masterstudiet,
Address: Naturfagsenteret
Postboks 1099, Blindern, 0317 Oslo
Fax: 22 85 44 09
Tlf: 22 85 53 37
E-post: [email protected]
Direkte e-post er fremdeles:
[email protected]
91
PH.D-PRÆSENTATIONER NORDISK MUSEOLOGI 2007 1, S. 92
●
●
Kulturarvens Forskerskole.
Ph.d-præsentationer
I Nordisk Museologi nr. 1, 2006 introduceredes en jævnligt tilbagevendende rubrik med
præsentationer af ph.d. projekter inden for kulturforskning og museologi i Skandinavien. Udgangspunktet var etableringen af Kulturarvens
Forskerskole (www.db.dk/kaf ), som præsenteredes ved samme lejlighed, og tanken med denne rubrik er, at synliggøre ph.d.miljøet inden
for museologien og tilgrænsende forskningsfelter. Siden sidst er Kulturarvens Forskerskole
blevet udvidet med endnu to institutioner:
Kunstindustrimuseet i København og Institutionen för Kulturvård ved Göteborg Universitet, så samarbejdet nu omfatter 11 institutioner. Forskerskolens kurser for studieåret 200708 findes på www.db.dk/kaf.
I dette nummer kan vi præsentere fem ph.d.
projekter, heraf to fra den ene af de nye institutioner i netværket bag Kulturarvens Forskerskole, Institutionen för Kulturvård ved Göteborg Universitet, som siden april 2006 er repræsenteret i forskerskolens bestyrelse.
Eva Löfgrens projekt har titlen: Rätten och
rummet, og belyser det svenske tinghus som ide.
Ingalil Nyström-Larsson er ligeledes indskrevet ved Institutionen för Kulturvård med projektet Materialanalys av sydsvenskt bonadsmåleri.
Mille Gabriel, som er indskrevet ved Nationalmuseets Center for Grønlandsforskning,
SILA, præsenterer sit ph.d.projekt: Repatriation
of Cultural Heritage.
Ulla Bøgvad Kejser er indskrevet ved Det
Kongelige Bibliotek og Kunstakademiets Konservatorskole med ph.d.projektet: Preservation
copying of unstable cellulose based materials.
Carina Ren er indskrevet ved Center for Turisme, Innovation og Kultur ved Institut for
Kommunikation og Information, Syddansk
Universitet med projektet Heritage as Tourism,
Turism as Heritage. The concept and use of culture in heritage tourism.
Den 20.-22. november 2006 afholdt Kulturarvens Forskerskole i samarbejde med Forskerskolen MAST (SDU) – the Research School
for Studies in Marine and Coastal Environment, Heritage and Sustainable Tourism et fælles tredages ph.d.seminar på SDU, campus Esbjerg. Seminaret, hvis tema var Cultural Heritage and Ownership, var særdeles velbesøgt med
25 deltagere fra Sverige, Polen, Israel, Portugal
og Storbritannien, foruden deltagere fra RUC,
DTU, SDU, AU og Nationalmuseet, og med
en række internationale oplægsholdere fra Cambridge Universitet, Plymouth Universitet og
Linköping Universitet. MAST-KAF seminaret
er et eksempel på samarbejde mellem forskerskoler på tværs af institutionelle, faglige og geografiske grænser, som fremmer kontakterne
mellem unge forskere og dermed genererer nytænkning og nye initiativer i forhold til forskningen inden for kulturstudier. Carina Ren, som
var drivkraften i arrangementet, har i dette
nummer af Nordisk Museologi en omtale af seminaret.
Beate Knuth Federspiel, lektor,
Kunstakademiets Konservatorskole,
Studiekoordinator, Kulturarvens Forskerskole.
E-mail: [email protected]
PH.D-PRÆSENTATIONER NORDISK MUSEOLOGI 2007 1, S. 93-95
●
●
Rätten och rummet
Tingshuset som idé, realiserad byggnad och rum i användning
EVA LÖFGREN*
SYFTE
OCH PRELIMINÄRA RESULTAT
Tingshus i Sverige har sällan varit föremål för
forskning som utgår från ett rumsligt perspektiv. Tidigare utförda studier har istället fokuserat på domstolen som arbetsplats, som symbol
för rättsväsendet, eller på byggnaden som
konstföremål. Forskningsprojektet Rätten och
rummet bedrivs vid Institutionen för kulturvård, Göteborgs universitet och behandlar
svenska tingshus byggda under tidsperioden
1734-1971. Syftet är att studera byggnaderna
som rum betraktade utifrån tre perspektiv:
tingshus som idé, som realiserad byggnad och
som rum i användning. Den tredelade dispositionen utgör i sig ett resultat av forskningsprocessen och är inspirerad av urbansociologen Henri Lefèbvres texter. Avhandlingen
grundar sig på en rikstäckande kartläggning av
samtliga tingshus i landet och på ett antal
djupstudier. Källmaterialet utgörs främst av
befintliga hus, men också av skriftliga källor i
form av protokoll, korrespondenser och biografier samt slutligen av ritningar och andra
former av bilder. Målet med studien är att
bättre förstå sambanden mellan rumsliga och
sociala relationer och att återge tingshusen,
som kulturarv betraktade, på ett sätt som omfattar de komplexa lager av verksamheter som
rymdes i byggnaderna.
De preliminära resultaten av de ännu oav-
slutade undersökningarna visar att husens utformning kan beskrivas som resultatet av en
friktion mellan många olika aktörers intressen,
viljor och agerande. När byggnaden väl stod på
plats och brukades i en vardag såg den inte alltid ut såsom tänktes från början, men den kom
likväl att utgöra ett betvingande ramverk för
den rättsliga verksamheten och de sociala förhållanden som den innehöll. Undersökningarna tyder på stora likheter mellan de idéer om
tingshusen som framträder genom källmaterialet och som uttrycks av människor med olika
relation till rättsskipningen. Likheterna rör ofta
både de avsedda funktionerna och formspråkets tänkta syften, och strävan som framkommer i byggnadsprogrammen tycks främst handla om att skapa och upprätthålla sociala hierarkier vid domstolen.
Undersökningarna antyder också att skillnaderna mellan å ena sidan människors idéer
om tingshusen och å andra sidan hur de sedan
kom att utföras, sällan var stora men förvisso
betydelsefulla. Ofta berodde diskrepansen på
byggmästarens eller den enskilde hantverkarens tolkning av byggnadsprogrammet och
dess lakuner. Beträffande tingshusen som rum
i användning belyser resultaten husens mångfunktionella karaktär, vilken innebar att de
rumsligt sociala gränser som upprättades i
byggnadsprogrammet, och som till stor del
förverkligades, tidvis överskreds och att hu-
EVA LÖFGREN
94
sens betydelse skiftar beroende på tidpunkt
och användarens position.
BAKGRUND
TILL AVHANDLINGEN
1971 genomfördes en omfattande omorganisation av underrätterna i Sverige, den så kallade tingsrättsreformen. I korta ordalag hade
den till följd att landsbygdens häradsrätter och
städernas rådhusrätter ersattes av omkring ett
hundra tingsrätter, och att domstolsbyggnaderna (som var i bruk) övergick från tingshusbyggnadsskyldiges till statlig ägo.1 Under den
påföljande tjugoårsperioden minskades antalet tingsplatser och staten avyttrade många av
de domstolsbyggnader den hade övertagit vid
reformen. Arkivmaterialet rörande husen och
de tingshusbyggnadsskyldige häradsbornas
verksamhet inordnades ibland i landsarkiven,
men hamnade lika ofta på tingshusvindar och
i privatpersoners samlingar. Tingshusen förvaltades på ett godtyckligt sätt, liksom kunskaperna om häradsrätternas vardag och om
tingshållningens rumsliga och sociala villkor.
I syfte att inleda en vetenskaplig diskussion
om det svenska domstolsväsendets byggnader,
hur de bör dokumenteras, beskrivas och inte
minst bevaras, anordnades 1992 ett tvärvetenskapligt seminarium i Jönköping.2 Seminariet,
som initierades av professorn i rättshistoria
Kjell Å Modéer, Lunds universitet, och Domstolsverkets dåvarande generaldirektör Lars
Åhlén, samlade forskare och verksamma från
flera olika kunskapsfält. Ett viktigt resultat av
seminariet var beslutet att påbörja en rikstäckande kartläggning av samtliga domstolsbyggnader, främst av befintliga hus men också i
den mån det var möjligt, av rivna eller nedbrunna tings- och rådhus. Som utbildad bebyggelseantikvarie och därtill litteraturvetare
arbetade jag i detta kartläggningsprojekt
under slutet av 1990-talet, i första hand med
dokumentation av byggnaderna på plats men
också med bearbetning av arkivmaterial.3 Erfarenheterna från projektet ligger till grund
för avhandlingens frågor och jag har också
haft mycket god nytta av det omfattande dokumentationsmaterial som utgjorde kartläggningens resultat.
Rätten och rummet har sedan projektstarten
delfinansierats av Riksantikvarieämbetet och
även erhållit bidrag från Berit Wallenbergs
stiftelse, Torsten och Ragnar Söderbergs Stiftelser, Helge Ax:son Johnsons stiftelse och
Stiftelsen Längmanska kulturfonden. Arbetet
beräknas resultera i en avhandling 2008.
FAKTA OM
SVENSKA TINGSHUS I FÖRFLUTEN
TID
Den svenska så kallade ”tingshusbyggnadsskyldigheten” innebar att de jordbrukare som
förfogade över i mantal satt jord, var skyldiga
att bidra till byggandet och underhållet av
tingshuset i sitt härad. Skyldigheten reglerades
första gången i 1734 års lag men redan under
1600-talet uppfördes funktionsspecifika tingshus i flera härader. När de var som flest, på
1850-talet, var över 300 tingshus i bruk.
Från tidsperioden 1700-1971 finns idag
omkring 350 bevarade tingshus. Ett fyrtiotal
av dem används fortfarande som domstolslokaler men majoriteten innehåller helt andra
funktioner, exempelvis bostäder, förskolor, affärer och bibliotek. Under de senaste åren har
antalet tingsrätter minskat till 56 och något fler
byggnader används regelbundet som tingshus.
NOTER
1. Rådhusrätterna försvann redan 1965 då samtliga
städer inordnades under häradsrätternas jurisdik-
RÄTTEN
tion. Beträffande domstolsbyggnaderna bör poängteras att de övergick i statlig ägo utan att
tingshusbyggnadsskyldige ersattes ekonomiskt.
2. Seminariet resulterade också i en seminarieskrift,
Tingshus i tid och rum (Jönköping 1992), med
texter av bland andra Kjell Å Modéer, Nils-Arvid
Bringéus, Jan Sundin och Anna Christina Ulfsparre.
3. Jag har en filosofie kandidatexamen från bebyggelseantikvariskt program, Göteborgs universitet
och en filosofie kandidatexamen i Litteraturvetenskap, Lunds universitet, dessutom ett års studier i litteraturhistoria från universitetet Paris IV,
Frankrike.
*Eva Löfgren, Institutionen för kulturvård,
Göteborgs universitet.
Address:
Göteborgs universitet
Box 130, SE
40530 Götehorg, Sverige.
E-mail: [email protected].
OCH RUMMET
95
PH.D-PRÆSENTATIONER NORDISK MUSEOLOGI 2007 1, S. 96-99
●
●
Materialanalys av sydsvenskt
bonadsmåleri
–en kartläggning av Sydsvenska bonadsmålares materialanvändningen under 1700- och 1800-talet
INGALILL NYSTRÖM-LARSSON
Bonadsmåleriet från Skåne, Blekinge, Småland, Halland och södra delen av Västergötland har kommit att sammanfattas under benämningen sydsvenskt bonadsmåleri. Det
sydsvenska bonadsmåleriet är unikt i sitt uttryck. Tillsammans med annan folkkonst såsom exempelvis Dal- och Hälsingemåleriet är
denna måleritradition en viktig del av det
svenska kulturarvet. De målade bonaderna
har sin tradition i det kyrkliga medeltida kalkmåleriet samt de medeltida bildvävnaderna.
Sydsvenskt bonadsmåleri var allmogens konst
och hade sin storhetsperiod under ca 100 år
från mitten av 1700-talet fram till mitten av
1800-talet (Bringéus 1982). Bonadsmålningarna i Sydsverige användes endast temporärt,
de hängdes endast upp vid högtidliga tillfällen
såsom bröllop, dop och juletider. Bibliska motiv skildrar scener ur både det gamla och nya
testamentet. Mer folkliga motiv visar på bröllopståg, hantverksscener och jaktmotiv. I Sydsverige bodde allmogen vanligtvis i låga, timrade ryggåsstugor med ringa plats för väggdekorationer. Bonaderna anpassades därför efter
kvarvarande väggyta och takåsarnas fält. Vanligtvis bestod de målade bonaderna av limfärgsmåleri på återanvända och hopsydda tex-
tilier. Från att ursprungligen varit utförda på
väv kom bonaderna, under 1800-talet, alltmer
att utföras på papper. Från 1850 fram till
1870 blev bonaderna en sorts massproduktion. De framställdes då på industritillverkat
papper, där delar av motiven till och med kunde tryckas med schabloner. Hantverket kom
allt mer i skymundan och så småningom ebbade bonadernas popularitet ut.
Syftet med studien är att kartlägga materialanvändningen för de sydsvenska bonadsskolorna och bonadsmålarna samt försöka tolka
och förstå materialutvecklingen inom det sydsvenska bonadsmåleriet, både vad gäller
underlag och måleri. Genom materialkännedomen kan även otydliga trivialnamn som
nämns i bonadsmålares målartraktat från perioden 1700-1870 klarläggas. Studiens centrala frågeställningar är:
● Vilka material har använts och hur ser materialuppbyggnaden ut?
● Skiljer måleriteknik, färg- och materialval
mellan de olika bonadsmålarna?
I sådana fall beror de olika materialvalen på
de olika skolorna eller på den materialutveckling som skett eller beror materialvalet på
geografiska och/eller ekonomiska faktorer?
MATERIALANALYS AV
Kan bonader attribueras utifrån måleriteknik och materialinnehåll?
● Vad är det för pigment och färgämnen som
nämns med otydliga trivialnamn i de målartraktat som finns bevarade från 1700 och
1800-talet?
●
TIDIGARE
FORSKNING
Inom svensk folkkonstforskning har det sedan
15 år tillbaka arrangerats olika bonads- och
folkkonstsymposier. Den drivande kraften bakom bonadssymposierna har varit Nils-Arvid
Bringéus, professor emeritus i etnologi, Lunds
universitet. Bonadsforskningen fram till dags
dato har dock främst behandlat bonader utifrån ett kulturhistoriskt perspektiv (Bringéus
1990). Exempel på större studier är Hernroths
bok Sydsvenska bonadsmålare 1750-1850 -Deras sociala miljö och sociala bakgrund från
1979, Nils-Arvid Bringéus bok om Sydsvenska
bonadsmålningar från 1982 och Elisabeth
Berglins avhandling i etnologi om En bonadsmålare och hans värld. Johannes Nilsson i Bredared från 2001 (Hernroth 1979; Bringéus
1982; Berglin 2000). Även Nils Strömboms
studier av bonadsmålare och dess målarskolor
är centrala, men utgör inget samlat större
verk, utan finns spridda dels i Svenskt konstnärslexikon från 1952 och -53 och nordisk
folkkonst från 1972 och dels separata texter i
hembygdskrönikor och årsböcker (Strömbom
1936, 1945, 1963, 1972; Lilja and Roosval
1952, 1953).
Den mer naturvetenskapliga forskningen,
där materialet står i fokus har nästan helt uteblivit. Bringéus skriver i sin forskningsöversikt
att just teknologiforskningen, det vill säga
både material- och teknikforskningen, inom
fältet är det minst utforskade (Bringéus 1990).
Det finns uppgifter om vanligt förekommande
SYDSVENSKT BONADSMÅLERI
pigment och bindemedel använda i det sydsvenska bonadsmåleriet. Uppgifter kommer
dels från nedtecknade källor, ofta med ganska
otydliga materialbeskrivningar och dels från
analyser i samband med konservering, exempelvis de utförda vid författarens tidigare arbetsplats SVK (Studio Västsvensk Konservering, fd Stiftelsen Västsvensk Konservatorsateljé i Göteborg). Hitintills har dock ingen utfört genomgående och djuplodande undersökningar, exempelvis är de organiska färgämnena och bindemedlen ofullständigt utredda.
Exempel på källor där bonadsmaterial finns
nämnda är i Etnologisk undersökning, intervjumaterial med äldre hantverkare som insamlats
av personal vid Nordiska museet under tidigt
1900-tal. De uppgifter som berör bonadsmåleriet har sedermera sammanställts bland annat av Bringéus i hans bok Sydsvenska bonadsmålningar och av Gjetsens i en kandidatuppsats med titeln Konservering av två sydsvenska
bonadsmålningar (Bringéus 1982; Gjertsen
1990). Därutöver har Hernroth samlat in enstaka materialuppgifter från bonadsmålares
bouppteckningar i den tidigare nämnda boken Sydsvenska bonadsmålare 1750-1850
(Hernroth 1979). I samma bok tar Hernrot
även upp möjliga växter för gammaldags tillverkning av färgämnen som bonadsmålare
skulle kunna ha använt sig av.
De få artiklar och texter som tar upp faktiska materialanalyser utförda på bonadsmålningar från perioden 1700-1870 är Margareta
Ekroth-Edebos båda artiklar Sankt Göran och
draken på Rygnestad från 1990 och The study
and conservation of glue paintings on textile:
18th and 19th century painted wall hangings
from Southern Sweden från 1993 och författarens artiklar Attribuering av bonader från
2002, Manipulated painted wall hangings från
2003, En annan sida av bonadsmålningen – om
97
INGALILL NYSTRÖM-LARSSON
98
betydelsen av konservatorns materialkunskap
från 2005 och Analysmetod för oorganiskt och
organiskt material i bonadsmålningar samt Jacob Thomas masteruppsats Bonader on paper:
a chemical and cultural characterisation från
2006 (Ekroth-Edebo 1991; Ekroth-Edebo
and Petéus 1993; Nyström 2003, 2003; Nyström Larsson 2005, 2005; Thomas 2006).
deras, kompletterat med sekundärmaterial
från befintliga studier av bonadsmåleri. Arkivhandlingar över bonadsmålare och bonadsmålningar finns framför allt vid Nordiska Museets arkiv med etnologiska undersökningar
och vid Lunds universitets Folklivsarkiv som
ligger under Etnologiska institutionen.
STUDIENS
METOD
OCH MATERIAL
Det material som skall användas i studien
är sydsvenska bonadsmålningar vid olika svenska museer. Bonadssamlingar finns vid Bonadsmuseet i Södra Unnaryd, Kulturen i
Lund, Nordiska museet, Länsmuseet i Varberg
och Halmstad, Göteborgs stadsmuseum, Borås museum, Smålands Museum i Växjö och
Smålandstugan i Slottsskogen, Göteborg mfl.
Undersökningarna kommer att koncentreras
på ett urval av bonader från respektive målarskola. Framför allt kommer signerade och tveklöst attribuerade bonader att analyseras, detta för att ge en bild av typiska materialval för
vederbörlig bonadsmålare respektive målarskola. Bonadsmålningarna ska tekniskt undersökas och materialet analyseras. Analyserna
ska inrikta sig på måleri- och tillverkningsteknik samt fiber-, bindemedels-, pigmentoch färgämnesinnehåll. Bonadsmåleriet ska
analyseras med fysikaliska och kemiska analysmetoder. Icke destruktiva metoder ska prioriteras, det vill säga metoder som ej kräver provtagning från de historiskt värdefulla bonadsmålningarna. Vidare kommer litteratur som
behandlar bonadsmåleriets lokala utveckling
och utövare att studeras i syfte att besvara frågor om måleritekniker, materialanvändning
och materialutveckling under perioden. Därutöver kommer målartraktat från perioden
samt arkivmaterial över bonadsmålare att stu-
RELEVANS
Studien kompletterar tidigare etnologiska och
konstvetenskapliga bonadsstudier. Dess vetenskapliga relevans och betydelse är att materialkunskapen ökar säkerheten vid attribuering,
bedömning av proveniens och åldersbedömning av bonadsmålningarna (Nyström 2003;
Nyström Larsson 2005). Studiens praktiska
relevans är att genom materialkännedomen
kan olika nedbrytningsrisker hos de sydsvenska bonadsmålningarna identifieras och lokaliseras, vilket är avgörande för bevarandet av
dem. Dessutom kommer analysresultaten tillföra ytterligare kontext och data för den antikvariska bedömningen av de sydsvenska bonadsmålningarna och således kommer materialkunskapen att gagna kulturmiljövården och
museivärlden i stort.
REFERENSER
Berglin, Elisabeth. 2000. En bonadsmålare och hans
värld. Johannes Nilsson i Bredared. Lund: Apostrof ’.
Bringéus, Nils-Arvid. 1982. Sydsvenska bonadsmålningar, Böcker om konst (Signum), 1. Lund: Signum.
1990. Det sydsvenska bonadsmåleriet i
forskningshistoriskt perspektiv. In Bilden på bondens vägg -studier i det sydsvenska bonadsmåleriet,
edited by B. Petersen. Halmstad: Civilen.
MATERIALANALYS AV
Ekroth-Edebo, Margareta. 1991. Sankt Göran och
draken på Rygnestad. In Stiftelsen Västsvensk Konservatorsateljé Årsskrift 1990. Göteborg: Stiftelsen
Västsvensk Konservatorsateljé.
Ekroth-Edebo, Margareta, and Thomas Petéus.
1993. The study and conservation of glue paintings on textile: 18th and 19th century painted
wall hangings from Southern Sweden. Paper read
at 10th Triennial meeting Washington DC 22-27
AUG 1993, at Washington, DC, USA.
Gjertsen, Randi. 1990. Konservering av två sydsvenska
bonadsmålningar : måleri på duk eller bemålad
textil?: behandling av porösa färgskikt, Göteborgs
universitet, Institutionen för kulturvård, 1990:12.
Göteborg: Univ., Institutionen för kulturvård.
Hernroth, Uno. 1979. Sydsvenska bonadsmålare
1750-1850. Göteborg: Nordiska museet.
Lilja, G. sta, and Johnny Roosval. 1952. Svenskt
konstnärslexikon : tiotusen svenska konstnärers liv
och verk. 1, Abbe-Dahlander. Malmö: Allhem.
1953. Svenskt konstnärslexikon : tiotusen svenska
konstnärers liv och verk. 2, Dahlbeck-Hagström.
Malmö: Allhem.
Nyström, Ingalill. 2003. Attribuering av bonader. In
Stiftelsen Västsvensk Konservatorsateljé Årsskrift
2002. Göteborg.
2003. Manipulated painted wall-hangings. Paper
read at Art Forgeries, Preprints of the Contributions to the Nordic Group 16th Congress, 4-7
June 2003 at Reykjavik, Iceland.
Nyström Larsson, Ingalill. 2005. Analysmetod för
oorganiskt och organiskt material i bonadsmålningar. Meddelser om konservering : Tema: Arkeologisk konservering 2 (IIC nordic group, nordiska
konservatorforbund):31-34.
2005. En annan sida av bonadsmålningen : om
betydelsen av konservatorns materialkunskap. In
Formgivare: folket, Fataburen, edited by C. Westergren. Stockholm: Nordiska museet.
Strömbom, Nils. 1936. En signerad bonad av Anders
Pålsson I Trönninge. In Vår byggd. Hallands hem-
SYDSVENSKT BONADSMÅLERI
byggdsförbunds årsskrift: Hallands hembyggdsförbund.
1945. Sven Erlandsson i Karsbo – några nya rön
om hans bonadsmåleri och identitet. In Från Borås och de sju häradena, edited by A. Engblom,
Stenström, Miles, Wallin, Ingegärd. Göteborg:
Kulturhistoriska föreningen.
1963. Anders Bengtsson i Södra Fagerhult – ett
nytt namn inom det sydsvenska bonadsmåleriet.
In Fataburen. Nordiska museets årsbok 1963.
Stockholm.
1972. Det sydsvenska folkliga bonadsmåleriet
och dess utforskande. In Nordisk folkkonst. Lund:
CWK Gleerup Bokförlag.
Thomas, Jacob. 2006. Bonader on paper: a chemical
and cultural characterisation. Göteborg: Museion
Department.
*Ingalill Nyström-Larsson, Institutionen för kulturvård, Göteborgs universitet, Göteborg. Delfinansierat av RAÄ FoU och institutionen för kulturvård samt av Berit Wallenbergs stiftelse.
Address: Göteborgs universitet, Institutionen för
kulturvård, Box 130, SE 405 30 Göteborg,
Sverige.
Tel: + 46 31 786 58 20
E-mail: [email protected]
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PH.D-PRÆSENTATIONER NORDISK MUSEOLOGI 2007 1, S. 100-102
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Skal kulturarven fra inuit
tilbageføres?
En relationel analyse af argumenter i dansk og international
repatrieringspraksis
MILLE GABRIEL*
I 1990 blev Therkel Mathiassens arkæologiske
udgravninger i Repulse Bay, arktisk Canada udråbt som gravrøveri i den lokale avis News
North, og året efter modtog Nationalmuseet en
officiel ansøgning om repatriering af de udgravede skeletter. I 2001 fik Grønlands Nationalmuseum & Arkiv tilsendt en anmodning fra en canadisk besøgende om, at lade mumierne fra Qilakitsoq ”be given back to their culture for proper
burial”. Samme år valgte befolkningen i Deering, Alaska at udsætte genbegravelsen af en samling 2000 år gammelt gravudstyr – efter at have
fået vurderet samlingen til 500,000 $ på det
internationale marked.
Debatten om, hvor kulturarven rettelig hører hjemme, er blevet et tilbagevendende
punkt på den museale og kulturpolitiske
agenda verden over. Ikke blot i forhold til det
arktiske område, men i forhold til de fleste
lande og folkeslag, der gennem århundreder
har mistet markante dele af deres kulturarv.
Den passionerede debat mellem de implicerede parter, her iblandt videnskabsfolk, kuratorer, repræsentanter for oprindelige folk og
postkoloniale nationalstater, peger på, at der
ikke er nogle enkle og entydige svar på spørgsmålet. Problemet er nemlig, at samme objekt
kan opfattes som kulturarv af flere parter på
samme tid; både af den stat, det museum eller
private samling, der i dag har genstanden i sin
besiddelse, og af ansøgeren, der gør hævd på
den i kraft af sin position som oprindelseskultur.
Nærværende ph.d.-projekt er en videreudvikling af magisterafhandlingen ”Repatriering
til oprindelige folk – en udfordring for fremtidens museum” (2002), men hvor magisterafhandlingens fokus var på humant materiale,
sigter dette forskningsprojekt mod mere overordnet at undersøge og diskutere den aktuelle
repatrieringspraksis, hvad enten kravene er
rettet mod etnografika, kunst, humant eller
arkæologisk materiale, og hvad enten de forskellige partshavere i forhandlingerne udgøres
af museer, stater, oprindelige folk, NGO’er eller videnskabelige sammenslutninger. Det primære formål er, via en analyse af udvalgte
danske og internationale sager alle med relation til inuit i Canada, Alaska og Grønland, at
udkrystallisere nogle centrale mønstre i den
motivation, der ligger bag de enkelte partshaveres krav på kulturarven og den argumentation, de vælger at anvende. Som det retoriske
spørgsmål i projektets titel antyder, er det sekundært min hensigt at skitsere, hvordan resultaterne af analysen kan operationaliseres og
i bedste fald bistå kulturarvens forvaltere, såvel ansøgere som nuværende ejere, i fremtidige
repatrieringsforhandlinger.
Eftersom krav om repatriering først og
fremmest gælder den kulturarv, der er erhvervet som følge af kolonisering eller anden form
for besættelsesrelation, er fænomenet ikke begrænset til at have museologisk relevans, men
berører en lang række problematikker, heriblandt identitetspolitiske aspekter, retlige faktorer, etiske hensyn og museale forpligtelser. I
mit teoretiske såvel som analytiske perspektiv
kommer jeg derfor vidt omkring.
IDENTITET
OG POLITIK
Ud fra den betragtning at repatriering som fænomen for alvor er opstået i kølvandet på efterkrigstidens afkolonisering af 3. verdens lande
og organisering af indfødte folk, er det vigtigt at
undersøge kulturarvens betydning for et samfunds identitetsdannelse og sammenhængskraft.
Med udgangspunkt i kritisk-museologiske og
postkoloniale teorier om kulturarvens betydning for 1800-tallets nationale konstruktion og
den rolle museets repræsentation af ’de andre’
spillede i legitimeringen af den imperiale ekspansion, undersøger jeg, hvordan identitetsrelaterede argumenter indgår i sager om repatriering. Hvilken national og imperial betydning tillægges besiddelsen af udenlandske
samlinger i Vesten, og hvordan bliver selv
samme kulturarv iscenesat af de nye nationer
som aktionsmiddel i kampen om kulturel revitalisering og magten til på egne museer at repræsentere sig selv?
EJENDOMSRET
Eftersom lovgivning på kulturarvsområdet er
et efterkrigsfænomen uden retroaktiv række-
vidde (jf. UNESCO’s skelnen mellem ’return’
og ’restitution’), er museerne som oftest lovformelige ejere af deres samlinger. Derfor er
kulturarvens retlige status et hyppigt forekommende argument imod repatriering. Ved at
inddrage ejendomsretlige teorier baseret på
idéen om en ’possessive individualism’, analyserer jeg, hvilken betydning en definition på
kulturarv som ’cultural property’ har i repatrieringssammenhæng? Og hvilken gyldighed
har juridiske argumenter da i de sager, der involverer samfund med alternative opfattelser,
fx visse indfødte folk, der opererer med begreber som ’cultural heritage’ – en kollektiv arv,
der ikke kan ejes?
ETISKE
HENSYN
Når kulturarvens retlige status alligevel tilsidesættes, sker det oftest på baggrund af etiske
overvejelser. Er det moralsk forsvarligt at gøre
hævd på en kulturarv, hvis indsamling var situeret i en koloniserings- eller besættelseskontekst, eller hvis tilvejebringelse krænkede oprindelseskulturens religiøse eller kulturelle
normer i forhold til fx gravfred? Udover museologiske teorier om koloniale og postkoloniale
indsamlingspolitikker, er det relevant at skelne
mellem ’ethical absolutism’ og ’ethical realism’
– begreber, der er aktuelle i den antropologiske diskussion om copyright og intellektuel ejendom, der udgør en interessant parallel til repatrieringsproblematikken.
MUSEAL PRAKSIS
I henhold til vestlig museal praksis er kulturarv noget, museet har pligt til at bevare for
eftertiden, at gøre tilgængelig for videnskabelig forskning og formidle til offentligheden.
Museale argumenter formulerer typisk nogle
101
MILLE GABRIEL
102
betingelser, der kræves opfyldt forud for
tilbageførsel, og får navnlig betydning i de tilfælde, hvor ansøgeren ikke repræsenterer en
museal instans eller ikke kan garantere tilfredsstillende museumsforhold. Det er særlig
interessant at undersøge, hvordan sådanne
museale argumenter søger at formulere en
universel museumsstandard, og hvordan denne udfordres i de tilfælde, hvor kulturarven
ikke ønskes tilbageført til museale forhold,
men til brug i en levende praksis, fx genanvendelse af religiøse remedier eller genbegravelse
af skeletter?
Ph.d.-projektet udføres som et formelt samarbejde mellem SILA – Nationalmuseets Center
for Grønlandsforskning, Institut for Antropologi ved Københavns Universitet og Kulturarvens Forskerskole og forventes afsluttet i januar 2009.
Jeg har tidligere beskrevet fænomenet repatriering i artiklerne ’Knogler og Klenodier’ i Weekendavisen 16.-22. marts 2007 og ’Repatriering – en udfordring for fremtidens museum’ i
Arkæologisk Forum 7, 2002.
*Mille Gabriel, Sila, Nationalmuseets center for
grønlandsforskning
Adresse:
Sila, Nationalmuseets Center for Grønlandsforskning
Frederiksholoms Kanal 12
DK-1220 København K
Tlf: +45 3347 3449
Fax: +45 3347 3322
E-mail: [email protected]
PH.D-PRÆSENTATIONER NORDISK MUSEOLOGI 2007 1, S. 103-106
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Sikkerhedskopiering af truede
kulturarvsmaterialer
ULLA BØGVAD KEJSER*
I det følgende vil jeg opridse baggrunden for
mit ph.d.-projekt og præsentere projektets
problemstillinger og de teorier og metoder jeg
arbejder med for at belyse dem. Projektet har
arbejdstitlen ’Modellering af omkostninger og
nytteværdi af forskellige tekniske løsninger for
sikkerhedskopiering af truede kulturarvsmaterialer’. Jeg er indskrevet ved Konservatorskolen i København (2006-2009) og gennemfører projektet på ¾ tid. Ph.d.-stipendiatet samfinansieres af Kulturministeriet og Det Kongelige Bibliotek, hvor jeg også arbejder på ¼
tid som bevaringsspecialist i afdelingen for Digital Bevaring.
SIKKERHEDSKOPIERING
Arkiver, biblioteker og museer (ABM institutioner) har tradition for at fremstille sikkerhedskopier af værdifulde arkivalier, bøger, kataloger, billeder, kort og andre kildematerialer.
Det sker for at mindske risikoen for, at uerstattelige dele af kulturarven går tabt som følge af nedbrydning, brand, tyveri, eller andre
katastrofer. Derfor stilles der høje kvalitetskrav til sikkerhedskopier: De skal gengive originalmaterialets information så autentisk som
muligt, og de skal kunne bevares og gøres tilgængelige over tid.
Hidtil har man brugt analoge fotografiske
optagelser på fx mikrofilm til sikkerhedskopi-
ering af truede samlinger. Da ABM institutioner i starten af 1990’erne begyndte at digitalisere deres samlinger var det med tilgængeliggørelse og formidling af kulturarven for øje.
Digitale kopier blev ikke anset for at være egnede som sikkerhedskopier, fordi der ikke var
udviklet tilstrækkeligt sikre metoder til langtidsbevaring af digitale materialer.
ANALOG
ELLER DIGITAL BEVARING AF SIK-
KERHEDSKOPIER?
I modsætning traditionelle materialer, som fx
bøger, der kan læses med øjet, er digital information kun maskinlæsbar. Adgangen til digital information kræver for det første, at filen
og det medie den er lagret på, er intakte og for
det andet, at filformatet kan læses og fortolkes
korrekt af maskinen, dvs. hardware og software systemet. Det kræver at man løbende overvåger filer og lagringsmedier for fejl, og udbedrer dem, så man undgår tab af information.
Den hastige udvikling inden for informationsteknologien betyder, at der jævnligt kommer nye lagringsmedier, formater, programmer og operativsystemer på markedet, mens
andre forældes og forsvinder. Floppydiske er
et eksempel på et forældet lagringsmedie, ligesom filer genereret af tekstbehandlingsprogrammet ’Word Perfect’, er et eksempel på et
forældet filformat. Derfor er det også nødven-
ULLA BØGVAD KEJSER
104
digt at overvåge de anvendte teknologier og
gennemføre bevaringsindsatser, som fx migrering, før teknologierne forældes.
Digital bevaring kræver altså et system af
strategier, forebyggende overvågning og aktive
indsatser. Et system, der løbende skal tilpasses
den teknologiske udvikling. Hvis man bare
lagrer filerne, kan man ikke forvente, at de
kan læses mere end få år.
De seneste års internationale forskning
inden for digital bevaring har resulteret i udviklingen af forskellige tekniske løsninger for
digital bevaring og begyndende etablering af
sikre elektroniske magasiner.
Udviklingen inden for digital bevaring har
gradvist forøget tilliden til, at man kan bevare
digital information og bevirket, at mange
ABM institutioner i dag overvejer at gå over
til digitale sikkerhedskopier for at udnytte formidlingspotentialet. Institutionernes største
Eksempel på nedbrydningstruet cellulosenitratnegativ fra Sylvest Jensens Luftfotosamling.
Negativet er fra 1952, men allerede meget sprødt og kraftigt misfarvet langs kanterne.
Foto: Det Kongelige Bibliotek/FA.
SIKKERHEDSKOPIERING AF
bekymring går i dag ikke så meget på, om det
er teknisk muligt at bevare dataene men på,
hvor meget det koster!
Netop omkostningerne ved digital langtidsbevaring har resulteret i udviklingen af en alternativ bevaringsstrategi: I stedet for at lagre
de digitale filer elektronisk printes de ud på
mikrofilm, såkaldt ’computer output microfilm’ (COM), der bevares i traditionelle magasiner. Efter behov kan mikrofilmene hentes
frem og enten læses direkte eller genindscannes, så kopierne gøres digitalt tilgængelige
igen. Ekspeditionstiden er betydeligt længere
for analoge film, og ud fra et bruger synspunkt er metoden derfor bedst egnet til samlinger med begrænset efterspørgsel.
I modsætning til traditionel bevaring, hvor
man har velbeskrevne lagringssystemer og erfaringsbaserede omkostningsdata, er det vanskeligt at opgøre omkostningerne for digital
bevaring, fordi systemerne stadig er under
udvikling og etablering. Der er mangel på viden om, hvordan man opgør omkostningerne og på konkrete omkostningsdata. Generelt afhænger omkostningerne af datamængde, formater og bevaringssystemets strategiske og tekniske udformning, herunder af systemets sikkerhedsniveau. Fx er der langt større risiko for tab af data ved en simpel backup løsning end ved et egentligt bevaringssystem, men et back-up system er også betydeligt billigere.
Omkostningerne til bevaring er kun en del
af omkostningerne ved sikkerhedskopiering.
For at vurdere hvilken bevaringsstrategi, analog eller digital, man skal vælge, er man også
nødt til at inddrage udgifterne til produktion
og tilgængeliggørelse af sikkerhedskopier.
Omkostningerne skal imidlertid også ses i lyset af de fordele, den nytteværdi, der er ved de
forskellige løsninger.
TRUEDE KULTURARVSMATERIALER
MODELLERING AF
OMKOSTNINGER OG
NYTTEVÆRDI
På de statslige ABM institutioner i Danmark
dækkes udgifterne til bevaring af kulturarven
primært af det offentlige. Kulturarven anses
for et offentligt gode, som ABM institutionerne er forpligtigede til at bevare og formidle.
Eftersom ressourcerne til bevaring er begrænsede, er det vigtigt, at de udnyttes effektivt og,
at omkostningerne ikke overstiger samfundets
nytteværdi. For at vurdere om man skal bevare
sikkerhedskopier i et elektronisk magasin eller
som udprint på COM i et traditionelt magasin, er det derfor relevant at vurdere løsningerne i et samfundsøkonomisk perspektiv. Hvilken nytte har en bevaringsindsats som sikkerhedskopiering for samfundet som helhed og
mere specifikt, hvad er nytteværdien for brugere af den type kildemateriale, der sikkerhedskopieres?
Der findes forskellige økonomiske analysemetoder, som fx cost-benefit analyse (CBA)
eller ’multikriterie analyse (MCA), til at sammenligne omkostninger og nytteværdi af alternative projekter og understøtte komplicerede beslutninger. CBA blev oprindeligt udviklet til vurdering af infrastrukturprojekter,
fx motorvejs- og brobyggerier, og har siden
spredt sig til miljøøkonomi og sundhedsøkonomi og senest også til kulturøkonomien. I
modsætning til CBA hvor fordele og ulemper
opgøres endimensionalt i kroner og ører, er
der ved MCA mulighed for at sammenligne
kriterierne flerdimensionalt. Inden for rammerne af et af disse værktøjer vil jeg opbygge
en model, hvor alle omkostninger, fra vugge
til grav, forbundet med sikkerhedskopiering
analyseres og specificeres i forhold til forskellige kvalitetsniveauer for produktion, bevaring
og adgang. Det der først og fremmest kompli-
105
ULLA BØGVAD KEJSER
106
cerer opbygningen af modellen er, at systemerne til digital bevaring stadig er under udvikling. Derfor er et af målene med dette projekt at lave en omkostningsanalyse og en risikovurdering af et udvalg af bevaringssystemer,
der har forskellig grad af sikkerhed indbygget.
Udover at kortlægge omkostningerne ved
de to bevaringsløsninger skal de sættes i forhold til nytteværdien. Nytteværdien kan
undersøges med forskellige teknikker, der afslører folks betalingsvilje, som fx et værdisætningsstudie ’contingent valuation’. Målet er at
undersøge befolkningens almene vilje til at betale for bevaring af kulturarven gennem sikkerhedskopiering og mere konkret for brugeres betalingsvilje for kopier af kulturarvsmaterialer.
Modellen, der udvikles gennem litteraturstudier, eksperimentelt arbejde og gennem
indsamling af data fra eksisterende samlinger
(case studies), vil kunne bruges til at vurdere
omkostninger og nytteværdi af forskellige
strategier for sikkerhedskopiering. Den vil
også kunne bruges til at analysere betydningen
af ændringer i kvalitetskravene i forhold til
økonomi og nytteværdi.
Ph.d. arbejdet er primært rettet mod det bevaringsfaglige forskningsfelt, hvor det skal bidrage med ny viden om strategier for bevaring
af sikkerhedskopier af biblioteks- og arkivsamlinger. Eftersom projektet er tværvidenskabeligt og inddrager værktøj fra økonomisk teori
og værdisætning af goder kan arbejdet også
have interesse for fx økonomer og sociologer,
der beskæftiger sig med værdisætning af kulturarven. Endelig kan projektet være af interesse for dataloger og andre IT specialister, som
arbejder med digital bevaring
*Ulla Bøgvad Kejser, Konservatorskolen, København.
Adresse: Det Kongelige Bibliotek, Postboks
2149, DK-1016 København K, www.kb.dk
Konservatorskolen, Esplanaden 34, DK-1263
København K, www.kons.dk
E-mail: [email protected]
PH.D-PRÆSENTATIONER NORDISK MUSEOLOGI 2007 1, S. 107-109
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Communicating culture and identity
in tourism relations. Zakopane as
an example
CARINA REN*
Er turismeudvikling og bevarelse af lokal kultur hinandens modsætninger? Mange studier
indenfor turismeforskningen har gennem tiden besvaret dette spørgsmål med et rungende
’JA!’. I afhandlingen “Communicating Culture and Identity in Tourism Relations” er ønsket at tage denne påstand under nøjere behandling med udgangspunkt i feltarbejde i
den polske bjergby og helårsdestination Zakopane, en by med en lang tradition for turisme. Samtidig er det afhandlingens ønske at
undersøge, hvorledes lokale, nationale, såvel
som globale aktører i det lokale turismefelt
skaber og gør brug af forskellige forestillinger
om stedet og dets kultur. Målet med dette er
ikke kun kritisk at diskutere forholdet mellem
turisme og lokal kultur. Det er også at belyse,
hvorledes forskellige opfattelser af kultur benyttes strategisk af en lang række aktører til
meget forskellige endemål.
LOKAL KULTUR –
DEN ROMANTISKE
DEFINITION
Groft sagt er lokal kultur som den beskrives i
turismebrochurer ofte karakteriseret ved det
oprindelige, det autentiske, egenartede og ofte
uspolerede. På samme måde har en stor del af
den kulturelle og sociale turismeforskning peget på turismens indbyggede modsætning,
nemlig at den gennem sin blotte tilstedeværelse spolerer det, den sælger, nemlig det uberørte. På den baggrund forsøger megen
forskning og undervisning indenfor turismefeltet i dag at vægte kulturel bæredygtighed,
kulturel forståelse og etik som vigtige bestanddele for ledelses- og planlægningspraksisser på
området.
Ser man nærmere på den kulturopfattelse,
der ligger bag det prisværdige ønske om at beskytte lokal kultur i udsatte turistområder,
fremgår det, at der ofte implicit opereres med
et essentialistisk kulturbegreb, hvor kulturen
betragtes som noget stabilt, uforanderligt og i
samfundet iboende. Imidlertid kan man også
vælge at betragte kultur som en relationel
konstruktion mellem forskellige parter eller
som strategisk redskab for bestemte grupper.
Ud fra dette perspektiv er det ikke turisme
som abstrakt størrelse, men snarere turismeaktører, der genererer forandring eller vedliggeholder status quo. Her fungerer turismen ikke
kun som et mål eller som den store igangsætter, men også som et middel for aktører til at
fremføre og legitimere bestemte agendaer og
målsætninger. Det er disse aktører, deres kon-
CARINA REN
108
stante (gen)skabelse af den rette forestilling af
stedet og dets kultur samt deres mangfoldige
strategier som er afhandlingens omdrejningspunkt.
KULTUR
SOM STRATEGI
Af feltarbejdet i Zakopane fremgik det tydeligt, at ikke en, men flere parter, på vidt forskellige vis forsøgte at definere deres version af
den lokale kultur i turismen. Alene i kraft af
turismeindustriens ofte store økonomiske betydning lokalt fremgår strategierne i turismerelationer særlig tydeligt. Turisme kan derfor
benyttes som en analytisk prisme, hvori lokale, nationale og europæisk/globale interesser
spejler sig og kæmper om retten til at definere
hvilke mål, midler og konsekvenser, der knytter sig eller bør knytte sig til turismen. Skal turismen benyttes som økonomisk og legitimerende redskab til at fremme det lokalt særegne? Skal det lokalt særegne benyttes som eksotisk kulisse for et stort internationalt turismefremstød? Eller skal det fungere som legitimering i ansøgningen om EU-midler til afholdelse af folklorefestivaler? Dette har adskillige
aktører deres helt særlige og ofte modsatrettede meninger om.
Imidlertid bliver det klart, at lokal kultur i
en sådan optik ikke er en fast og forankret størrelse. Lokalkulturens mange udlægninger, repræsentationer og materialiseringer bestrider
og udfordrer til stadighed hinanden på relevans og legitimitet; i lokalpressen, i dagligdags
tale, i politiske beslutninger, i graffiti på husgavlene, gennem investeringer og fondsuddelinger. Også den lokale kultur, der præsenteres
i turismen gennem brochurer, websites, udstillinger, guidede ture, festivaler, restauranter mv.
fremstår som et dynamisk, men kontesteret
forhandlingsfelt. I samtaler med forskellige ak-
tører indenfor turismeindustrien, kulturinstitutioner og -organisationer samt den kommunale turisme- og kulturforvaltning står det
klart, at hvad der udpeges som relevant kultur
ikke er det samme for alle. Hvad parterne taler
om og udpeger som seværdigt, betydningsfuldt, bevaringsværdigt eller meningsgivende i
kulturel forstand – både for de lokale og for de
3 millioner turister, der hvert år besøger byen,
er vidt forskelligt.
KULTUROPFATTELSER
I PLANLÆGNING OG
BEVARING
Den nærmere undersøgelse af kulturopfattelser samt brugen af disse indenfor turismeindustrien afslører en diskrepans mellem forskellige aktørers strategier. Dette besværliggør
samarbejde omkring turismeplanlægning, markedsføring, og indenfor kulturområdet, hvilket
beklages af alle parter. Dog ud fra forskellige
perspektiver. Hvad der efterspørges af nogle,
anses for irrelevant af andre, som i tilfældet
mellem lokale folkekunstnere og kommunen.
Flere lokale efterspurgte i mine interviews et
kommunalt støttet sted til at udfolde ikkekommercielle aktiviteter såsom dans, kunsthåndværk og sang. Men hos kommunen var
det kulturelle fokus snarere rettet mod bevaringen af bygninger og kulturlandskaber truet
af turismeudviklingen. Det bevarende blik hos
kommunen har således konsekvenser for den
nutidige udfoldelse af lokal kultur, der så til
gengæld kan søge at udfolde og opretholde sig
andre steder, såsom på restauranter, til folklorefestivaler og som turistprodukter på det lokale marked indenfor ikke-institutionaliserede
rammer. Paradoksalt nok bliver turismen således et redskab for nogle til at udfolde sig kulturelt, når den kommunale kulturforvaltning
svigter.
COMMUNICATING
CULTURE AND IDENTITY IN TOURISM RELATIONS.
Som det ovennævnte antyder, er der ingen
determinerende forbindelse mellem turismens
kulturelle kommodificering og forvitringen af
den levende lokale kultur. Ej heller er offentlige kulturinstanser garanter for en levende
samme. Turismen underminerer ikke kulturen, men fremmer og stimulerer den i visse tilfælde også idet kulturen, ved at fungere som
handelsvare, hermed legitimeres.
TURISMENS
RUM SOM DET HETEROGENES
TUMLEPLADS
Turismen i Zakopane, eller andre steder, er
dog langtfra et felt uden økonomiske, sociale
og kulturelle skævheder. De felter, hvor forestillingen om stedet og kulturen konstrueres og
forhandles, er ikke magtfrie vakuumer, hvor
’anything goes’. Der er grænser for, hvad der
kan siges, gøres og tænkes. Og netop udforskningen af, hvordan disse grænser skabes og opretholdes samt virker tilbage på stedet, de lokale og de besøgende er stadig et område, der
kræver udforskning.
ZAKOPANE AS AN
EXAMPLE
Dog er det sikkert, at en stadig forøget satsning på strømlinet og strategisk kommunikation på turismeområdet skaber stadig smallere
rammer for den måde, hvorpå stedet og kultur
kan repræsenteres og forhandles, samt for
hvilke parter, der legitimt kan indgå i denne
forhandling. Dette oplever vi også i Danmark,
hvor nationen skal brandes overfor blandt andet turister. Ud fra det ovenfor plæderede
synspunkt kunne man mene, at hverken det
lokale samfund, dets borgere eller den besøgende er tjent med at heterogene og dynamiske kulturelle udtryk fastfryses som homogene.
Indblikket i den kontinuerlige og kaotiske
kamp om at skabe, definere, sælge og købe
kultur – hvordan vi end definerer, forstår og
værdisætter dette begreb – er måske netop
hele besøget værd!
*Carina Ren,Center for Turisme, Innovation og
Kultur, Institut for Fagsprog, Kommunikation
og Informationsvidenskab, SDU.
E-mail: [email protected]
109
KONFERENCER NORDISK MUSEOLOGI 2007 1, S. 110-113
●
●
Cultural Heritage and Ownership
Ph.d.-seminar arrangeret i et samarbejde mellem forskerskolerne
MAST og Kulturarvens forskerskole
Syddansk Universitet, Campus Esbjerg, 20.-22. november 2006.
CARINA REN*
OG
METTE GULDBERG*
Title: Cultural heritage and Ownership. PhD seminar
Abstract: On 20-22 November 2006, a PhD seminar on cultural heritage and ownership was arranged by the Research School for Studies in Maritime and Coastal Environment, Heritage and Sustainable Tourism (MAST) and the Danish Research
School of Cultural Heritage. The seminar was hosted by the University of Southern
Denmark, Campus Esbjerg and aimed at presenting different perspectives on cultural
heritage in current international research. Lecturers and PhDs from Denmark, Sweden, Norway, England, Poland, Portugal and Israel fully demonstrated the broad
range of approaches. In spite of a great variety in contributions from history, anthropology, archaeology, ethnology, tourism studies, conservation studies and engineering,
many shared themes could be identified, such as how cultural heritage can be (mis)used
in both the experience economy and tourism, in the construction of identities and within nation states. Themes such as inclusion and exclusion through selection and classification, the idea of felt and formal ownership, and the notion of authenticity where
also discussed.
These last 10-20 years have seen an enormous spread of the notion of cultural heritage
and its very broad use, to the point where an adequate definition no longer seems possible. Even though emphasis on our historic inheritance can be positive, it is also crucial to undertake scholarly debate and discus why and how the notion is used and applied. The contributors to the seminar, both lecturers and PhDs, managed to demonstrate
that scholarly diversity is no obstacle to mutual inspiration and fruitful contributions
to a shared, critical stance in the field of cultural heritage.
Keywords: Cultural heritage, ownership, authenticity, inclusion and exclusion,
tourism, experience economy, identity, nation state, cross disciplinary, research
school.
CULTURAL HERITAGE AND OWNERSHIP
Kulturarv kan handle om mange ting. Om
identitet, om nationalstaten, om oplevelsesøkonomi, men også om forvaltning, indsamling og bevaring. Kulturarven kan betragtes
som et politisk magtredskab, en økonomisk
ressource eller som instrument til opnåelse af
eksistentiel autenticitet. Perspektivet afhænger
af, hvem du spørger. Dette blev til fulde bekræftet på Syddansk Universitet, hvor Campus Esbjerg var vært for et ph.d.-seminar arrangeret af Kulturarvens forskerskole og
MAST - Research School for Studies in Maritime and Coastal Environment, Heritage and
Sustainable Tourism. Det engelsksprogede seminar bar titlen Cultural Heritage and Ownership. Ideen med denne titel var at tiltrække
stipendiater med problemstillinger af både
faglig, politisk, administrativ og ledelsesmæssig karakter. Det overordnede mål var at skabe
et bedre overblik over den aktuelle, internationale og fagligt vidtspændende forskning inden
for kulturarvsfeltet. Desuden var ønsket på
den baggrund at forsøge at udpege en eller flere røde tråde i den, som vi skal se, meget brede tilgang til og forståelse af kulturarv. I det
følgende vil vi forsøge at opsummere, evaluere
og tænke videre ud fra de erfaringer, som blev
høstet på seminaret.
Målgruppen for seminarets deltagere var
ph.d.-studerende, der på forskellig vis beskæftiger sig med kulturarv, enten analytisk, empirisk eller konkret. De i alt 17 deltagende
ph.d.-studerende fra Danmark, Sverige, Portugal, England, Israel og Polen havde deres
rødder inden for fagtraditioner som historie,
arkæologi, konservering, etnologi og antropologi, men også ingeniøren samt flere forskere
inden for turismemanagement og -marketing
var mødt frem. Alt i alt var der skabt forventninger til en noget blandet forsamling med
potentielt ikke-sammenfaldende eller direkte
modsatrettede interesser og forståelser af begrebet kulturarv.
Seminaret blev åbnet af den gennemgående
kommentator, direktør Carsten Paludan-Müller, Norsk Institutt for Kulturminneforskning
(NIKU), som blandt andet påpegede, at begrebet kulturarv er konstrueret i forbindelse
med nationalstatens opståen og er kommet
tilbage i søgelyset i de senere år, bl.a. fordi nationalstaten flere steder udfordres. Gennem
seminaret var der desuden forelæsninger af
professor Marie Louise Stig Sørensen, Cambridge University, der talte om kulturarv i et
nationalt perspektiv, og dr. Kevin Meethan,
University of Plymouth, der påpegede vigtigheden af at skelne mellem analytiske modeller
af kultur og nationale og lokale modeller af
kultur. Professor Peter Aronsson, University of
Linköping, talte om ejerskab til kulturarv, og
dr. Janne Liburd, Syddansk Universitet, fortalte med udgangspunkt i studier på De Vestindiske Øer om udfordringer til kulturarven.
Alle disse forelæsninger lå på kursets første to
dage og dannede baggrund og referenceramme for de følgende dages fremlæggelser og diskussioner, hvori også flere af forelæserne deltog.
13 af de deltagende ph.d.-studerende havde
før seminarets start indleveret et paper, som de
i løbet af seminaret havde 30 minutter til at
fremlægge, få respons af en på forhånd udvalgt
respondent samt svare på spørgsmål fra salen.
I løbet af seminaret blev der præsenteret projekter, der spændte fra videnskabsteoretiske
begrebsanalyser over analyser af forvaltningen
af kulturarven til de overvejelser, konkrete
konserveringsopgaver medfører.
Flere af projekterne behandlede kulturarven
og turismen, som dermed blev belyst fra
mange forskellige vinkler: Avitan Biran fremlagde overvejelser om, hvordan man formidler
111
CARINA REN
112
OG
METTE GULDBERG
en by som Jerusalem, der rummer så mange
forskellige fortællinger af vital men forskellig
betydning for de mange grupper af turister,
der besøger byen. Tilsvarende behandlede
Mads Daubjerg ejerskabet til det flernationale
mindesmærke Dybbøl Banke og til historien
omkring det. Med udgangspunkt i Liverpool
beskæftigede Christina Kokosalakis sig med
forbruget af kultur i byens turistlandskab,
Maciek Kronenberg arbejdede med industrisamfundets kulturarv i turismen, og Josefine Østrup behandlede mad som identitetsgivende og dermed som en del af kulturarven,
der kan formidles til turister. Carina Ren beskæftigede sig med forholdet mellem turisme
og kulturarv i det polske turistområde Zakopane, og endelig talte Bente Bramming om polariteten mellem tid og rum og autenticitetsbegrebet i kulturarvsturisme.
Et par deltagere analyserede den måde, kulturarven forvaltes på: Mette Bjerrum arbejdede med den måde, hvorpå den nationale kulturarv klassificeres og Mille Gabriel berettede
om repatrieringen af tidligere indlemmet kulturarv fra andre lande. Andre to fremlagde
overvejelser i forbindelse med konserveringsprojekter: Inge Rörig Dalgaard fortalte om
metoder til bevaring af kalkmalerier og Marisa
Pamplona fremlagde overvejelser om autenticitet i forbindelse med restaurering af stenbygninger. Endelig beskæftigede Stefan Pajun sig
med genstandenes rolle i identitetsdannelsen i
senmiddelalderens kystsamfund og Abi Hunt
med, hvordan ændringerne i Lincolnshires
landbrug 1930 til 2000 afspejler sig i områdets museer.
Som medvirkende kommentator var det
utroligt inspirerende at høre de mange spændende projekter fremlagt på kompetent vis.
Trods de meget forskellige baggrunde, de studerende kom fra, og trods de meget forskellig-
artede emner, viste det sig alligevel muligt at
føre en fælles meningsfyldt diskussion ud fra
det fælles omdrejningspunkt – kulturarven –
samtidig med at de forskellige faglige baggrunde kunne befrugte hinanden, give nye
vinkler på kendt stof og bringe nye synspunkter i spil.
Der var flere tilbagevendende temaer gennem dagene. Et af dem var brugen af kulturarven, dels som et led i nationalstatsdannelsen
eller som identitetsgivende for etniske mindretal, dels som en ressource, som indgår i oplevelsesøkonomien, og dermed kan bruges –
og nogle gange misbruges – af turistindustrien. Et andet tema var betydningen af den
måde, hvorpå man arbejder med kulturarv:
Udpegninger og klassifikationer indeholder
ofte et element af inklusion af visse dele af befolkningen og eksklusion af andre. Hvem har
eller føler ejerskab til det, der udpeges til kulturarv?
Et tredje tema var spørgsmålet om autenticitet: er tingene autentiske, når de først er blevet restaureret, udpeget, afgrænset, formidlet
og fortolket – og autentiske i forhold til hvad?
Kulturarv er i dag kommet på dagsordenen
i et omfang, som man ikke gjorde sig forestilling om for 10-20 år siden. Mens det på den
ene side er glædeligt, at der sættes fokus på
den overleverede del af fortiden – den være sig
materiel eller immateriel – er det på den anden side vigtigt, at der også foregår en kvalificeret, faglig diskussion om den måde, kulturarven anvendes på. Ordet kulturarv er blevet
en del af dagligsproget, hvor det bliver brugt
om stort set alt, hvad der hidrører fra fortiden,
ofte som en slags slagord, der kan sætte ekstra
vægt bag argumenter. Vi er langt ud over det
punkt, hvor det synes realistisk at opstille en
fælles definition af begrebet.
På den baggrund var det glædeligt at erfare,
CULTURAL HERITAGE AND OWNERSHIP
at studerende med så forskellige indfaldsvinkler til feltet, alligevel havde så meget at bidrage
med til hinandens projekter, og at alle gik til
opgaven med en kritisk sans. Og netop den
kritiske sans er vigtig at holde fast i som
forskningens adelsmærke. Det er vigtigt, at
der sideløbende med de mange forvaltningsprojekter inden for kulturarvsområdet også
holdes fast i en analytisk og problemorienteret
tilgang i den diskussion, der er så vigtig for
den faglige udvikling.
*Carina Ren, Ph.d.-studerende
Adresse: Center for turisme, innovation og
kultur/Syddansk Universitet
Niels Bohrs vej 9
DK-6700 Esbjerg
E-mail: [email protected]
*Mette Guldberg, Museumsinspektør, ph.d.
Adresse: Center for Maritime og Regionale
Studier, Fiskeri- og Søfartsmuseet/Syddansk
Universitet,Tarphagevej 2, DK-6710 Esbjerg V
E-mail: [email protected]
113
KONFERENCER NORDISK MUSEOLOGI 2007 1, S. 114-120
●
●
Arkiv for alle!
Seminar i Det Nordisk Arkivformidlingsnetværk på Københavns
Rådhus d. 19.- 20. april 2007
INGER BJØRN KNUDSEN*
Title: Archives for everyone!
Abstract: In April 2007 a network of archivists from Iceland, the Faroe Islands,
Finland, Sweden, Norway and Denmark met in Copenhagen to discuss the outreach of archives in terms of education and communication. The purpose of the seminar was to exchange experiences and to generate new and creative ideas. Such
an exchange of experiences is important, because there are few people working in
this field in the Nordic countries. This was an opportunity for sharing different initiatives.
The participants were all convinced that it is desirable to get more people to use the
archives. Hence one of the main subjects was how to get more people interested in
the institutions. Four of the participants told about different new initiatives which
they had tried out. These consisted of experiments with different types of art in the
archives, virtual education and the use of a method called hot spot.
The result of the seminar was two specific projects. The first was to put together an
anthology, primarily because there is a great lack of material about the outreach of
the archives. The second was a project about using art in the archives, in which several of the participants showed great interest.
A lot of other inspiring ideas were shared and there is definitely a basis for more
meetings in the network and more cooperation between the Nordic countries.
Keywords: Outreach of archives, Nordic cooperation, art and archives, hot
spot method, ‘Archives Day’
Hvordan og til hvem skal de nordiske arkiver
formidle? Hvordan gør man op med opfattelsen af arkivet som et kedeligt støvet sted, så
flere brugere får øjnene op for arkivernes guldgrube af historier? Dette var nogle af de pro-
blemstillinger, der blev diskuteret på seminaret i Nordisk Arkivformidlingsnetværk.
Seminaret er det tredje i netværket, og var
tænkt som et arbejdsseminar, hvor der blev
holdt mindre oplæg efterfulgt af diskussion.
ARKIV
Seminaret var arrangeret af Det Danske Arkivformidlings Netværk i samarbejde med Organisationen af Danske Arkiver (ODA). Hensigten med afholdelse af dette netværksseminar
var at indbyde og motivere til gensidig inspiration. Det skulle fungere som et kreativt laboratorium, hvor idéer og nye tiltag kunne komme til verden. Det endelige formål var, at seminaret i sidste ende skulle munde ud i et
nordisk samarbejde omkring konkrete formidlingsprojekter. På seminaret blev der afholdt en række oplæg om gennemførte projekter og arrangementer, og denne erfaringsudveksling blev krydret med teoretiske
og metodiske overvejelser.
Der var enighed i forsamlingen om, at en
større og bredere brugerskare er ønskeligt for
arkiverne, og at dette skal opnås via en øget og
bedre formidling. Jeg har derfor valgt at se de
forskellige deltageres oplæg ud fra to vinkler:
’Hvem skal bruge arkiverne’ og ’Utraditionelle formidlingstiltag’.
HVORFOR
NORDISK?
På seminaret deltog der arkivarer fra hele Norden, dvs. fra Danmark, Norge, Sverige, Finland, Island og Færøerne. Men hvorfor er det
relevant at holde seminaret i en nordisk kontekst?
Den primære grund er, at der faktisk er relativt få inden for de forskellige lande, der arbejder med arkivformidling. Det betyder derfor,
at det er nødvendigt med inspiration fra nordiske kolleger. En sådan erfaringsudveksling
kan sagtens finde sted, da institutionerne ligner hinanden meget i de nordiske lande, selvom der er forskel på, hvor store økonomiske
ressourcer der bliver sat af til formidling i de
forskellige lande. Det betyder, at de lande med
de største økonomiske midler fungerer som
FOR ALLE!
forgangslande, som kan virke som inspiration
og danne erfaringsgrundlag for de lande, der
ikke har så store pengemæssige beløb.
Som før nævnt er netop denne erfaringsudveksling og gensidige inspiration også formålet med seminaret. Seminaret skabte desuden
også rum og mulighed for, at personer fra forskellige nordiske arkiver kunne aftale konkrete
projekter sammen.
HVEM
SKAL BRUGE ARKIVERNE?
Arkivpædagog Karin Sjöberg fra Skånes Arkivförbund lagde i sit oplæg stor vægt på, at
arkiverne skal være for alle. I 2002 blev der
udgivet en udredning iværksat af den socialdemokratiske regering i Sverige med titlen ’Arkiv för alla – nu och i framtiden’1. I forlængelse af denne udredning fik Skånes Arkivförbund i 2005 tildelt en national formidlingspædagogisk opgave.
Målet for det arkivpædagogiske arbejde er
at udbrede viden om, hvad et arkiv er, hvilke
historier det rummer, og om hvordan man
forholder sig til de informationer, det indeholder. I forhold til lærere, elever og lærerstuderende, er hensigten, at arkiverne skal bruges
som en ressource i undervisningen i skolen.
Skånes Arkivförbunds primære målsætninger
med den nationale opgave er således:
● at gøre arkivpædagogik til en naturlig del af
arkivernes hverdag (ved at deltage i seminarer m.m. og sætte arkivformidling på dagsordenen)
● at udvikle et arkivpædagogisk forum inden
for hvilket der kan diskuteres arkivpædagogiske problemstillinger og hvor der kan udveksles erfaringer
● at arbejde hen imod, at der i arkiv- og læreruddannelsen skal udbydes kurser om arkivpædagogik
115
INGER BJØRN KNUDSEN
116
Efter Karin Sjöbergs opfattelse bliver interessen for feltet stadig større, og flere arkiver tænker efterhånden arkivpædagogik med ind i deres planer.
Der var enighed på seminaret om at denne
arkivpædagogiske funktion er nødvendig. Det
blev især fremhævet, at det er en klog strategisk prioritering at satse på de lærerstuderende, så arkiverne har de nye lærere ’med på deres side’, hvilket muligvis kan øge skolernes
brug af arkiverne og implementering af originalt arkivmateriale i undervisningen. Umiddelbart er det svært at måle, hvor succesfuld
strategien har været på et så tildigt stadie i processen, men man har da set lidt øget interesse,
mener Karin Sjöberg.
Kultursekretær Christer Bogefeldt fra Riksarkivet i Sverige lagde i sit oplæg om Arkivernes Dag vægt på, at det er en vigtig målsætning for arrangementet at skabe en øget opmærksomhed omkring arkiverne og derved
appellere til en større brugerflade. Arkivernes
Dag er et årligt formidlings arrangement, der
afholdes i hele Norden den anden lørdag i november.2 Her deltager såvel private, som statslige og kommunale arkiver.
Arkivernes Dag er ikke kun til for at synliggøre arkivvirksomheden udadtil i forhold til
den generelle befolkning, politikere, beslutningstagere og fonde. Arrangementet har også
den hensigt at skabe et sammenhold internt
og øge arkivernes selvtillid. For de små arkiver
(med måske kun en halv eller en hel fuldtidsstilling) har Arkivernes Dag stor betydning,
fordi man her indgår i et større samarbejde og
drager nytte af, at der nogle år er udarbejdet
fælles materiale så som toolkits og inspirationsmateriale. For de store arkiver drukner
dagen derimod ofte i de mange andre ting, der
foregår på arkivet.
Både Christer Bogefeldt og Karin Sjöberg
lægger altså vægt på, at det vigtigt og en erklæret hensigt, at nå ud til en større og bredere
brugerflade. For at gøre arkiverne interessante
for et større antal brugere, er det en nødvendighed at omdefinere det billede, man i offentligheden har af arkiver i dag.
Sektionsleder Ellen Røsjø fra Oslo Byarkiv
gav i sit oplæg et konkret eksempel på, hvordan man ved at lave en flerkulturel indsamling
kan udvide brugerfladen og øge kendskabet til
arkivet for en ny befolkningsgruppe, nemlig
indvandrerbefolkningen. Projektet hedder ’Oslos multikulturelle arkiver’ og blev startet op i
2004.3 Indvandrerne er selvfølgelig allerede repræsenteret i arkiverne, men kun på en meget
ensidig måde, nemlig udelukkende gennem
myndighedernes møde med dem. Arkivet ønsker i stedet at indsamle person-, forretningsog organisationsarkiver fra netop disse mennesker, som i Oslo faktisk udgør 23 %. Arkivet
skal repræsentere sammensætningen i befolkningen og rumme oplysninger, der er vigtige
for individet, der repræsenterer dets identitet
og det let kan genkende. Det er berettigelsen
for arkivet – det skal være relevant for det omgivende samfund. Alle borgere skal have ret til
at kunne finde noget af interesse på arkiverne,
mener Ellen Røsjø.
Arkiverne skal altså indsamle og rumme materiale, som repræsenterer hele befolkningen,
og alle slags befolkningsgrupper bør have en
plads i den fælles erindring, som arkiverne er
med til at skabe. Det er den ene side af sagen.
Den anden side af sagen er formidlingsaspektet, som er vigtigt for at imødekomme ønsket
om, at arkiverne er for alle og ønsket om generelt at øge kendskabet til arkivvæsnet. Omdrejningspunktet for seminaret var derfor diskussion og fremlæggelse af nye og utraditionelle
formidlingsstrategier for gennem disse projekter at nå andre og nye grupper af brugere.
ARKIV
UTRADITIONELLE
FORMIDLINGSTILTAG
Multikulturel teaterforestilling blandt
arkivalierne
Med til det føromtalte projekt på Oslo Byarkiv hørte bl.a. også en teaterforestilling, som
var et kunstnerisk samarbejde med skuespillere fra truppen Nordic Black Theatre. Manuskriptet var baseret på kilder fra arkivet og teaterstykket handlede om Oslo i 1905 (jubilæum for Norge som selvstændig nation). Selve
stykket blev opført inde på arkivets magasiner
– blandt de historiske dokumenter. Forestillingen var også en del af et undervisningsforløb til skoler, hvor børnene både skulle se teaterstykket, men også stifte bekendtskab med
forskellige af arkivets kilder. Der var stor interesse fra skolerne og både lærere, elever og forældre var begejstrede.
Kulturhistorier.dk – et digitalt undervisningsforløb
Arkivleder Anette Månsson fra Historiens
Hus, Ringsted Museum og Arkiv i Danmark
fremlagde et webbaseret undervisningsforløb
– hjemmesiden www.kulturhistorier.dk4. Målgruppen for projektet er skoleklasser (4-9 kl.).
På siden formidles fem forskellige temaer via
indscannede dokumenter og billeder samt tilhørende tekst i to forskellige sværhedsgrader.
Derudover er der også en interaktiv del, hvor
børnene selv kan lave deres egen udstilling
(’min udstilling’) med billeder fra ’billedarkivet’5, som findes på hjemmesidens forside. Efter at arkivet har modereret de af børnene indsendte udstillingsforslag bliver de offentliggjort på nettet.6
Man kan dog diskutere, hvorvidt en sådan
forhåndsmoderering kan virke som en hæmsko. Kan man tale om, at børnene har frie
hænder til at lave deres helt egne udstillinger,
FOR ALLE!
hvis disse bliver modereret og godkendt fra arkivets side? Mange af de aktiviteter, som børnene ellers benytter sig af på internettet (f.eks.
Arto) er baseret på, at der overhovedet ikke
finder nogen redaktion eller godkendelse sted.
Anette Månsson argumenterede for, at modereringen i stedet kunne have en motiverende
funktion, fordi de netop skulle godkendes af
en rigtig historiker, før de kunne lægges på
nettet. Ifølge Anette Månsson har de internt i
Historiens Hus diskuteret, om man overhovedet kan kalde det produkt, som børnene får
lavet, for en ’udstilling’. Hvorvidt er udstillinger noget, der kan kreeres af alle?
Det digitale medie rummer uendelige muligheder, og derfor er et konstruktivt samarbejde med IT-eksperter en nødvendighed, da
de bedre kan udnytte og overskue mediets
muligheder.
Det digitale medie er formidlingsmæssigt
ideelt. Eksempelvis bliver børnenes udstillinger i virkeligheden til ordinære plancheudstillinger, men på grund af den digitale form får
de et mere professionelt udtryk. Og selv om
arbejdet med at danne sin egen udstilling primært er individuel, kan resultatet deles med
mange andre, f.eks. familien. Også i forhold
til at formidle billedmateriale er det digitale
medie optimalt, og billedmaterialet er i høj
grad noget, der fanger børnene, vurderer
Anette Månsson. På den anden side skal kulturinstitutioner ikke lade sig forblænde af mediet, og tro at formidling er godt, udelukkende fordi det er på nettet. Ligesom ved alle andre former for formidling er det vigtigt, at
gøre sig tanker om målgrupper, fortællestil,
budskab m.m.
Der blev påpeget flere forskellige problematikker i forbindelse med dette digitale projekt.
Et af de væsentlige problemer er, at der simpelthen ikke er nogle brugere af den interakti-
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INGER BJØRN KNUDSEN
118
ve del – altså udstillingsdelen. Anette Månsson konkluderede, at en af de primære barrierer er lærernes tilgang til mediet. Hvis de f.eks.
vil styre elevernes tur rundt på hjemmesiden,
ved at alle klikker samtidigt på de forskellige
sider, mister eleverne hurtigt interessen. Helt
konkret og praktisk kan det også være problematisk at skulle bruge en computer pr. elev i
undervisningsøjemed, da der ofte skal bruges
tid på fysisk at flytte klassen hen til computerrummet. Det må være oplagt at samarbejde
med lærerne – altså brugerne - fra starten af og
lade dem være med til at påvirke og forme
projektet, så det i højere grad passer til det behov og den konkrete situation, skolerne og lærerne skal forholde sig til. På den måde kunne
lærerne også fungere som ambassadører og
sælge konceptet til andre.
HOTSPOT-METODEN
I ARKIVFORMIDLING
Fylkesarkivar Harriet M. Terjesen fra Fylkesarkivet for Vestfold i Norge gav i sin fremlæggelse konkrete eksempler på brug af hot
spot-metoden. I 2005 fik Fylkesarkivet for
Vestfold midler fra Statens center for arkiv,
bibliotek og museum (ABM-udvikling) til
formålet. Hot spot-metoden tager udgangspunkt i et aktuelt tema, der problematiseres
via en nyskabende og utraditionel formidling.
Metoden er opstået i forbindelse med et projekt mellem to svenske museer og et afrikansk
museum.7 I den forbindelse publiceredes en
lille kort metodebog om hot spots.8 Ud fra
den kan man kort skitsere nogle af metodens
grundlæggende principper:
det skal være et aktuelt tema
det skal være fagligt funderet
● det skal være problematiserende og institutionen skal tage stilling
●
●
det skal have et fysisk udryk suppleret med
andre aktiviteter
● hot spottet skal realiseres inden for kort tid
og for en begrænset periode
Fylkesarkivet har gennemført to arrangementer ud fra hot spot metoden i 2005 og 2006.
Det første handlede om østeuropæisk arbejdsindvandring og nordmændenes holdning
til dette. Hot spottet blev lanceret som en
salgskampagne, hvor der på byens busser
m.m. blev ”reklameret” med ’Byens billigste
hushjælp’ med henvisning til en hjemmeside
(som førte direkte til arkivets hjemmeside,
som omhandlede hot spottet). På siden bliver
man introduceret for en ung østeuropæisk
pige, som bliver groft udnyttet af et rengøringsfirma i Norge. Der bliver endvidere fremsat forskellige problematikker ved emnet, f.eks.
om det er blevet legitimt at bruge ringe betalt
rengøringshjælp, og om nordmændene godtager, at en gruppe kvinder fra fattigere lande bliver en ny norsk underklasse, for at deres egen
hverdag kan hænge sammen. Hjemmesiden
rummer altså historisk baggrundsstof, enkeltpersoners historier, samt en ’holdningsside’.
Metoden lægger dermed op til, at publikum
selv tænker over og tager stilling til temaets
problemstillinger. Via den utraditionelle tilgang fik man fat folk, der ellers aldrig ville have
besøgt arkivets hjemmeside.
Det andet eksempel handlede om tiggeri;
’Tiggerbander eller troverdige fattige’, i forbindelse med, at man i 2006 ophævede forbudet mod at tigge i Norge. Projektet mundede
ud i to forskellige udformninger. Den første
var en film om en sigøjner og hans historie,
som blev fremvist på to gratis filmaftener. Den
anden udformning var en tilhørende hjemmeside, som bidrog med den historiske kontekst
via tekst, billeder og indscannede dokumenter.
●
ARKIV
Harriet M. Terjesen fortalte, at arkivet ikke
havde nogle lokaler til traditionelle udstillinger, og derfor var tvunget til at tænke uden for
de vante rammer for formidling, hvilket resulterede i disse utraditionelle og nytænkende
hot spots.9
Men hvad er målet med netop denne metode? I følge Harriet M. Terjesen er det, at arkiverne sammen med andre kulturinstitutioner
tager aktiv del i samfundsdebatten og bliver
mere aktuelle og synlige – og på den måde
også mere relevante for samfundet lige nu.
Formålet er også at virke bevidstgørende både
eksternt og internt – hvad er et arkiv, men
også hvad skal et arkiv? Dette er i linie med,
hvad også Christer Bogefeldt ønsker at få ud
af arrangementet Arkivernes Dag – øget synliggørelse både udadtil og indadtil.
Hot spot metoden er langt fra uproblematisk. En af diskussionerne på seminaret var
problematikken omkring, at arkivet fremstiller sagen meget subjektivt – man har i den
grad taget stilling i sagen. ”Det er jo meget politisk….” var der en der påpegede – ”kan det
ikke være problematisk?” Harriet M. Terjesen
understregede, at det jo netop er denne subjektive stillingtagen, der er forcen ved metoden. Hun påpegede endvidere, at temaerne
ikke var det, politikerne diskuterede lige nu,
og at det ikke er meningen, at disse hot spots
skal være dem der sætter dagsorden for den lokale politiske debat. Men kunne man måske
forestille sig, at arkivet får en profil, som kan
betyde, at privatpersoner med en anden politisk holdning, ikke føler sig trygge ved at aflevere materiale dertil? Harriet M. Terjesen mener ikke, at det er det store problem, eftersom
temaet ikke tager direkte udgangspunkt i arkivets samling og derfor ikke sætter arkivets ry
over styr.
Eftersom metoden engagerer og involverer
FOR ALLE!
personer og menneskelige skæbner, kræver det
overvejelse af en række etiske problemstillinger. Det er f.eks. vigtigt, at institutionen har
gjort sig tanker om og er bevidst om, hvilke
processer den kan være med til at sætte i gang.
Harriet M. Terjesen understregede vigtigheden af, at man hele tiden er i dialog med de
involverede personer, og hele tiden gør dem
opmærksom på, hvad der skal foregå, og i
hvilken kontekst de indgår.
KUNST
OG ARKIVER
–
EN VEKSELVIRKNING
Arkivleder Marit Hosar fra Opplandsarkivet
afd. Maihaugen i Norge fortalte om en udstilling, hvor arkivet havde samarbejdet med tre
kunstnere, hvoraf hun selv var en af dem.
Kunstnerne fik til opgave, at det skulle kunne
ses på kunstværkerne, at de havde taget udgangspunkt i arkivmateriale. De tre kunstprojekter indgik i en større udstilling, som både
rummede montrer med originale dokumenter, billeder og genstande samt bannere med
tekster.
Den ene kunstner lavede et projekt, hvor
der var taget udgangspunkt i originalt fotomateriale, og ud fra det lavede hun 12 nye billeder. Marit Hosar selv havde lavet en form for
drømmefangere, udformet som kranse, der
bl.a. delvist bestod af og var pyntet med arkivmateriale. Det skulle være symbol på, at arkivet jo kun rummer fragmenter af det levede
liv. Den tredje kunstner lavede en installation
med farvede plastikrør, hvori der i gennemsigtige dele af rørene var indsat forskellige fotografier. Kunstneren havde taget udgangspunkt
i et fotografi af sine egne forfædre. Projektet
skulle symbolisere, at arkiverne er svært tilgængelige, men kan åbenbare f.eks. personlige
forhold.
På seminaret blev det også diskuteret, hvor
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INGER BJØRN KNUDSEN
120
meget man kan løsrive sig fra kilden, og samtidig være berettiget til at deltage i projektet.
Hvorvidt projekterne var dokumentation eller
kunst og hvorvidt man overhovedet kan kalde
det kunst, når arbejdet i den grad er bestilt, og
kunstneren ikke har ubetinget selvstændighed.
Udstillingen vakte stor interesse og debat i
lokalsamfundet. Udover at skabe debat formåede udstillingen også at trække nye besøgende
til arkivet – f.eks. unge.
med holdninger til arkiver og fremhæve arkivernes stereotyper – Hvorledes bliver arkiver
f.eks. fremstillet i film? Tine Berg Floater fra
Riksarkivet, Norge foreslog danseprojekter og
lydinstallationer.
Formålet med seminaret blev således opfyldt og der er helt sikkert grobund for flere
møder i Nordisk Arkivformidlingsnetværk,
som f.eks. kunne omhandle den føromtalte
antologi eller andre af de fremkomne idéer.
NOTER
NORDISKE
SAMARBEJDER
Det kunstprojekt, som Marit Hosar fra Opplandsarkivet afd. Maihaugen fortalte om, var
med til at skabe grobund for et konkret samarbejde, hvori flere af arkiverne ytrede ønske
om at deltage. Marit Hosar blev idéudvikler
og tovholder for dette projekt om brug af
kunst i formidlingen. Det var dette samarbejde, der var størst tilslutning til. Anette Månsson påpegede, at vekselvirkningen mellem en
fælles nordisk dagsorden og hvad arkiverne
hver især kan bidrage med lokalt, kunne være
frugtbar.
Bente Jensen fra Aalborg Stadsarkiv fremhævede, at der er stort behov for dokumentation af de teoretiske og metodiske overvejelser
og problemstillinger omkring arkivformidling, da der generelt mangler litteratur om
dette emne. Hun forslog, at etablere et samarbejde omkring udarbejdelse af en antologi om
arkivformidling. Den ville f.eks. kunne bruges
til uddannelsesbrug i de uddannelsestilbud på
universitetsniveau, som er under udarbejdelse
i Norge og Sverige. Bente Jensen blev selv tovholder for dette projekt.
Udover disse mere konkrete samarbejder,
kom der også mange idéer på bordet i det ’kreative laboratorium’. Man kunne f.eks. arbejde
1. Se udredningen på http://www.regeringen.se/
(besøgt d. 12.06.07) under publikationer.
2. Se mere på: www.arkivdag.nu (besøgt d. 12.06.07)
3. Se mere på: www.byarkivet.oslo.kommune.no/
multikulturelle_arkiver/ (besøgt d. 12.06.07)
4. Besøgt d. 12.06.07
5. ’Billedarkivet’ rummer både fotografier og genstandsbilleder.
6. Denne kontrol eller moderering skal ikke forstås
som en redigering, men en måde hvorpå man
undgår uønsket materiale.
7. Indenfor netværket SAMP (African Swedish museum network).
8. Projektet var Sofie Bergkvist [et al.]: Hot spot :
samtidsfrågor på museer, Stockholm : SAMP,
2004.
9. Se mere på http://fylkesarkivet.vfk.no (besøgt d.
12.06.07) under ’hot spots’.
*Inger Bjørn Knudsen er stud.mag i historie og
museologi ved Københavns Universitet og tilknyttet Københavns Bymuseum
Adresse: Kastelsvej 1, 3. -1, 2100 Kbh. Ø.
E-mail: [email protected] /
[email protected]
KONFERENCER NORDISK MUSEOLOGI 2007 1, S. 121-129
●
●
Handel med stjålen kulturarv:
UNESCO’s kulturkonventioner og
Danmarks muligheder
VINNIE NØRSKOV*
Title: Trade in stolen cultural heritage. UNESCO conventions and the role of
Denmark
Abstract: During the Summer of 2006, the Danish press investigated the Danish
auction houses and museums in order to test whether objects knowingly smuggled
out of their countries of origin were bought and sold in Denmark. This has raised
the question whether Danish legislation is adequate in relation to protecting the
world’s cultural heritage, and led to the organisation of the public meeting in
March 2007 to discuss the issue. The invited speakers touched on subjects that included the destruction of Iraq’s cultural heritage, the lack of legal tools for returning objects illegally exported from South America, experience with ratification of
the international conventions in Norway and the Netherlands, and questions
about the role of both the auction business and the museums in trading in stolen
cultural property. As a very positive result of the meeting, the Danish Minister of
Culture announced that Denmark will work on ratifying the 1995 UNIDROIT
Convention on Stolen or Illegally Exported Cultural Objects.
Keywords: Protection of cultural heritage, illegal trade, stolen cultural objects,
legislation, international conventions, destruction of archaeological sites, museum acquisitions, auction houses, collectors.
Den 9. marts 2007 afholdt den danske UNESCO-nationalkommission, dansk ICOM, Det
kongelige Bibliotek og Nationalmuseet et debatmøde med titlen Handel med stjålen kulturarv. De fleste inden for den danske museumsverden vil være bekendt med den debat, som
har kørt i specielt Dagbladet Information og
Politiken siden sommeren 2006 omkring enkeltsager angående køb og salg af kulturarv i
Danmark. Der har været fokus på salg af illegale genstande hos de store danske auktionshuse Bruun Rasmussen og Museumsbygningen, erhvervelser af genstande uden proveniens
af Ny Carlsberg Glyptotek og Davids Samling, samt enkelte sager som den såkaldte
Lyngbysag, hvor en stor samling af genstande
fra Sydamerika blev fundet i en villa tilhørende kunstsamleren Jan Erik Pelle i Lyngby.1
VINNIE NØRSKOV
122
Denne opmærksom fra pressen var en væsentlig grund til at afholde mødet, som arrangørerne skriver, for at sætte ’fokus på emnet i en
bredere kreds’.
Handel med stjålen kulturarv har været et
udbredt fænomen siden det at samle blev en
integreret del af den vestlige civilisation. Fænomenets udvikling kan studeres ud fra udviklingen af lovgivningen inden for kulturarvsbeskyttelse, en lovgivning som starter så
langt tilbage som i 1400-tallet med de første
pavelige love til beskyttelse af monumenter i
Rom. Allerede i 1600-tallet introduceredes
fænomenet eksporttilladelse, hvilket er det
første tegn på et grænseoverskridende for ikke
at sige globalt problem (Nørskov 2002: 83).
Indtil midten af det 20. århundrede var beskyttelsen af kulturarven et nationalt problem
udtrykt gennem national lovgivning. Den
internationale dimension har dog fået overvægt i den sidste halvdel af det 20. århundrede, hvilket afspejles i oprettelsen af UNESCO
og introduktionen af UNESCO’s konventioner til beskyttelse af kulturarven. Den første
konvention kom i kølvandet af 2. Verdenskrig
og relaterede sig til beskyttelse af kultur i
krigssituationer, Hague konventionen fra 1954
om beskyttelse af kulturværdier i tilfælde af væbnet konflikt,2 efterfølgende kom der fokus på
problemerne omkring den illegale handel med
kulturarv, hvilket førte til vedtagelsen af
UNESCOs konvention om midlerne til at forbyde og forhindre ulovlig import, eksport og ejendomsoverdragelse af kulturgenstande i 1970.3
Denne konvention blev først ratificeret og implementeret i dansk lovgivning i 2003. De involverede ministerier har i flere omgange vurderet, om Danmark skulle tiltræde konventionen, men det er blevet afvist af forskellige
grunde. Dels anså man det for temmelig omfangende at implementere de krav, som kon-
ventionen stillede angående registrering og beskyttelse af den danske kulturarv og restriktioner i import af kulturarv fra andre lande. Samtidig har der på det tidspunkt ikke været noget
udpræget ønske fra museumsverdenen om at
tiltræde konventionen. Det tog 30 år at ændre
disse forhold. I et notat om ratifikationen fra
den 27. november 2002 skriver kulturministeren, at en tiltrædelse længe har været et ønske fra museumsverdenen og andre kulturinstitutioner. Beskyttelsen af den danske kulturarv er nu fuldt ud dækket i den danske lovgivning, og der er tilføjet en paragraf i museumsloven fra 2001, som pålægger museerne ikke
at erhverve genstande uden legal proveniens.
Alt i alt blev det i 2002 anset for at være en
positiv politisk beslutning endelig at tiltræde
konventionen samtidig med at det var uden
omkostninger, da kulturministeriet ikke
fandt, at tiltrædelsen krævede en ændret lovgivning.
Det har dog vist sig ikke helt at holde stik,
og det er på den baggrund, at debatmødet på
Nationalmuseet har sin berettigelse. Mødet
blev åbnet af kulturminister Brian Mikkelsen,
som i sin tale fokuserede på den internationale udfordring, der ligger i at beskytte kultarven i en globaliseret verden, hvor situationen
er forskellig fra land til land. Han fremhævede
to elementer til forhindring af den illegale
handel med kulturarv: 1) kontrol med handelen, hvilket i Danmark sker gennem det internationale politisamarbejde, 2) de internationale konventioner, hvor Danmark som sagt
tiltrådte UNESCO konventionen fra 1970 i
2003. Ministeren undrede sig over den kritik,
Magasinerne på Nationalmuseet i Baghdad, juli 2003.
Foto: Ingolf Thuesen.
HANDEL MED
STJÅLEN KULTURARV:
UNESCO’S
KULTURKONVENTIONER OG
DANMARKS
MULIGHEDER
123
VINNIE NØRSKOV
124
der har været vedrørende en manglende følgelovgivning, idet kulturministeriet netop har
tolket konventionens krav omkring kontrol af
import som en nødvendig revision af museumsloven. Sagen omkring auktionshusenes
villighed til at auktionere genstande, som de
fik at vide var illegalt smuglet ud af hhv. Kina
og Afghanistan, og den såkaldte Lyngbysag viser dog, at det ikke er nok at lovgive omkring
statsanerkendte museers erhvervelsespolitik.
Der er en lang række spillere på den internationale kunsthandelsscene i form af antikvitetshandlere, auktionshuse, private samlere og
private museer, som ikke er underlagt museumsloven og således ikke kan retsforfølges,
fordi der ikke er lavet nogen følgelovgivning i
forbindelse med ratifikationen af UNESCO
konventionen.
I 1995 blev den såkaldte UNIDROIT konvention om stjålne eller ulovligt eksporterede kulturgenstande vedtaget af UNESCO.4 Konventionen er et supplement til 1972-konventionen og fokuserer på det privatsretslige område. Konventionen pålægger det enkelte land at
sikre et lovgrundlag for, at ansøgninger om
tilbagelevering af kulturgenstande kan komme for en domstol, og den giver ejeren ret til
økonomisk godtgørelse, hvis genstanden er erhvervet i ”god tro”, på engelsk due diligence.
Et af de store problemer med UNIDROITkonventionen er, at et andet lands lovgivning
skal kunne føre til juridiske tiltag i den personlige ejendomsret i Danmark. Hvis man
bruger Lyngbysagen som eksempel, så skal eksportforbudet for peruviansk kulturarv kunne
føre til, at Peru kan kræve at få udleveret de
peruvianske genstande i kunstsamleren Jan
Erik Pelles samling. Kulturministeren kunne
på mødet oplyse, at en ratifikation af UNIDROIT konventionen i øjeblikket undersøges
i kulturministeriet, og at han arbejder på og
forventer en ratifikation i nær fremtid.5 En sådan ratifikation vil forhåbentlig kunne rette
op på nogle af de problemer, som den manglende følgelovgivning for UNESCO konventionen indbefatter. Men der vil sandsynligvis
stadig være et behov for udvidede importrestriktioner, hvor der bl.a. kan hentes inspiration inden for lovgivningen til beskyttelse af
truede dyr- og plantearter.
IRAK
OG
PERU
Arkæolog og institutleder Ingolf Thuesen fra
Carsten Niebuhr Instituttet ved Københavns
Universitet gav herefter en grundlæggende
indføring i kulturarvens betydning for identitet nationalt og globalt ud fra eksemplet Irak,
som er et af verdenskulturarvens mest truede
områder i øjeblikket. Thuesen har været i Irak
i flere omgange siden 2003 som medlem af
den eksportgruppe, som UNESCO nedsatte
for at vurdere skaderne på Iraks kulturarv som
følge af krig og embargo. I dag vurderes det, at
15.000 oldsager eksporteres dagligt fra Irak.
Den krise, som verdenssamfundet blev vidner
til gennem mediernes optagelser af det plyndrede museum d. 7.-8. april 2003, forværres
dag for dag. Plyndringen af museet var faktisk
ifølge Thuesen et pressestunt: ved at fremvise
et plyndret museum ville man fortælle, at der
ikke var mere at komme efter, og dermed beskytte de genstande, som befandt sig på museet (Bogdanos 2005). Den sag, som medierne
kastede sig over, var ikke den store katastrofe.
Det er derimod den fortsatte plyndring af de
mange arkæologiske lokaliteter i Irak, som har
stået på siden den første golfkrig i 1991
(Schipper 2005). Det er specielt områderne i
det sydlige Irak, hvor f.eks. Umma, i dag Tell
Jokha, ligner et månelandskab med små kraterer. Gravrøverne arbejder i skiftehold med 100
HANDEL MED
STJÅLEN KULTURARV:
UNESCO’S
arbejdere af gangen, godt beskyttet af vagter
med maskingeværer.
Herefter talte Max de la Fuente Prem, ambassadør for Peru, som har været involveret i
Lyngbysagen. Ud af den store samling fundet i
villaen i Lyngby har en specialist fra Nationalmuseet identificeret 119 genstande, som oprindeligt stammer fra Peru og menes at være
eksporteret ulovligt fra landet. Det skal dog
bevises, hvorfra de er stjålet, hvilket påhviler
Peru. Men ud fra den nuværende danske lovgivning kan det faktisk ikke lade sig gøre. Politiet har netop oplyst, at sagen frafaldes, fordi
der ikke er beviser på at genstandene er illegale, og samleren kræver nu 10 millioner i erstatning.6
HANDEL I DANMARK
Den svenske arkæolog Staffan Lundén, ansat
ved Museion ved Göteborg Universitet, har
arbejdet med problemerne omkring illegal
handel med oldsager i en del år. Som Peter
Watson har Lunden bevæget sig ind i kunsthandlens morads og udgivet sig for at være
samler og på den måde fået en række informationer omkring handelen med oldsager i Sverige.7 Det var hans samarbejde med to journalister fra Dagbladet Information, som afslørede de danske auktionshuses villighed til at sælge smuglede oldsager. De tre undersøgte også
nogle af de danske museer med henblik på at
afsløre indkøb af oldsager uden proveniens i
nyere tid, og Lundén nævnede Ny Carlsberg
Glyptotek, som i 1970’erne erhvervede en del
genstande gennem kunsthandleren Robert
Hecht, som i øjeblikket bliver retsforfulgt i
Italien sammen med tidligere direktør for J.P.
Getty Museum i Malibu, Marion True, og
Davids Samling, som har erhvervet en række
genstande hovedsageligt i 1970’erne, men det
KULTURKONVENTIONER OG
DANMARKS
MULIGHEDER
seneste er to Koransider erhvervet i 1990, som
Tyrkiet har bedt om at få tilbageleveret.8 Det
var dog ikke muligt at finde nogen helt aktuelle indkøb af genstande uden proveniens på de
danske museer. Heldigvis. På trods af det afsluttede Lunden med at konstatere, at der er
et ”fairly sizeable market” for illegale oldsager
i Danmark. Lundéns undersøgelser burde her
udvides med en reel undersøgelse af markedet
for illegale oldsager i Danmark. Fundet i
Lyngby er reelt det eneste konkrete eksempel
på en nyere samling af genstande, som i hvert
fald delvist har været udbudt til salg, idet nogle af genstandene har været udbudt hos Bruun
Rasmussen. En konkret gennemgang af de
danske auktionshuses udbud af mulige illegale
oldsager har ikke været lavet, men det ville
være interessant at efterforske. Ud fra de danske museers indkøb af oldsager i vore dage
mener jeg dog ikke, at man kan påstå, at der er
et rimeligt stort marked. Men der er meget
lidt kendskab til den aktuelle indsamling
blandt private.
ERFARINGER
FRA
NORGE
OG
HOLLAND
Den norske arkæolog og seniorrådgiver hos
Rigsantikvaren i Norge, Lyder Marstrander,
var indbudt til at fortælle om arbejdet med ratifikationen af UNIDROIT-konventionen i
Norge, og han stod for et af de væsentligste bidrag på mødet. Ratifikationen bygger på
UNESCO-konventionen fra 1970 og EU-direktivet fra 1993 om tilbagelevering af kulturgoder, som er ulovligt fjernet fra et andet EUmedlemslands område mv. Men mens UNESCO-konventionens formål er at hindre illegal
handel, så er det væsentligste element i UNIDROIT-konventionen at sætte nogle rammer
for de lande og personer, som bliver udsat for
illegal handel og som ønsker at få den pågæl-
125
VINNIE NØRSKOV
126
dende kulturarv tilbage. I den norske ratifikation er tidsrammen for et krav om tilbagelevering på 3 år, efter at man er blevet bekendt
med genstandenes opholdssted. Men aldrig
mere end 50 år siden tyveriet er foregået, medmindre det handler om tyveri fra offentlige
samlinger. UNIDROIT-konventionen giver
mulighed for at gå til det pågældende lands
domstol og kræve genstandene udleveret. Det
betyder f.eks. at Peru ville have haft mulighed
for at bede den danske domstol om at få de
peruvianske genstande fra Lyngbyvillaen udleveret, ifald Danmark havde ratificeret konventionen. I Norge er konventionen f.eks. brugt i
forbindelse med auktioner, hvor der har været
illegale genstande til salg. Konventionen definerer begrebet ”god tro” og sætter høje krav til
en køber om at sikre sig en legal proveniens.
Men hvis køberen kan bevise, at købet af en
genstand er gjort i ”god tro” om at det var legalt, så har vedkommende også ret til kompensation, hvis genstanden tilbageleveres.
Professor Susan Legêne fra universitetet i
Amsterdam gav en interessant analyse af situationen i Holland. I 1982 blev der holdt et europæisk møde i København omkring ratifikation af UNESCO 1970-konventionen. Arkivalier hos den hollandske UNESCO nationalkommision beretter om et møde, hvor to argumenter mod en ratifikation blev fremført:
1) det ville gøre det meget svært for museer at
erhverve genstande fra andre lande i fremtiden, hvilket specielt ville være problematisk
for de etnografiske museer, og 2) man frygtede, at en ratifikation ville føre til krav om
tilbagelevering af genstande, som i mange år
havde været i museumseje, for eksempel fra
Grækenland og Zaire. Det var specielt England og Frankrig, som her så problemerne, så
de påtog sig at lave et udkast til ratifikation af
konventionen som så at sige tog højde for de
to ting. Den hollandske delegerede ventede
dog ikke, men lavede et oplæg som argumenterede for en hollandsk ratifikation – et oplæg
som aldrig blev sendt til diskussion i parlamentet. Begrundelsen findes i en række forhold som de involverede ministeriers indbydes
konkurrence og forskellige holdninger, kunsthandelens argumenter omkring dels det høje
administrative niveau, som en ratifikation ville påkræve, dels udviklingslandenes manglende forståelse for og negligering af deres kulturarv. I øjeblikket er forslaget om ratifikation af
UNESCO-konventionen til vurdering efter
en pludselig ændring i holdning hos justitsministeriet i 2004. Mens de hollandske museer i
dag fuldstændig bakker op om ratifikation af
begge konventioner, og pga ICOMs etiske regler og en hollandsk etisk komite, som holder
øje med museernes erhvervelsespolitik lever de
allerede op til kravene. Det er den hollandske
kunsthandel, som stadig har kraftige argumenter i mod. Legêne sluttede med overvejelser over det skisma, som ligger i tidens kommercialisering og fokus på privatisering, som
tydeligt understøttes af kunstmarkedets fokus
på det at eje kulturarv som et livsstilsparameter, og så nødvendigheden af at definere kulturarven som et offentligt ansvar, tydeligt set i
et skift i ordbrug, på engelsk fra cultural property til cultural heritage.
EN
KUNSTHANDEL BASERET PÅ LØGN OG
KRIMINALITET
Forskningsjournalisten Peter Watson kom
med et indlæg med titlen ”Why Nice People
Tell Lies”, hvor han fokuserede på tilfældighedernes spil og pengenes magt. Hvis ikke det
havde været for en række tilfælde, samtidige
undersøgelser og dødsfald, var det måske ikke
lykkedes at optrevle det italienske netværk,
HANDEL MED
STJÅLEN KULTURARV:
UNESCO’S
som har domineret handelen i de seneste 30
år, og som Watson beskriver i bogen The Medici Conspiracy (Watson 2006). Desværre ser
det ikke ud til, at det har betydet en reduktion
i udbuddet på markedet: ifølge Watson har
auktionshuset Bonhams overtaget en stor del
af de genstande, som Sotheby’s i London solgte indtil huset i 1995 lukkede sin afdeling for
klassiske oldsager pga. Watsons afsløringer af
medarbejdernes medvirken til og viden om
smugleri (Watson 1997). Interessant var omtalen af begrebet ”tainted objects”, som blev
introduceret i britisk lovgivning i 2003.9 Formålet var at gøre det strafbart at importere,
handle med eller besidde kulturgenstande,
hvis der var den mindste mistanke om, at genstande var stjålne, illegalt udgravede eller fjernet fra et monument eller et skibsvrag i strid
med gældende lovgivning. Det er væsentligt at
fremhæve, at lovgivningen ikke har tilbagevirkende kraft – således kan genstande kun defineres som ”tainted” – urene eller befængte –
hvis de er udgravet eller fjernet fra et monument eller en bygning efter 31. december
2003 i strid med gældende lovgivning på det
tidspunkt.
Kriminalinspektør Kjeld Agerskov Petersen
er den centrale person i den danske efterforskning af sager inden for kunst- og kulturarvskriminalitet i Danmark. Han kunne berette om fire tilfælde af fund af smuglet kulturarv fundet i Kastrup lufthavn inden for det
sidste år og i alle tilfælde fik personerne udleveret genstandene igen. Den danske ratifikation af UNESCO-konventionen viser her sin
svaghed gennem den manglende regulering af
importen. Det er politiets håb, at der kommer
nogle klare regler desangående i forbindelse
med ratifikationen af UNIDROIT-konventionen. Tolderne tilbageholder nemlig ikke
genstandene, fordi de er smuglede, men fordi
KULTURKONVENTIONER OG
DANMARKS
MULIGHEDER
de skal vurdere momsen! Det vigtigste redskab
i politiets arbejde med stjålen kulturarv er databaser over stjålne genstande, hvor Interpols
er den vigtigste. Interpol udsender en DVD,
men de seneste to måneders indberetninger er
tilgængelig via internettet.10 Problemet er naturligvis, at disse databaser ikke indeholder informationer om arkæologiske genstande fra illegale udgravninger. Her er det ICOMs Red
Lists, som kan bruges som redskab, eller lovgivning omkring importregulering. Men en af
de store udfordringer bliver uddannelse af det
personale, som skal checke ved grænserne.
KRAV
OM MERE LOVGIVNING
Mødet blev afsluttet af en paneldebat, hvor
der var fokus på de nødvendige juridiske tiltag. Det blev fremhævet, at det var nødvendigt at indføre importrestriktioner, hvis
UNESCO-konventionen skal fungere, et element som mangler i den danske ratifikation
bortset fra kravene i museumsloven. Et andet
forslag gik på at gøre handel med og besiddelse af illegale kulturgenstande ulovlig. Det
er et forsøg på det, som den engelske lovgivning har indført via begrebet tainted objects.
Det betyder samtidig, at der er tale om omvendt bevisbyrde: Her skal en køber bevise en
legal proveniens, det er ikke et spørgsmål om,
at den illegale skal bevises af den part, som har
været udsat for den illegale handling. Det er
principielt det samme, som findes i UNIDROIT-konventionen under begrebet due diligence, dvs. at køberen skal godtgøre, at man
har gjort alt menneskeligt muligt for at sikre
sig en legal proveniens. Debatten kom således
også til at handle om begrebet proveniens. Direktør for Davids Samling, Kjeld von Folsach,
indførte her en række argumenter imod opstramning af reglerne, heriblandt museernes
127
VINNIE NØRSKOV
128
manglende muligheder for at erhverve genstande og kriminaliseringen af de millioner af
genstande uden proveniens på kunstmarkedet. Det var samme argumentation, som han
har fremført i forbindelse med den nye danske
oversættelse af ICOMs etiske regler (Folsach
2007, Ipsen 2007). Det er tydeligt, at der i
den danske museumsverden har været en række vægtige personer, som netop har haft samme holdning i 1970’erne og 1980’erne og været med til at udsætte en dansk ratifikation af
UNESCO-konventionen. Som Susan Legêne
kunne påvise fra mødet i København i 1982,
så var det en generel holdning i de europæiske
lande. Der er inden for de seneste 15 år sket et
markant skift i museumsverdenen, og som
både det hollandske og danske eksempel viser,
så er der stor opbakning i museumsverdenen
for at ratificere de nødvendige konventioner.
Den store udfordring i Danmark, men også
globalt, bliver at skabe det samme holdningsskifte hos de private samlere. Det er endnu
ikke sket, for det er i høj grad her markedet
finder sine købere. Som allerede nævnt er der
ikke noget overblik over dette i Danmark,
men bl.a. Lyngbysagen viser, at en ratifikation
af UNIDROIT-konventionen er nødvendig
for at kunne retsforfølge private samlere, som
ikke overholder de forskellige landes regler om
eksport af deres kulturarv. Mødets effekt og
positive resultat lå dermed i kulturministerens
bekendtgørelse af en fremtidig ratifikation og
den konvention. Arbejdet med at skabe et
holdningsskifte blandt private handlende og
samlere bør dog fremover have høj prioritet
hos arkæologer, museumsfolk og politikere for
effektivt at kunne medvirke til en beskyttelse
af verdens kulturarv.
NOTER
1. Se f.eks. Dagbladet Information 16.6, 7.7, 10.7.
2006. Politiken 2.12, 3.12., 12.12, 17.12. 2006.
Sagen om villaen i Lyngby er nu afsluttet, idet
der ikke bliver rejst sag mod samleren i Danmark
(Politiken 12.4.2007). Det er ikke lykkedes at
finde beviser for, at genstande er ulovligt udført
og handlet. Ifølge ejeren Jan Erik Pelle indkøbte
han selv genstandene i 1970’erne, hvor han opholdt sig i en længere periode i Peru. Ejeren vil
nu kræve en erstatning på 10 millioner kroner,
fordi hans genstande er blevet beslaglagt.
2. Convention for the Protection of Cultural Property
in the Event of Armed Conflict with Regulations for
the Execution of the Convention 1954.
3. En dansk oversættelse af konventionen, notat af
kulturministeren fra 27.11.2002 samt udredelse
af de lovmæssige implikationer i Danmark kan
findes på følgende hjemmeside: http://www.folketinget.dk/Samling/20021/udvbilag/KUU/Alm
del_bilag118.htm (set 12.4.2007)
4. UNIDROIT er forkortelsen for International
Institute for the Unification of Private Law, som
fik i opdrag af UNESCO at udforme et udkast
til en konvention som supplement til UNESCO
konventione fra 1972.
5. Se Ministerens pen marts07:
http://www.kum.dk/sw55596.asp (set
18.4.2007)
6. Se Politiken 13. april: Politiet mangler beviser.
7. Lundén 1999; Lundén 2004. I samarbejde med
Channel 4 lavede Lunden dokumentaren i gravrøvernes spor, som er blevet vist i svensk og
dansk tv. Se anmeldelse af J. Doole, Culture without Context 7, autumn 2000.
8. Dagbladet Information 10. juli 2006, 5.
9. Se Dealing with tainted cultural objects. Guidance
in dealing with cultural objects (offence), Act 2003,
Department for Culture, Media and Sport. Cultural Property Unit.
HANDEL MED
STJÅLEN KULTURARV:
UNESCO’S
10. Se http://www.interpol.int/Public/
WorkOfArt/Search/RecentThefts.asp
LITTERATUR:
Bogdanos, Matthew: The Casualties of War: The
Truth About the Iraq Museum, American Journal
of Archaeology 109, 3, 2005, 477-526.
Folsach, Kjeld von: Nogle kommentarer og overvejelser i anledning af ICOM’s Etiske Regler, Danske Museer 2007, 1, 11-13.
Dealing with tainted cultural objects. Guidance in dealing with cultural objects (offence), Act 2003, Department for Culture, Media and Sport. Cultural
Property Unit.
Ipsen, Merete: ICOM, internationale samarbejder og
etiske regler, Danske Museer 2007, 1, 14-15.
Lundén, Staffan & Leif Häggström, Forntid till salu.
Rovgrävning och handel med kulturföremål i
och utanför Sverige, Fornvännen 94, 1999, 89103.
Lundén, Staffan: ”The scholar and the market. Swedish scholarly contributions to the destruction of
the world’s archaeological heritage”, in (ed.)
Karlsson, H., Swedish archaeologists on ethics, Lindome, Bricoleur Press 2004, 197-247.
KULTURKONVENTIONER OG
DANMARKS
MULIGHEDER
Nørskov, Vinnie: Greek Vases in New Contexts. The
Collecting and Trading of Greek Vases – An Aspect
of the Modern Reception of Antiquity. Aarhus University Press: Aarhus 2002.
Schipper, Friedrich T.: The Protection and Preservation of Iraq’s Archaeological Heritage, Spring
1991-2003, American Journal of Archaeology 109,
2, 2005, 250-272.
Watson, Peter: Sotheby’s. Inside Story. Bloomsbury:
London 1997.
Watson, Peter & Cecilia Todeschini: The Medici Conspiracy. The Illicit Journey of Looted Antiquities.
Public Affairs: New York 2006.
*Vinnie Nørskov, lektor og museumsleder
Antikmuseet, koordinator for Masteruddannelsen i Museologi ved Center for Museologi,
Aarhus Universitet, og bestyrelsesmedlem af
Dansk ICOM.
Adresse: Antikmuseet, Aarhus Universitet, Victor Albecksvej, bygn. 1414, 8000 Århus C. Email: [email protected]
129
ANMELDELSER NORDISK MUSEOLOGI 2007 1, S. 130-151
●
●
International Journal of Intangible Heritage
Siden juni 2006 har det første nummer af et
nyt videnskabeligt tidsskrift: International Journal of Intangible Heritage været tilgængeligt
online: http://www.ijih.org (tidsskriftet distribueres også i en papirudgave, og udkommer
en gang årligt, nr. 2 forventes omkring maj
2007). Der er tale om et akademisk, ’refereed’
tidsskrift, der dækker teori og praksis i forhold
til forskning, bevaring og formidling af de aspekter af kultur og kulturarv, som i den internationale juridiske terminologi betegnes ’intangible heritage’, som kan oversættes til immateriel eller uhåndgribelig kulturarv. Tidsskriftet tilstræber, som det hedder i forordet
:”to serve as a spotlight on this important
and growing aspect of heritage studies.” (IJIH,
1,2006,10).
Lanceringen af det nye tidsskrift afspejler de
seneste to årtiers stigende opmærksomhed om
den del af kultur, som ikke nødvendigvis manifesterer sig i materielle genstande, samlinger,
bygninger eller kunstværker, men alene eksisterer som noget uhåndgribeligt i form af
sprog, ritualer, social praksis, mundtlige overleveringer, traditionel viden og færdigheder,
og performativ praksis som dans, sang, musik
og teater. Tidsskriftet er blevet til på initiativ
af Koreas National Museum, og ICOMs koreanske nationalkomité, med finansiel støtte fra
det Koreanske Kulturministerium. Redaktionskomitéen har en internationel sammensætning
med forskere fra Storbritannien, Australien,
USA, Sydafrika, Korea og Kina. Initiativet var
et resultat af ICOMs generalforsamling i oktober 2004 i Seoul med temaet: Museums and
Intangible Heritage.
Initiativet til det nye tidsskrift er blot det
seneste af en lang række internationale initia-
tiver, som først og fremmest er taget i UNESCO regi siden 1980’erne, og som især har
rettet sig mod beskyttelsen af kulturel diversitet og de folkloristiske aspekter af kulturarv.
I 1982 nedsatte UNESCO en komité til
beskyttelse af traditionelle kulturelle udtryk,
det resulterede i vedtagelsen på UNESCOs
generalforsamling i 1989 af The Recommendation for the Safeguarding of Traditional Culture
and Folklore. Introduktionen i 1984 af The Living Human Treasure Programme markerede
endnu et initiativ til fremme af kulturel diversitet med fokus på de immaterielle og folkloristiske aspekter. Tanken om Living Human
Treasure stammer fra Japan, hvor man allerde i
1950’erne påbegyndte en normativ regulering
af området – systemet lægger vægt på de person-bårne færdigheder og viden i forhold til
specifikke kreative og håndværksmæssige aspekter af kulturarv.
Til denne række af initiativer hører også
The Proclamation of Masterpieces of the Oral
and Intangible Heritage of Humanity, som blev
vedtaget af UNESCO i 1997, og som var
medvirkende til at bane vejen for det seneste
og måske mest langtrækkende UNESCO initiativ i retning af beskyttelsen af immateriel
kulturarv: The Convention for the Safeguarding
of the Intangible Cultural Heritage, vedtaget på
UNESCOs 32. general forsamling i oktober
2003, med ikrafttræden den 21. april 2006.
Den nye konvention er foreløbig den ’juridiske kulmination’ på den lange række internationale initiativer til beskyttelse af kulturarv.
Med denne nye konvention indskrives den
immaterielle kulturarv i det globale, institutionelle system, og udvider forestillingen om
en verdensarv med en immateriel dimension.
Med i denne række af initiativer med fokus
på de uhåndgribelige aspekter af kulturarv er
også The Universal Declaration on Cultural Di-
ANMELDELSER
versity, 2001, og The Convention for the Protection and Promotion of the Diversity of Cultural
Expressions, 2005 – initiativer i direkte forlængelse af 1997 proklamationen og 2003
konventionen.
Desuden bør nævnes ICOMs seneste revision af de museumsetiske regler, 2006, som
lægger vægt på ’stakeholder’problematikken –
udmøntet især i principperne 4 og 6 : “interaction with the constituent community”
(principle 4); “respect for requests from originating communities” (4.4) and “collaboration
with the communities from which their collections originate as well as those they serve”
(6). Det må nødvendigvis have konsekvenser i
retning af en mere inkluderende og pluralistisk tilgang til fortolkning, dokumentation,
bevaring og formidling af samlinger, som må
bero på dialog med grupper eller individer,
som har en tilknytning til genstande i de pågældende samlinger.
Det er således tydeligt, at de immaterielle
aspekter af kulturarv tillægges stigende betydning – afspejlet dels i den internationale lovgivning på kulturområdet, dels også i museernes ændrede rolle i samfundet.
Den stigende betydning, der tillægges de
uhåndgribelige eller immaterielle aspekter af
kulturarv, kan ses som en del af de stadigt udvidede forestillinger om kulturbegrebet – fra
Herders essentialistiske definition af kultur
som beroende på enheden mellem territorium, folk og historie, til de”forhandlede processer” (Clifford), der kendetegner forståelsen
af kultur i det 21. århundrede.
De skiftende forestillinger om kultur afspejles i skiftende forestillinger om museernes rolle og funktion i samfundet, som især tog form
med den Ny Museologi. Senest udgør den stigende opmærksomhed om de immaterielle aspekter af kulturarv og ikke mindst 2003 kon-
ventionen, en udfordring i forhold til etablerede museologiske og kuratoriske praksisser.
Disse problemstillinger diskuteres bl.a. i forhold til museernes forpligtelser i: ICOFOM,
München 2000 Museology and the Intangible
Heritage; ICOM’s 20th General Conference,
Seoul 2004, med temaet: Museums and Intangible Heritage, UNESCOs Museum International, 221, 222, Maj 2004, og ikke mindst
i det første nummer af International Journal of
Intangible Heritage, vol.1, 2006, som anmeldes her.
Meget kort fremstillet kan man konstatere,
at siden 1970’ernes realisering af øko-museums tanken (Rivière og de Varine) har tanken om museet, ikke som finkulturens højborg, og end ikke nødvendigvis som en samlingsorienteret institution, men som et sted
for lokal involvering og engagement, hvor fokus netop er på de immaterielle aspekter af levende kultur og kulturarv, gjort sig stadigt
stærkere gældende. Man kan hævde, at opmærksomheden på de immaterielle aspekter af
kulturarv er det mest afgørende element i forhold til den kontekstualisering af museale
samlinger, som kan ses som en af de største
udfordringer for nutidens museer (ICOFOM,
2000,p.58-66).
Det første nummer af International Journal
of Intangible Heritage indeholder 8 artikler
(udover forord og introduktion til det nye initiativ). Gennemgående spiller UNESCOs
2003 konvention om den immaterielle kulturarv – i kraft af dens funktion som et nyt regulerende instrument på kulturbevaringsområdet – en central rolle i argumentationerne i
de forskellige artikler. Fokus i flertallet af artiklerne er på de museologiske udfordringer i
forhold til indsamling, dokumentation og formidling af uhåndgribelige aspekter af kulturarv i konkrete samlinger, opgøret med en sta-
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132
tisk og fremmedgørende fortolknings- og formidlingspraksis, hvor fokus har været på de
materielle aspekter, og nye bestræbelser på at
inkludere lokale interessegrupper i det museale arbejde – eksempelvis i Te Papa Tongarewa
Museet, New Zealand; Vietnams Etnografiske
Museum; og New Jersey Historical Society.
Problemstillinger i forhold til dokumentation
af immateriel kulturarv, bl.a. ved brug af digitale medier, diskuteres; ligesom sociale og politiske aspekter af betræbelsen på at bevare immateriel kulturarv blot lige strejfes, skønt der
her ligger en lang række meget aktuelle probemstillinger i forhold til nutidens globaliserede samfund.
En længere artikel af Patrick Boylan, chefredaktør af det nye tidsskrift og emeritus professor ved Department of Cultural Policy and
Management, City University, London, belyser især de udfordringer og krav til museumspersonale i samtlige faglige specialiseringer,
som følger af den udvidede forståelsesramme i
forhold til kulturarv, som afspejles i den nye
konvention. Boylan stiller bl.a. en række
spørgsmål, på grundlag af konventionen, som
giver anledning til nøjere overvejelser: ”Will
new organisations and services, a new profession even, be created to give effect to the new
treaty and if so, will these challenge, threaten
even, the traditional roles of museums and
museum professionals in relation to the heritage ?” (IJIH,1,2006,55). Yderst vedkommende spørgsmål, som grundlag for nødvendige
reflektioner over hvordan kulturarv defineres,
hvilken rolle kulturarv tillægges i samfundet,
og måske især i forhold til, hvordan museerne
imødekommer de udfordringer, som den
praktiske implementering af den nye konvention, skaber.
Der er god grund til at hilse dette nye internationale tidsskrift velkommen som et nyt fo-
rum for den videnskabelige diskussion om de
skiftende defintioner af kulturarv, kulturens
betydning i politiske og sociale sammenhæge,
og om museernes formål. Det nye tidsskrift
rækker således ud over de videnskabelige discipliner omkring kulturstudier generelt og museologien specifikt, og ind i problemstillinger
med væsentlig betydning for, hvordan mennesker lever og tænker i nutidens flerkulturelle
samfund.
Beate Knuth Federspiel, lektor, Kunstakademiets
Konservatorskole.
Adresse: Esplanaden 34, 1263 København K,
(45) 33 74 47 64. E-mail: [email protected],
www.kons.dk
ANMELDELSER
Jan Turtinen: Världsarvet villkor. Intressen,
förhandlingar och bruk i internationell politik. Acta Universitatis Stockholmiensis. Stockholm Studies in Ethnology, 1, 2006.
Jan Turtinens doktorafhandling, som forsvaredes i november 2006 ved Etnologiska Avdelningen, Stockholms Universitet, underkaster
UNESCOs Verdensarvkonvention fra 1972
(The Convention for the Protection of the World
Cultural and Natural Heritage) og det tilhørende administrative apparat en kritisk analyse. Udgangspunktet for undersøgelsen er den
konstatering, at Verdensarvkonventionen på
globalt plan i løbet af de senere år er blevet
genstand for stadig større interesse og tilslutning. (Verdensarvkonventionen er den af de
internationale konventioner, som på internationalt plan har størst tilslutning, den er ratificeret af 182 lande ud af ca. 200 på verdensplan. Konventioner er folkeretlige aftaler, som
de underskrivende lande forpligter sig til at
implementere i deres nationale lovgivning).
Turtinens afhandling ligger i forlængelse af
den forskning, der ser de internationale organisationer som udgørende en global institutionel struktur af indflydelsesrige aktører (Michael Barnett, Martha Finnemore m.fl.). I
undersøgelsen ses UNESCO som repræsentativ for den rolle som væsentlig aktør i international politik, som bl.a. de nævnte sociologiske teoretikere tillægger de internationale organisationer. – En indflydelse/magtudøvelse
over for stater, andre organisationer eller endog individer, som beror på skabelsen og udbredelsen af forestillinger om globale problemstillinger, og organiseringen af virksomheden for deres løsning gennem et administrativt, juridisk system. Her spiller Foucaults diskursanalytiske perspektiv en central rolle i for-
ståelsen af det internationale samfund som en
arena for konstitueringen af diskurser og viden som grundlag for institutionsdannelser
(det administrativt-juridiske system til regulering af praksis). I overensstemmelse hermed
ses Verdensarvkonventionen som led i et større civilisatorisk projekt, som har mange fællestræk med skabelsen af nationalstaten som civilisatorisk projekt.
Afhandlingen analyserer, hvordan begrebet
verdensarv er blevet til på grundlag af et universalistisk ideal om menneskehedens fælles
arv, og hvordan det stadig skabes og omfortolkes på tværs af nationale interesser i forhandlingsprocesser, som involverer politiske og
økonomiske aktører.
Turtinen ser den tiltagende opmærksomhed
omkring Verdensarvkonventionen ikke kun
som udtryk for UNESCOs dygtige markedsføring af Konventionens perspektiv (som meget kort kan koges ned til: fred i verden gennem respekt for andres kultur, og udbredelsen
af forestillingen om et fælles ansvar for kulturog naturværdier, og dermed styrkelsen af forestillingen om verden som ét sted, og menneskeheden som ét verdenssamfund – i overensstemmelse med Benedict Andersons teori om forestillede fællesskaber); men – og dette er det centrale i Turtinens undersøgelse: Verdensarvkonventionens voksende betydning kan ifølge Turtinen tilskrives udnyttelsen af Konventionen
som et værktøj for andre politiske, økonomiske
og markedsrelaterede internationale, nationale, regionale og lokale interesser.
Til belysning af den dimension undersøger
Turtinen forholdet mellem normer og konkret
praksis i implementeringen af Konventionen,
og påviser en ofte modsigelsesfuld praksis,
som hviler på forhandlinger mellem parter
med forskellige interesser, som tydeligst kommer til udtryk i forhold til nomineringerne til
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ANMELDELSER
134
Verdensarvlisten. Her er ofte tale om stærkt
modstridende interesser – i forhold til f.eks.
national suverænitet, økonomisk vinding i
kraft af turisme, hvilket kan være i strid med
urbefolkningers rettigheder, eller fremme af
en national interesse i at opnå international
prestige (gennem nominering til listen). De
cases, som Turtinen bruger som grundlag for
sin argumentation – bl.a. Sydafrikas nominering af Robben Island, Frankrigs nominering
af Loiredalen inklusive atomkraftværket dér,
og Sveriges nominering af Höga Kusten, afdækker grænserne for begrebets indhold. Casestudierne bygger på førstehåndskendskab til
forhandlingsprocesserne i kraft af feltarbejde i
UNESCOs administrative system i forbindelse med nomineringer til Verdensarvlisten.
En vigtig konklusion af Turtinens arbejde
er, at Verdensarvkonventionen og dens tilhørende administrative apparat ikke kun kan betragtes som et elitært, kosmopolitisk, identitetspolitisk og civilisatorisk projekt – og i den
forstand undertrykkende i kraft af, at stater
socialiseres til at acceptere visse normer og institutionaliserede løsninger af internationalt
definierede problemstillinger. Tværtimod,
hævder Turtinen, er ”Verdensarven” et heterogent projekt – åbent for en kompleksitet, som
systemet formår at håndtere. Konventionen
og den tilhørende Verdensarvliste er ikke blot
et vellykket antikvarisk projekt, det vigtigste
er i følge Turtinen Konventionens potentiale
som en mulighedsskabende institution, som
ikke alene er betinget af accept på et overordnet statsligt og regionalt plan, men som simpelthen ikke fungerer uden lokal accept. Udover at Konventionen er redskab for en alment accepteret bevaringspolitik, er den også
redskab for en række attraktive mål. Turtinens
undersøgelse viser, at den fortsatte proces i
tolkningen /definitionen og beskyttelsen af
kultur- og naturressourcer i stigende omfang
har karakter af samarbejde og forhandlinger
på tværs af interesser. Fællesnævneren – for de
tilsyneladende modstridende interesser – er
opfattelsen af kultur- og naturarv som en ressource, som både rummer antikvariske mål
(bevaringsinteresser), og politisk-økonomiske
mål (udviklings- og markedsrelaterede interesser). Den status, som tilskrives steder og monumenter på Verdensarvlisten som særligt udpegede i et globalt hieraki af kultur- og naturarv, er en så attraktiv ressource, at den i sig
selv tilskynder til og fremmer et kreativt og
mulighedsgenererende samarbejde mellem
forskellige interesser, selv om de er vævet ind i
en kompliseret struktur af andre end antikvariske problemstillinger. I den betydning er
UNESCOs Verdensarvkonvention grundlag
for samarbejde og aktiviteter som forbinder
stater, institutioner og lokale aktører.
Turtinens undersøgelse er ikke alene et vigtigt bidrag til forståelsen af Verdensarvkonventionens skiftende og meget forskelligartede
funktionsniveauer; den belyser også de mekanismer, der styrer de skiftende betydninger,
der tilskrives kultur- og naturarv i nutidens
globaliserede samfund, og de mange interesser, der er involverede i den ’forhandlings’proces. De langtrækkende perspektiver i Turtinens arbejde er derfor også eksemplifiseringen
af, hvordan globalisering foregår i samarbejdsprocesser over grænser, mellem stater, institutioner, organisationer, og lokale aktører.
Beate Knuth Federspiel, lektor, Kunstakademiets
Konservatorskole.
Adresse: Esplanaden 34, 1263 København K,
33 74 47 64. E-mail: [email protected],
www.kons.dk
ANMELDELSER
Sten Rentzhog: Friluftsmuseerna – En skandinavisk idé erövrar världen. Stockholm:
Carlssons 2007. 526 s. ISBN 978 91 7331
071 0.
De senaste åren har friluftsmuseerna ägnats olika slag av forskar- och förläggarintresse. Ut över
sedvanliga guideböcker och historiker över ett
enskilt museum kan AEOM:s, Association of
European Open Air Museums, konferensrapporter nämnas bland de tidigaste publikationerna som behandlar friluftsmuseer ur professionell synpunkt. De innehåller diskussionsinlägg i aktuella frågor för våra friluftsmuseer och
källmaterial för vidare forskning. AEOM inledde sin verksamhet med ett möte i Bokrijk
1966. Den första mötesrapporten publicerades
1972. Den innehåller bl.a. förbundets stadgar
och dess definition av begreppet friluftsmuseum. Ett friluftsmuseum definieras som en
helhetsinriktad anläggning som står under vetenskapligt överinseende med samlingar bevarade under bar himmel.
Bland förbundets medlemmar har Adelhardt
Zippelius, emerituschef för friluftsmuseet i
Kommern publicerat en översikt över Europas
friluftsmuseer1 och hans kollega Jerzy Czajkowski i Sanok har gett ut en hel serie Acta Skansenologica på polska inklusive ett band på engelska2 med en presentation av friluftsmuseer i
Europa. I Tjeckien utkom 2005 en diger katalog med beskrivningar om Europas friluftsmuseer3. Den är utarbetad av dr Jiri Langer pensionerad från friluftsmuseet i Roznov. I boken presenteras Europas friluftsmuseer landsvis. Den
en är rikt illustrerad och försedd med byggnadshistoriska kommentarer.
Som forskningsobjekt har friluftsmuseer i
Holland och Finland studerats i två museologiskt inriktade doktorsavhandlingar.4 Vid Lin-
köpings universitet utkom 2006 två doktorsavhandlingar som berör kulturhistoriska museer
och museigrundande med fokus på Nordiska
museet.5
Årets stora händelse i friluftsmuseivärlden
var offentliggörandet av Sten Rentzhogs bok
”Friluftsmuseerna. En skandinavisk idé erövrar
världen” på ett internationellt seminarium på
Skansen. Bokens tillkomst har Rentzhogs tidigare arbetsgivare, Jämtlands läns museum med
Jamtli i spetsen, drivit som ett internationellt
projekt och de har lyckats skaffa samarbetspartner på olika håll. I motsats till Jiri Langers och
Adrian de Jongs arbeten som är att vänta på
engelska respektive tyska utkom Rentzhogs bok
på svenska och engelska samtidigt, så dess nyhetsvärde genast kunde utnyttjas i internationella kretsar. Dessutom fungerar den sakkunniga engelska översättningen som hjälpmedel för
föreläsare och guider som behöver adekvata
engelska uttryck.
I jämförelse med de ovan nämnda publikationerna har Rentzhogs bok den största bredden. Författaren har stor personlig museierfarenhet från Nordiska museet och länsmuseer i
Sverige samt av utredningsarbete i svenska museifrågor. Under arbetet på den nu aktuella boken har han gjort omfattande studieresor och
knutit personliga kontakter till många friluftsmuseer både i Europa och i Amerika. Utom att
han utnyttjat AEOM:s publikationer som källmaterial, har han sänt frågeformulär till museerna. Hans sätt att beskriva och diskutera de
lösningar som gjorts i olika museer avslöjar att
han bekantat sig med både museet och dess ledare. Trots att han skrivit boken som pensionär,
märker läsaren att han fortfarande betraktar
Jamtli som sitt museum. På samma sätt betonar
han de enskilda museidirektörernas inflytande i
”sina” museer på olika håll i Europa.
Redan länge har Jamtli varit en föregångare
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ANMELDELSER
136
när det gäller museipedagogik med olika slag av
aktiviteter och upplevelsearrangemang och som
pensionär och befriad från ansvaret för både
ekonomin och samlingarna ser Rentzhog denna verksamhet ännu ljusare än förr. Kanske är
det ett medvetet grepp för att försöka entusiasmera sina yngre kolleger till framtidstro i en tid
då friluftsmuseerna upplever en hårdare konkurrens än någonsin förr.
Boken kan uppfattas som en omfattande essäsamling där författares eget synsätt tydligt
kommer fram. Museer vars byggnadsbestånd
bevarats på sin ursprungliga plats förbigår han
helt. Han skildrar friluftsmuseerna som arenor
där det translokaliserade friluftsmuseets idé
glatt marscherar fram i olika tidsliga och lokala
variationer. Boken är indelad i 16 numrerade
avsnitt, men den kunde gott ha delats i en presenterande och en resonerande del. I den första,
presenterande delen beskriver Rentzhog hur
friluftsmuseer grundas i Europa, Amerika och
Australien. I motsats till tidigare europeiska arbeten fokuserar han på presentation, museipedagogik och upplevelser. Han beskriver friluftsmuseerna som produkter av den idémiljö där
de skapades. Den första delen avslutas på sidan
319, där han för första gången nämner museernas uppgift att bevara. ”Det var ett radikalt
grepp som jag gjorde [att] se museet som en teaterscen, se folkbildning och undervisning som
friluftsmuseets enda uppgift. Först under senare års museiresor har jag börjat inse att friluftsmuseer också har en bevarande uppgift.” Citatet säger en del om författaren och om bokens
referensram. I den resonerande delen (avsnitt
11-17) behandlar han friluftsmuseernas problematik och framtidsutsikter och med många exempel och exkurser vad man kan och inte kan
göra på ett friluftsmuseum.
Berättelsen om friluftsmuseerna inleds naturligtvis med en presentation av Hazelius’ idé-
er och Skansen. Rentzhog uppfattar Skansen
som något slags ”urmoder” till alla senare friluftsmuseer oavsett vilket som är det äldsta. Friluftsmuseernas tillkomst och idébakgrund ser
han som uttryck för historie- och samhällssynen under den aktuella tidsperioden. Innehållet i avsnitten speglas i de olika rubrikerna t.ex.”
Känn Dig själv”, ”Friluftsmuseet och de nationella rörelserna” och ”Ett stadshistoriskt friluftsmuseum” (Den gamle By). Tiden mellan
de två världskrigen får ett eget avsnitt, där han
bl.a. behandlar ”Museer i Tjeckoslovakien och
Nazityskland” och så visar han hur Skansen anknyts till modernismen och går en ny blomstringstid till mötes som folkhemmets arena.
Avsnitt fyra behandlar de amerikanska friluftsmuseerna. Henry Fords Greenfield Village
och 1700-talsstaden Colonial Wiliamsburg
som skapades med Rockefellers stöd. I Williamsburg intresserade man sig redan på 1930talet för hantverkstekniker och lärde upp yngre
hantverkare. Museet hade en egen produktkommitté som kvalitetsbedömde det som tillverkats innan sakerna, oftast möbler, fick
marknadsföras som Williamsburg tillverkning.
Det ledde till att man började kopiera Williamsburg både i byggnader, inredningar, möbler
och trädgårdar m.m.
I avsnitt fem visar han hur friluftsmuseitanken blir alltmer helhetsbetonad. Byggnaderna
bör ligga i rätt position i ett landskap där de hör
hemma. Samspelet mellan människan och naturen aktualiseras. Principerna avbildas i form
av ett cirkeldiagram med bondgårdens bostadsbyggnad i centrum, närmast omgiven av trädgårdsland. Följande cirkel upptas av fruktträd,
nästa av odlingar och betesmarker och ytterst
finns skogen där människans inverkan avtar eller upphör. Jfr bild 21, s. 158.
Ett avsnitt ägnas studier av friluftsmuseer i
socialismens tjänst. I Östeuropa anpassade man
ANMELDELSER
t.o.m. namnet Skansen till språken och gav det
betydelsen friluftsmuseum i allmänhet. Folkkulturens förflutna användes för att visa vad socialismen gjort för arbetarklassen. Museet i
Kiev grundat 1969 är ett exempel. Det har ca
200 byggnader från 1500-talet framåt. Man
forskade och dokumenterade efter bästa förmåga, men partiet blev misstänksamt då man sysslade så mycket med det förgångna. Museiledningen sparkades och man skapade en samtida
ukrainsk by på 13 hektar med kolchoser från
1960- och 1970-talen. I dag existerar både den
byggandshistoriska delen och kolchosmuseet
visad vid sida. Museets har också gått in för att
lära folk bygga nya hus på traditionellt sätt. Rumänien nämner han som ett annat exempel.
Där man sedan 1990, då religionsutövning åter
blev tillåtet, börjat organisera gudstjänster i
museikyrkor.
Också följande avsnitt om hur teknologin
presenterats på friluftsmuseerna inleds med ett
exempel från Rumänien, museet för agrar
teknik i Sibiu. I Tyskland togs initiativet till det
industrihistoriska friluftsmuseet i Hagen redan
under mellankrigstiden. Museet presenterar
olika utvecklingsfaser inom den tyska metallindustrin. I Storbritannien uppmärksammar författaren Ironbridge som en symbol för industrihistorisk väckelse. Han jämför dess grundares,
Neil Cossons sätt att marknadsföra museet
med Hazelius handlingssätt. Ironbridge blev
årets museum i Europa 1977 och höjdpunkten
nåddes när det antogs av UNESCO som världskulturarv 1986. Det andra brittiska exemplet
som diskuteras är Beamish. Diskussionen blir
en övergång till avsnittet om levande historia.
”Inget museum blir någonsin färdigt, inte ens
ett så storslaget som Beamish. Vart man går ser
man möjligheter”, konstaterar Rentzhog.
När Förenta statera firade sitt 200-års jubileum 1976 fanns det ca 500 friluftsmuseer i
Nord Amerika. Mottot ”Living History” betecknade de nya verksamheterna inom friluftsmuseernas sfär. Rentzhog ser två huvudorsaker
till den stora förändring som skedde. Det ena
var Disneyland (1955) och Disney World
(1971) som innebar en jätteutmaning för museerna. Disneys temaparker var delvis grundade
på historia, de flyttade besökarna tillbaka i tiden och de drog massvis med besökare. Det andra var den nya generationen museifolk som
var påverkad av 1960-talets proteströrelser och
var engagerade i kampen för svartas, kvinnors
och fattigas rättigheter. Historien skulle demokratiseras. Man ville skildra de styrdas historia
och under inflytande av den franska Annalesskolan inriktade man sig på ”social history”.
För friluftsmuseerna blev målet att ge besökarna en upplevelse av vardagsmänniskans hela
livsföring. De många exemplen varierar från
1800-tals jordbruk och rollspel ända till slavauktionen i Williamsburg 1994. Trots protester blev slavauktionen en succé. Efter tre decennier hade socialhistorikernas synpunkter slagit
igenom.
Kunskap genererar kunskap. När de europeiska friluftsmuseerna skapat den generella berättelsen om det mer eller mindre noggrant definierade förgångna, som representerades av
byggnader och föremål blev det dags att söka
det specifika och individuella. Intresset för
människan bakom föremålen vaknade. Som representanter för denna tidsanda nämner Rentzhog bl.a. Stefan Baumeier som på 1970-talet
blev ny museidirektör i Detmold och senare Peter Lewis i Beamish. Bland de museer som
starkt utvecklat sin museipedagogik nämner
han Frilandsmuseet i Köpenhamn och Jamtli
Historieland. Att Martti Helin i Tammerfors på
1970-talet skapade berättelser som grund för
interiörerna i Amuri tycks han inte vara medveten om.
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ANMELDELSER
138
Kapitlet genomsyras av författarens museipedagogiska intresse. Han presenterar exempel
där museet börjat lida brist på besökare och
pengar, men historien leds till ett lyckligt slut
när den nya chefen satsar på någon form av
museipedagogiskt verksamhet. Då samma botemedel för en så allvarlig åkomma framförs
gång på gång får läsaren intrycket av att det är
fråga om en patentmedicin och börjar fundera
på dess biverkningar.
I den resonerande delen av boken betraktar
Rentzhog museerna ur olika synvinklar och diskuterar deras utvecklingsmöjligheter och olika
sätt att motsvara nuets krav. Lättast är det att
nicka samtyckande när han betonar behovet av
visionära ledare. Författarens insiderblick återspeglas i texten som detaljrikedom och tyckande. Många får med belåtenhet läsa om sig själva
och sitt museum. Till undantagen hör finländarna. Rentzhog nämner Fölisön i Helsingfors
och Finlands äldsta friluftsmuseum, Sagalund i
Kimito. Det tragiska är att ortens finska benämning Kemiö, har tappat ö:et så att namnet
anger staden Kemi i norra Finland. En annan
sak som förvånar är att den friluftsmuseiplan
som diskuterades i Åbo kring sekelskiftet 1900,
men som i dag saknar betydelse tas upp i texten6 medan levande aktuella museer utesluts.
Slagsidan i Rentzhogs text lutar mot förmedling. Museets uppgift att bevara artikuleras
först på sidan 319 och diskuteras kort 60 sidor
senare. Den balansgång mellan uppgiften att
bevara och att presentera som är varje seriöst
museums vardag undviker han att befatta sig
med.
I avsnittet ”Konsten att lära ut historia” finns
ett av guldkornen i boken. Utgående från David Lowenthals idéer formulerar Renzhog en
tanke som visar helhetsprincipens betydelse det
essentiella i friluftsmuseernas existens s. 410:
”Det handlar om förståelse. Friluftsmuseet kan
ge förståelse för varför världen blivit som den
är, varför man själv är den man är, ge förståelse
och respekt för andra människor, andra kulturer, för andra sätt att tänka och vara, förståelse
för hur ens eget liv hänger samman med andras, människor som lever nu, som levat förr,
och som kommer att leva efter, allas beroende
av varandra.” I den helhetsbetonade upplevelsen, där människor möter människor, just
däri ligger friluftsmuseernas egenart.
NOTER
1. Handbuch der europäischen Freilichtmuseen, Köln
1974.
2. Open-Air Museums in Poland. Poznan 1981. Vidare kan nämnas den katalog ”Die schönsten
Freilichtmuseen in Europa” ADAC publicerade
1992.
3. Jirí, Langer: Atlas památek. Evropská muzea v pírod?, Baset, Praha, 2005.
4. A. de Jong: De dirigenten van de herinnering,
2001 och S. Sjöberg-Pietarinen: Museer ger mening, 2004.
5. Magdalena Hillström: Ansvaret för kulturarvet.
Linköping 2006 och Wera Grahn:”Känn dig
själf ”: genus, historiekonstruktiuon och kulturhistoriska konstruktioner. Linköping 2006.
6. I början av 1900-talet flyttades några hus till parken vid Åbo slott. Det viktigaste, Bagarla herrgårdsbyggnad från Reso, brann i samband med
att slottet bombades under andra världskriget.
Museiintendenten miste sitt hem och den del av
historiska museets samlingar som förvarades där
förstördes i branden.
Solveig Sjöberg-Pietarinen
E-mail: [email protected]
ANMELDELSER
What can we learn from the history of our
museums? Comments on Sten Rentzhog’s
Open Air Museums: The History and Future
of a Visionary Idea. Jämtli and Carlssons Bokforläg, Kristianstad, 2007. Published in cooperation with The Association for Living History Farms and Agricultural Museums and
The Association of European Open Air Museums. ISBN 978-91-208-4. (English version
translated by Skans Victoria Airey).
DEBRA A. REID*
Acknowledgements1
I first visited Skansen during 1991 as an invited guest at the Association of European
Open-Air Museums (AEOM) conference. I
am delighted to return sixteen years later to
participate in the conference convened to discuss Dr. Sten Rentzhog’s new book, Open Air
Museums: The History and Future of a Visionary Idea. It is wonderful to see things I recognize, including warm smiles from colleagues
and happy visitors at Skansen.
In 1991 the AEOM began at Frilandsmuseet
in Lyngby, Denmark, and then traveled to
Stockholm. In Sweden attendees heard papers
and visited Skansen, Kulturen in Lund and
Gamla Linköping among other sites. At the
time I managed The Farmers’ Museum, Inc.,
in Cooperstown, New York. The conference
allowed me direct experiences with Scandinavian institutions that I had only read about,
and only dreamed of visiting. In the years after
AEOM I traveled back and forth to Denmark
and saw many of that nation’s open air museums and historic sites, I lived for a while in
the staff apartments at Brede, near Frilandsmuseet in Lyngby. My commitment to the Association for Living History, Farm and Agricultural Museums (ALHFAM) allowed me to
travel to several conferences in Canada, and I
currently serve as the U.S. delegate to the presidium of the International Association of
Agricultural Museums (AIMA) which has allowed me to visit open air and agricultural
museums in Poland, Germany and the Czech
Republic.
These experiences make me aware of the diversity and vibrancy of the international open
air museum community. It is my pleasure to
have this opportunity to comment on the
only comprehensive history of this important
museum genre. I thank Sten Rentzhog for all
the questions he has asked over the years we
have corresponded, for thinking of me as a
commentator on his book, and for the wonderful opportunity to return to Skansen. I
thank the organizers of “The Future of OpenAir Museums – a Scandinavian model for the
21st Century” for the invitation to participate. It is a pleasure to offer these comments.
The more I read about the history of open air
museums the more I marvel at the vigor of the
genre’s founders, and the clarity of purpose
they exhibited as they created national institutions. They had to be workaholics to generate
the financial support, negotiate with bureaucrats, identify buildings and collections, placate donors, appeal to visitors and create fullsize dioramas of their nations’ pasts. Dr. Sten
Rentzhog has gathered dozens of examples
from around the world into his massive Open
Air Museums: The History of a Visionary Idea.
This comprehensive history of open air museums should become the indispensable encyclopedia for understanding the history of the
museum genre, including the ways that open
air museums have appealed to visitors, and the
ways that they can continue to be relevant in a
changing world.
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140
Rentzhog starts the introduction with high
praise: “Open air museums – or outdoor museums – are marvelous. They are versatile cultural institutions, educational centres and tourist attractions, with a potential far greater
than most people imagine” (p. 1). His enthusiasm for his subject never waivers through
532 pages that explore the genre as developed
in Scandinavia, Europe, the United States and
Canada over more than one hundred years.
Seventeen chapters take the reader from the
founding days of the movement, including
Arthur Hazelius’ efforts to create Skansen in
Stockholm, but it also considers contemporaneous efforts by founders of other museums
in other European countries. He then crosses
the Atlantic and explores the origins of open
air museums and other museums that may
not meet his strict definition of the genre, but
that influenced North American development
due to their emphasis on living history. Rentzhog addresses the various goals that founders
pursued. He explores their reasons for collecting buildings, folk trades and crafts, and rural
and shop traditions of people during an era of
intense nation building. The book moves
chronologically and addresses the ways that
war, politics and capitalism affected museum
development. It concludes with several chapters devoted to current issues affecting open
air museums, particularly the ways that institutions can position themselves to remain relevant in a changing world. The general public
values authenticity and family and multi-generational experiences, and Rentzhog argues
that open air museums are best positioned to
deliver these experiences.
“Skansen in Stockholm – it is there we have
to begin” (p. 4). The first critique I pose –
Why start with Arthur Hazelius and Skansen?
Rentzhog justifies doing so, arguing that the
methods Hazelius developed at Skansen so influenced later open air museums that the term
“skansen” became synonymous in some parts
of the world for open air museum. Yet, others
had ideas to develop open air museums in
Scandinavia and Europe without the influence of Hazelius. Some contemporaries considered Hazelius the founder, others did not. Certainly Hazelius had vision. He combined nature and culture by creating museums in the
open air complete with structures, landscapes,
flora, fauna, folk and festivals. But more analysis of founders and their motives could have
yielded a theory of open air museum founding. Perhaps nationalism wielded the most
influence. Rentzhog indicates that “clearly
[Hazelius’] aim was to arouse love of his country and increased national consciousness. . .
fellowship, pride and self esteem. . . . a common cultural heritage” (p. 18). Rentzhog considers this goal as benign – “the idea of nationalism did not necessarily imply aggression
against anyone else” (p. 18) – but Hazelius felt
strongly enough about the need to create a national Swedish identity, that he expended his
life’s energy on the project. What happened
during the late 1890s that made nationalism
such an all-consuming goal? What happened
to those who did not fit the national identity
created at Skansen, or at other “skansens”
around the world?
Visitor numbers indicate that Skansen appealed to Swedes. Within two years of opening,
200,000 visitors came per year; then over
500,000 even before 1900 (p. 6), and though
visitation dwindled during the 1920s, expansion in structures and programming during
the 1930s increased attendance to two million
per year (pp. 117–118). A second critique –
Why did visitors come in such great numbers?
Was the public motivated by nationalism, or
ANMELDELSER
did the public flock to Skansen because the
museum was about them? Rentzhog explains
clearly how Hazelius kept public appeal central to his plan, allowing for a range of literacy
levels when writing labels, creating appealing
programming and extending open hours to
increase opportunities for the public to visit. I
would like more critique, however, of the ways
this made Skansen politically useful as a site to
build collective memory. Eugene Weber argued, in Peasants into Frenchmen: The Modernization of Rural France, 1870–1914 (1976),
that standardized education, industrialization
and compulsory military service helped create
Frenchmen. Did Lapplanders and Dalarna
folk really believe that Skansen helped make
them into Swedes? The idea warrants further
study.
Hazelius was not alone in his quest to involve everyone in the national museum; in fact,
the real vision of the open air museum genre,
as implemented across the globe, centered on
the involvement of THE folk in documenting, collecting, and preserving THEIR history. But after World War I, Rentzhog indicates
that open air museums lost “contact with the
public” (p. 100). Did this happen because
staff adopted less passionate, more academic
approaches to collecting and exhibiting folk
culture as Rentzhog implies, or did nation builders just adopt other means to secure their
objectives? Did members of the National Socialist German Workers’ Party influence German open air museums during the 1920s and
1930s or did they pursue other means to build
a sense of national identity? Changing tastes
may also have reduced public interest in open
air museums. During the 1920s modern aesthetics became de rigeur while pre-industrial
folk culture and history declined in appeal.
Increased competition from the proliferation
of open air museums as well as economic depression likewise negatively affected visitation.
Yet, another director with vigor, Andreas
Lindblom, revitalized Skansen during the
1920s and 1930s, and the expansion of the
genre in Eastern and Central Europe and the
United States accelerated during this time.
A third critique – the emphasis on larger institutions, though important to understand
the trend setters, neglects the masses. Future
students of open air museums could delve
more fully into earlier and smaller models of
open air museums. This particularly relates to
museum development in the United States,
but also applies to all other countries. Collecting in the United States involved the quest
for relics. Locks of George Washington’s hair,
for example, were in great demand after his
death. Relic collecting may appear to have little direct relevance to open air museums, but
relics sometimes included buildings, and local
initiative drove the efforts. Charles Hosmer
explores this history in Presence of the Past: the
History of the Preservation Movement in the
United States before Williamsburg (1965) and
Preservation Comes of Age: from Williamsburg
to the National Trust, 1926–1949 (1981). In
the years since Hosmer published his studies,
other researchers have documented earlier collecting and preservation efforts. By the early
1800s residents of Deerfield, Massachusetts,
began collecting parts of homes destroyed during the series of colonial wars that raged between the French and their Native allies versus
the English and their Native and colonial allies. Certainly perceptions of colonial culture, if
not folk culture, drove the material accumulation, as did recognition of the value of the material to solidifying the collective memory.
A fourth critique – I believe that more discussion of the role of the folk in creating mu-
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142
seums should be incorporated. Locals defined
the stories of their own communities that they
wished to tell, and right or wrong, complete
or incomplete, the museums that they created
convey their ideas about the past. The stories
do not necessarily fit into a national narrative,
but they have local meaning, and that furthers
the founders’ goals. The Dakota City Heritage
Village, Inc. located at the Dakota County
Fairgrounds in Farmington, Minnesota, provides an example of a small open air museum
that exists because of local initiative and that
reflects the spirit of folk museum building in
the United States. Dakota City began in 1960
as a project of the Dakota County Agricultural Society. The agricultural society, founded
in 1858, still operates one of the largest county fairs in Minnesota. The society collected
buildings for thirty-four years before incorporating the heritage village as a separate
501(c)(3) organization (a.k.a. private nonprofit corporation) in 1994. It has adopted an
ambitious mission statement with an emphasis on interpreting a way of life nearly obliterated by change. According to the museum
website: “As urban sprawl obliterates America’s agricultural past, Dakota City connects families to the agricultural and immigrant past
of Dakota County communities where they
now live. Dakota City focuses on how rural
communities functioned 100 years ago and
how residents met their need for food, shelter,
clothing and social interaction” [www.dakotacity.org].
A fifth critique – Rentzhog is clear that not
all of the museums he analyzes follow his definition of open air museums, but does this
mean that his definition – “sites mainly comprising translocated buildings” (p. 2) – is too
narrow? He incorporates institutions that do
not fit the criteria such as Plimoth Plantation,
which consists totally of recreated structures,
and the Washburn-Norlands Living History
Center which consists of in situ and recreated
structures because each have pioneered living
history techniques. He includes Colonial Williamsburg which consists of buildings preserved in situ or recreated on-site, because it is
widely studied and resulted from major philanthropic commitment. He justifies including
these because they influenced the movement
in North America, and then, in a backward
migration, institutions throughout Europe.
Including them begs the question of why not
include other museums with historic structures, integrated landscapes and engaging living
history programming. These, likewise, provide evidence of museum excellence that could
ensure a future for the visionary open air museum. Historic Deerfield, Inc. comes to mind
as a site with a remarkable collection of historic structures preserved in situ along a small
town street in the picturesque Connecticut
River Valley of Western Massachusetts. It sits
within a cultural and natural landscape that is
vital to the site interpretation, and it serves as
a model of intellectual engagement in research, collecting and interpretation.
Back to the origins of traditional open air
museums in the United States. Rentzhog
identifies Vesterheim as the oldest (p. 123),
founded in 1913 by Norwegian Americans to
document Norwegian immigrant history. A
sixth critique – One author must practice discipline when exploring a topic as broad as the
international history of open air museums.
Yet, moving from the folk product, Vesterheim, to Henry Ford’s Greenfield Village, a
collection of folk culture by the person who
changed that culture, leaves much unstudied.
Specifically, progressive era museum building
coincided with the era of nation building that
ANMELDELSER
occurred in the United States between the
Spanish American War of 1898 and entrance
into World War I. During the same decade
that Vesterheim began, local boosters, progressives and special interest groups in 1917
founded Lincoln’s New Salem. It recreated the
1830s village where future President Abraham
Lincoln spent his early adulthood. In this regard, folk built a museum documenting the
interrelationships of ordinary folk with one
particularly extraordinary person, Lincoln, the
president who turned a union of states into a
nation. The first five log buildings were recreated during 1918, and the Civil Conservation
Corp, a relief program instituted by the United States government during the 1930s, built
the rest of the site. Barbara Burlison Mooney,
in an article in Perspectives of Vernacular Architecture [11 (2004)] argued that the folk involved created a “convenient discursive site on
which to graft theories of Lincoln’s personality, the American character, and historical simulacra” (Mooney, p. 19).
A seventh critique – women seem strangely
absent in Rentzhog’s study, but women played
major roles in historic preservation in the
United States. During the 1850s, Ann Pamela
Cunningham launched a grassroots effort to
save Mount Vernon, the home of the United
States’ first president, George Washington. To
do so, she had to mitigate sectional division,
secure funds from competing special interest
groups and devise a system where women as
well as men held authority. Granted, Cunningham did not create an open air museum
of folk culture at Mount Vernon; she helped
found a historic house museum, one of the
first in the nation. And preserving Mount
Vernon did not succeed because of any recognition of folk culture. Folk across the United
States may have supported the effort, but the
focus revolved around a great man and his role
in building a mighty union of states. It could
not be called an effort in creating a national
identity because the federal system of government, with each state government sharing authority with the national government, defied
formation of a nation state in the European
model. Yet, Cunningham certainly appealed
to a sense of common identity when she tried
to raise the funds to preserve the house of the
first president of the United States. This took
on significance given the sectional tension
that drove the North and the South apart before the Civil War erupted in 1861. Documenting the folk of Mount Vernon, that is,
the enslaved African Americans as well as the
poor whites on the plantation, never inspired
Cunningham or her peers. Technically Mount
Vernon does not fit Rentzhog’s definition of
an open air museum (p. 2). It is preserved in
situ, but this history is important for two reasons: women drove the effort, and the folk
supported it. The ways that women, or specifically, the ways gender affected the open air
museum movement, deserves attention.
Another open air museum in the United States conveys the influence of direct transplantation of the open air ideal from Finland to Arizona as well as the influence of women on
museum founding. Leonora Scott Muse Curtin, a woman committed to cultural preservation, and her daughter, Leanora T. Curtin,
purchased the historic El Rancho de las Golondrinas near Santa Fe in 1932. They realized
the significance of the location as a stopping
point on the El Camino Real from Mexico
City to Old Santa Fe. Leonora T. Curtin married Yryo (George) A. Paloheimo, Consul of
Finland for Southern California, Arizona and
New Mexico, after World War II, and they
preserved existing structures, erected replicas,
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144
and relocated other appropriate structures in
their efforts to preserve the history and culture of Spanish New Mexico. Paloheimo had
worked with exhibitions before, having organized the Finland Pavilion at the New York
World’s Fair in 1939. He also advocated for
cultural preservation given his work with
Help Finland, a U.S. organization that rallied
Finnish emigrants to lend financial aid to
their native land during the 1940s. That effort
evolved into the Finlandia Foundation, cofounded by Paloheimo in 1953. When El
Rancho de las Golondrinas opened in 1972, it
became the first in New Mexico. Today the
open air museum interprets three centuries of
Spanish culture. The Rancho de las Golondrinas Charitable Trust operates the site.
Such diversity in open air museums, including different interpretive goals, different types of founders, different types of operating
and governance structures and different sources of support indicate both the broad interest
in the United States in founding such museums, but also the freedom to do so. Yet,
open air museums have been subject to criticism for the “lite” history they convey, for moving buildings out of context and for ignoring
critical history in favor of living history demonstration of daily chores such as butter making. Rentzhog addresses these controversies,
particularly the tension between academic accuracy and public appeal (p. 165).
The American public (a.k.a. folk) creates
museums to reflect their communal selves,
and through their museums, they present consensus history. Yet, controversy reeks from the
pores of their creations. Those not represented
have no voice, and they have no voice because
creators excluded them from the process. This
is unconscionable, but a predictable consequence of public history making. Recently, his-
torians, historic architects, historic archaeologists, preservationists and other public historians have embraced state-of-the-art methods
and cutting edge technology to reach the general public. Rentzhog calls for open air museums to capitalize on the general public’s
interest in history and to help visitors become
more informed generally. This can include
multi-sensory stimuli, a hallmark of open air
museums. By engaging the public intellectually in researching, collecting, preserving and
interpreting the past using living history methods, the public learns about new ways of finding out about the past; of viewing it and of
coming to terms with it. I am left wondering,
what would Hazelius do with the Internet?
Rentzhog’s book is most useful because it
humbles readers to realize that our ideas are
not necessarily new ideas. “Even if museums
only succeed in giving more and more people
the simple understanding that we are not the
only generation, that there have been generations before us, and generations will come after, they will be making an invaluable contribution” (p. 377). He continued that “if they
also manage to get people to respect earlier
generations instead of looking down on them,
they will be helping to counteract the present
day hubris, the arrogance, which is one of the
greatest threats to the future of mankind” (p.
377). My eighth critique – produce a more
comprehensive index for the English version.
For example, the debate about interpreting
ethnicity in open air museums does not appear in the index (that I can find). No entries for
“ethnicity” or “immigrant” appear, yet, color
plates 102 and 106 indicate that the national
open air museums in Norway and the Netherlands have incorporated such interpretation.
It is impossible to create a totally comprehensive index, but an expanded English version
ANMELDELSER
could be useful. It could be posted on-line for
ease of access.
Obviously Dr. Rentzhog establishes lofty goals for open air museums, but given his positive interpretation of them, he believes the institutions are generally capable of accomplishing the goals they pursue. But he understands the gravity of currents trends in declining visitation and inadequate operating finances. Open air museums must stabilize
themselves so they can take full advantage of
their unique resources. They must make the
most of intellectual engagement with the public. They must move beyond the role of collective memory maker and embrace the responsibility of history scrutinizer. Recently
forensics have captivated the television viewing public, and open air museums are already staging “who done it” events. This affords
another opportunity in the world of opportunities that Rentzhog describes, to engage the
public in history scene investigation. Open Air
Museums can leave readers exhausted at the
task before them, but inspired to undertake it.
1. This article is based on comments that I prepared
on Sten Rentzhog’s book for the 26-28 April
2007 international conference on “The Future of
Open-Air Museums” at Skansen in Sweden.
*Debra Reid, Associate Professor, Department of
History, Eastern Illinois University
Address: Department of History, Eastern Illinois
University
600 Lincoln Ave., Charleston, IL 61920 USA
Phone: + 1 217-581-7272
Fax: +1 217-581-7233
E-mail: [email protected]
Museum Studies. An Anthology of Contexts.
Edited by Bettina Messias Carbonell. Blackwell Publishing 2004. ISBN 0-631-22825X. 640 sider.
Med mastodonttværket Museum Studies – an
anthology of contexts fra 2004 blev endnu en udgivelse føjet til rækken af de museologiske antologier, som udkom fra 1980’erne og løbende
frem imod årtusindskiftet, blandt disse Lumley
1988, Karp & Lavine 1991, Karp, Kreamer &
Lavine 1992, Greenberg, Ferguson & Nairne
1996, og senest, i skandinavisk regi, Ingemann/Hejlskov Larsens (red.) Ny dansk Museologi fra 2006, anmeldt i Nordisk Museologi
2006/1. Denne anmelder bekendt er der ikke
kommet noget andet værk siden Blackwell-udgivelsen, som præsterer en tilsvarende tekstmængde og faglig spændvidde,
og der er god grund til at tro, at det vil vare et
stykke tid, inden værket bliver overgået af endnu en museologisk antologi.
Som udgangspunkt giver strømmen af antologier imidlertid grund til at spørge, hvorfor
museologisk litteratur så ofte præsenteres i
denne genres sammenstykkede form? Ud over
de pragmatiske fordele, som byder sig til, hvilke faglige begrundelser kunne ligge bag dette
genremæssige valg i relation til den museologiske disciplin? Betegnelsen ’antologi’ kommer
af det græske antholo’gia, som egentlig betyder
’blomstersamling’, læren om noget, samling af
udvalgte digte eller litteraturprøver.1 Forestillingen om antologien som en samling eller et
museum bliver da også en bærende idé i Carbonells fremstilling og et oplagt parameter for
at vurdere bogens indhold. Ikke mindst fordi
der i herværende tilfælde er tale om en samling af allerede publicerede tekster til forskel
fra den type antologier, hvor en række forfat-
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ANMELDELSER
146
tere indbydes til at skrive nye artikler om et givet emne.
Nu kan genrebestemmelsen i sig selv næppe
anvendes til at give en udtømmende karakteristik af en publikation, men ikke desto mindre
indikerer og præger den elementære træk ved
indholdet. Her er det karakteristisk, at antologier potentielt skaber stort spillerum både for
de enkelte tekster, der indgår i ’samlingen’ og
for den eller de redaktører, der komponerer
den. Tilsvarende bekræfter Museum Studies, at
der er mulighed for at fremstille et emne bredt
og varieret og erklærer i forlængelse heraf, at
formålet er at give ’et tværsnit’ af feltets ’rige,
hybride terræn’. Faren ved antologiformen er til
gengæld, at dens potentielt ubegrænsede mulighedsskala tenderer mod det uoverskuelige eller efterlader mindre tydelige kategorier. I relation hertil er det da også oplagt, at de bedste
antologier er dem, der underlægges en klar tematisk styring eller genkendelig idé, som giver
åbenheden modspil. Forholdet er afgørende i
præsentationen af et i forvejen fagligt komplekst og tværfagligt felt som museologien.
Som moderne videnskabelig disciplin løber en
del af rødderne tilbage til 1960’ernes midteuropæiske ’traditionelle’ sociologisk og lingvistisk
inspirerede museologi, centreret omkring universitetet i Brno i det nuværende Tjekkiet. Fra
begyndelsen var det tværfaglige præg fremherskende, hvor stadig flere bidrag fra forskellige
fagdiscipliner føjede definitioner, teorier, metoder og genstandsområder til museologien.
Hybriditeten samt det forhold, at museologien som formel videnskabelig metode er af nyere dato, kan være plausible årsager til, at museologisk faglige værker ofte har fået en udpræget
kakofonisk karakter. I indledningen til Museum
Studies hedder det, at museologiens tværfaglige
præg i nyere tid især har været inspireret af litterære tilgange og af de britiske cultural studies-
traditioner, hvor sidstnævnte i sig selv kombinerer historiske, sociologiske og idéhistoriske
input. Desuden søges museologiens tværfaglige
art også understreget i bogen ved hjælp af en tematisk disponering af bogens 51 tekster (artikler, konferenceoplæg, digte, katalogtekster
mv.), som inddeler disse i fem hovedafsnit. Det
første afsnit reflekterer museumsbegrebet generelt og på det mest overordnede teoretiske niveau. Andet afsnit omhandler museet og naturvidenskaberne; det tredje museet og nationen;
det fjerde vedrører de kulturhistoriske museer,
mens det afsluttende kapitel fortrinsvist beskæftiger sig med kunstmuseet og kunstindustrimuseet samt præsenterer artikler med en publikumstematisk dimension.
Udgivelsens tværfaglige, tematiske opdeling
afspejler imidlertid også det forhold, at museologien gennemgående manifesterer sig parasitært: Selv om der siden 1960’erne har været
stærke tendenser til at ville selvstændiggøre museologi som videnskabsfelt, giver det i højere
grad mening, i overensstemmelse med bogens
inddeling, at anskue den som en varieret metodedannelse eller fintmasket historisk og teoretisk filter, hvorigennem forskellige videnskabsgrene (naturvidenskaben, kulturhistorien, kunsten) og et væld af problemfelter lader sig betragte. Museologien bliver m.a.o. først til, når
den knytter an til en specifik videnskabelig disciplin og fremstår heller ikke på baggrund af
tekstmaterialet i Museum Studies som et afgrænset område.
Der lægges ikke eksplicit op til en diskussion
af spørgsmålet, og selv om museet ifølge Carbonell er museologiens centrale genstandsfelt
og kan henholdes til en formel institution som
ICOM og til organisationens regler og bestemmelser, er det vanskeligt at finde en rationel begrundelse for, at museologiske metoder ikke
også rettes imod fokusområder uden for muse-
ANMELDELSER
et. En sådan udvidet betragtning giver f.eks.
mening, når ’museum’ også forstås begrebsligt,
som en idé, der på et symbolsk niveau rækker
ud over de institutioner, som omfattes af et formaliseret netværk som ICOM. Brugen af det
engelske ’museum studies’ som titel understreger fokuseringen på museet som centralt
undersøgelsesfelt, men det er påfaldende, at begreber som ’museologi’ og ’museografi’ i bogens
artikler anvendes i lige så vidt omfang, uden at
ankermanden Carbonell redegør for relationen
mellem (det institutionsfikserede) ’museum
studies’ over for (det mere abstrakte og teoretisk
repræsentative) ’museologi’.
Spørgsmålet om, hvorvidt museologien/
museum studies er et selvstændigt felt eller ej,
og hvad der er dens undersøgelsesområde, tegner sig derfor som et af bogens prægnante spor.
I forhold til flere tidligere udgivelser omkring
feltet er det egentlig nye og mest interessante i
denne sammenhæng, at antologien synliggør,
at der siden 1980’erne har føjet sig et ekstra lag
til den museologiske forskning og til det projekt, som går ud på at selvstændiggøre museologien. Det er sket, og sker fortsat, i form af en
reflekterende proces over museologiens komplekse egenart og faglige berettigelse, hvor det
imidlertid fortsat er en pointe, at museologien
kommer til sin ret som metodisk optik i relation til forskellige fagdiscipliner. Blackwell-projektet er derfor først og fremmest at se som et
udtryk for det, man kunne kalde for museologiens ’refleksive vending’, og i synliggørelsen af
denne tendens ligger måske bogens mest prisværdige indsats.
Overordnet gives en bredt vinklet fremstilling af nyere museologisk litteratur fortrinsvist
fra midtfirserne og frem til udgivelsesåret. De
nyere artikler er kombineret med et udvalg af
ældre tekster om museet og museologi fra det
18. og 19. århundrede,2 den tidlige moderne
periode og dermed fra før den tid, som bestræbte sig på at gøre først museografi, senere
museologi og senest den anglo-amerikanske
terminologi ’museum studies’ til et selvstændigt, etableret fagområde. Men hvor eksempelvis Greenberg, Ferguson & Nairnes antologi
Thinking about Exhibitions (1996) specifikt var
centreret omkring udstillingsmediet, er det som
udgangspunkt vanskeligere at udpege et centrum eller ledemotiv i Museum Studies. Indledningsvist hedder det ganske vist, at formålet
er at ’sætte museets identitet i forgrunden som
et område for kulturelle praksisser og som en
magnet for den almindelige (’average visitor’s’)
besøgendes og den professionelle kritikers respons på disse praksisser’, og at den vil undersøge ‘museets geologi’ som faktisk sted og som
idé.
Museet eller museets identitet er således udpeget som primær studiegenstand for museologien, men hermed siges der på én gang for meget og for lidt. Eftersom museumsbegrebet
rummer så mange facetter, som tilfældet er,
kunne et mere specifikt fokus have været en
hjælp og have skærpet begrundelsen for antologiens tekstudvalg. I forhold til oplægget, museologiens generelle kompleksitet og en definition af museumsbegrebet, der både udlægger
det konkret og abstrakt, som institution og idé,
er de nævnte bærende hensigter med antologien lidt vel åbne. De kriterier, som ligger til
grund for udvalget af tekster, er ikke nøjere ekspliciteret, hvilket er overraskende, eftersom de
findes. Frem for at eksistere som en klart udpeget tematik eller problemstilling, der søges belyst, kommer de snarere til udtryk efterhånden
som læsningen skrider frem, i form af et fælles
sæt af holdninger til, hvad museet og dermed
området ’museum studies’ kan defineres som.
At museologien er tværfaglig, er som nævnt generisk, ligesom museet selv er tværdisciplinært,
147
ANMELDELSER
148
og pointeringen af, at ’museum studies’ og fagområderne cultural studies og litteraturteorien/litteraturvidenskaben interessemæssigt set
overlapper, er vel også en mindre opsigtsvækkende position. Det er næppe heller den eneste;
den brede formålssætning taget i betragtning
undrer det en del, at hverken en nyere kunsthistorie eller semiotikkens indflydelse på museologien er fremhævet som tilsvarende inspirationer for metodefeltets udvikling i de seneste
to årtier.
For de museologistuderende, Museum Studies (ikke mindst qua sin titel) oplagt vil appellere
til, ville det også have været en fordel, hvis der
var givet korte begrundelser for valget af de enkelte artikler frem for de korte artikelopsummeringer, man i den foreliggende udgave præsenteres for i et forord til hvert af bogens fem
afsnit. Det kunne have tydeliggjort ideen, hvis
man havde redegjort for, hvorfor en given tekst
var vurderet enten repræsentativ for feltet eller
på anden vis væsentlig. Til gengæld bindes teksterne (for den særligt opmærksomme læser)
sammen i et net af ’short-cuts’, idet artiklerne i
flere tilfælde henviser til andre af bogens tekster, så eksempelvis Fischer (pp. 447) refererer
til Bazin (pp. 18), Bouquet (pp. 195) refererer
til Duncan (pp. 51), Looby (pp.143) refererer
til Peale (pp. 129) etc. Desuden vil det måske
kunne glæde visse læsere at finde skandinaviske
museumspraksisser omtalt, omend undtagelsesvist, in Gaby Porter pp. 104. Bogen repræsenterer således en overvejende anglo-amerikansk tekstdiskurs, som gør det klart, at forestillingen om museologiens ’mange stemmer’
må tages med et stort forbehold.
I stedet for at anlægge mere traditionelle didaktiske greb bevæger Museum Studies sig over i
en anden bane, præget af det, man bedst kan
kalde for en ’poetisk’ eller tekstlig diskurs. Tendensen kommer til udtryk på flere måder. Til
en begyndelse trækkes der direkte linier op
mellem museologien og dele af litteraturteorien, f.eks. narratologen Gérard Genettes synspunkt, at stemmen (voice) er større end ’personen’, og at undersøgelsen af (tekstens) stemme
må interessere sig for, hvordan ’fortællemåden i
sig selv er impliceret i fortælleforløbet’.3 Ifølge
Carbonell er netop ’udstillingens poetik’ og
forestillingen om ’stemme’ begreber, som dukker op i megen nyere forskning inden for museumsområdet. Der refereres endvidere til Stephen Banns brug af begrebet ’poetics’ til at beskrive forskellige strategier i museet, og det
fremgår, at flere af artiklerne repræsenterer tendensen til at betragte museumsfunderede elementer i et tekstligt, litterært eller poetisk lys.
Dette kunne med fordel have været ekspliciteret som konkret oplæg til de enkelte tekster,
men i stedet får den poetiske diskurs selv lov at
tegne antologiens struktur. Eksempelvis afsluttes hvert af de fem afsnit med en ’meditation’,
uden at det fremgår, hvorfor disse tekster skulle
besidde egenskaber, som gør dem mere ’meditative’ end andre af antologiens bidrag, og hvor
begrebet meditation i den erklærede videnskabelige sammenhæng virker fejlplaceret.
I denne poesiens og narrationens ’ånd’ optræder museet metaforisk for tekstsamlingen:
Antologiens form fremstiller også de udvalgte
tekster selv som genstande i samlingen eller udstillingen (’the group exhibition’). Men hvor
det, der beskrives som en poetisk tendens op
igennem 1980’erne og 1990’erne, tilførte udstillingsmediet nye erkendelsesformer, hvor
museumsgenstande i højere grad blev udstillet
på øjets og kroppens præmisser, synes det at
være en langt vanskeligere øvelse at overføre en
tilsvarende diskurs til den videnskabeligt formidlende teksts niveau. Eftersom ’museologi’
kan bestemmes som det reflekterede lag, der på
teoretiske og analytiske betingelser og med et
ANMELDELSER
uddannelsesmæssigt, oplysende sigte for øje
problematiserer og undersøger aspekter ved
museet, betjener museologien sig af et andet
medium end den rumlige iscenesættelse, nemlig teksten eller litteraturen. Den ejer som bekendt andre koder og meddelelsesmuligheder
end udstillingsmediet, og her ligger i grunden
et problem for såvel museologiens ’poetiske’
tendens som for Museum Studies som belærende projekt. Idet der gøres status over for en særlig tendens, undlader projektet at stille sig kritisk an. Derved overses, tilsigtet eller ej, de forskelle, der kendetegner disse forskellige medier
og egenartede karakteristika, som knytter sig til
henholdsvis samlingens og tekstens univers, det
materielle vs. det immaterielle, det rumlige vs.
det lineære, det samtidige vs det fortløbende.
Forestillingen om museets tekstlige art kommer også direkte til udtryk i valget af artikler.
Bl.a. i en af antologiens første artikler, Paula
Findlens ‘The Museum. Its Classical Etymology and Renaissance Genealogy’, som omhandler forholdet mellem tekst og museum fortrinsvist i renæssancens tidlige samlinger: Museet
var fra antikken og jf. den græske klassiske udlægning ‘musernes sted’, og som Findlen beskriver det, refererer ’muse’ også etymologisk
set til et græsk ord, som betyder ’at forklare
mysterier’ samt til biblioteket i Alexandria forskningscentret og mødestedet for verdens
lærde, forskere og studerende.4 Ud over det faktiske ’sted’ gør Findlen rede for museet som
mental kategori og for samlingen som en kognitiv aktivitet, som kunne approprieres med sociale og kulturelle formål. Og endelig for museet som tekstlig struktur: For renæssancens samlere fungerede de som referencesteder for den
læsning og læring, datidens humanistiske uddannelses- og dannelsesideal gjorde krav på hos
en intellektuel elite. Tekstsamlingen, ’kompendiet’ var i sig selv et ’museum’, kopier af andre
originale tekster, som for længst var forsvundet.
Samlingen og teksten mødtes i museumsbegrebet og i en besættelse af samlingens størrelse,
antallet af ’facts’ og deres orden i det encyklopædiske system.
Det kan virke oplagt, at Findlens tekst bruges som et greb til at underbygge Museum Studies’ ’encyklopædiske’ form og synspunktet om
museologiens narrative tendens. Den idé, der
ligger til grund for 2004-antologien relateret til
nutidige tekstlige, litterære tendenser i museologien repræsenterer dog et senmoderne tankesæt, som af komplekse historiske grunde adskiller den markant fra de ting- og tekstophobninger, der ligger til grund for Findlens undersøgelser. Det er m.a.o., om nutidige tendenser
overhovedet kan relateres til og underbygges
ved udviklinger, der fandt deres egne karakteristiske udtryk i det 16. og 17. århundredes tidlige samlinger, et greb, Findlen selv undlader at
tage.
Antologien imiterer ligeledes den poetisk, litterære tendens i museologien, idet den opstiller
en ’alternativ taksonomi’ af artiklerne, en anden orden end den først angivne, som rubricerer dem under andre overskrifter. Spørgsmålet
om klassifikation og orden, der jo er fundamentalt for museumsbegrebet, fremstilles således som arbitrært: Tekster kan (i lighed med
genstande) klassificeres enten som henhørende
til den ene kategori eller til den anden. Måske
er det knapt så overraskende, at der ville kunne
findes andre rubriceringsmåder, uden at dette i
øvrigt ville ændre grundlæggende ved indholdet i de enkelte tekster. Det synes mere interessant, at Museum Studies i kraft af den alternative taksonomi i sit formelle udgangspunkt signalerer, at klassifikationssystemer er af ustabil,
foranderlig karakter, konstruerede og relativt
bestemte. Opstillingen af den alternative taksonomi er ikke tilfældig. Også i en lang række af
149
ANMELDELSER
150
de valgte artikler er forskellige former for relativistiske synsmåder styrende for fremstillingen
af museet.
Det gælder f.eks. Gaby Porters artikel ’Seeing
Through Solidity. A Feminist Perspective on
Museums’. Heri har Porter som udgangspunkt
det meget påskønnelsesværdige sigte at diskutere og målrettet forsøge at overføre teoretiske
perspektiver til museernes praksisarbejde. Til
hjælp, vil hun ’undgå at appellere til biologien
og essensen, men dog kæmpe for at bevare en
idé om det feminine, som altid og kun er abstrakt og positionelt’ og vil til det formål tage
‘poststrukturalistiske og dekonstruktivistiske
metoder’ i brug. Desuden retter Porter en skarp
kritik af ’mange museumsmedarbejdere’ som
’tror, at the real thing, som de arbejder med, bærer indre, essentielle og universelle sandheder,
’materielle facts’; ydermere kritiseres empirismen for at være en retning, der udelukkende
positionerer sig som åbenlys, selvfølgelig og
neutral og regner enhver form for teori for forvrængende og unødvendig.5
Mens tilsidesættelsen af enhver form for materiel ’nødvendighed’, empirismekritik og kritik af essentielle værdier efterhånden synes en
anelse fortidige og dekonstruktive i en grad, der
grænser til det betonagtige, er Porters skildringer af, hvordan teori kan appliceres på museal
praksis, mere interessante og givende.
Aflysningen af materielle facts, empirisme og
alt, hvad der overhovedet måtte nærme sig en
form for erklæret stabilitet og substans, kommer også til udtryk i flere andre af bogens artikler i en grad, der giver belæg for at udpege en
anden ledetråd gennem teksterne og belysningen af museets identitet foruden den tidligere
nævnte ’poetiske’ tendens eller måske som et videre aspekt heraf.6 Således er selve spørgsmålet
om repræsentation fremherskende, måske fordi
den ustabilitet mange af forfatterne kredser
omkring, kommer særligt tydeligt til udtryk i
udstillingsmediets evne til at betone skiftende
sider af genstandes betydning, men paradoksalt
nok også fordi genstande besidder den fysikalitet og stabilitet, de nyere teoretiske tendenser i
museologien underminerer. Lidt mere overordnet kommer tendensen til syne i opfattelsen af,
at museet i perioden frem imod årtusindskiftet
er kendetegnet ved at være i ’forandring’.
Udsagnet belyses bl.a. i artiklen ’The Museum Refuses to Stand Still’ af den britiske museumsmand og industrihistoriker Kenneth
Hudson, som i sit livslange virke fremhævede
publikumspositionen som særlig relevant for
museumsfeltet. I midten af 1990’erne deltog
Hudson i en museumskonference i USA, hvor
han bed mærke i følgende udtalelse: ’Da jeg var
dreng kunne jeg altid kende et museum, når jeg
så et. Nu er jeg ikke altid sikker’. Gennem de
sidste halvtreds år har museet, ifølge Hudson,
forvandlet sig til ukendelighed i forhold til det
museum, der var engang, og hvis form og indhold, der i højere grad eksisterede en konsensus
omkring. Museet har altid undergået forandring og ’nægtet at stå stille’, men som institution har det tidligere været genkendeligt på en
måde, som ikke længere var gældende fra
1980erne. I det nye museum blev museumsgæster til ’forbrugere’, besøgende, som kræver
service og ’brugervenlighed’.
At museerne medtænker modtageren i museumssammenhæng er for perioden, jf. Hudson, et afgørende nyt træk, der adskiller vor tids
museer fra den tid, hvor besøgende (sjældent i
så stort et antal) kom for at se, undre sig og beundre det, der var stillet frem for dem. I dag er
udstillinger rettet mod særlige målgrupper, der
på demokratisk vis, gennem interaktivitet og
moderne tekniske faciliteter eller ved reel deltagelse i forudgående planlægning ofte har medindflydelse på udstillingen. Dertil kommer, at
ANMELDELSER
museets interessefelter er ekspanderet (alt kan
potentielt komme på museum), der skelnes i
mindre grad mellem museum og udstilling, og
grænserne for hvilke emner og discipliner, der
kan sammenstilles under museets stadig mere
bredskyggede hat nedbrydes fortsat. At museet
ændrer sig, er ifølge ovenstående et elementært
kendetegn ved institutionen, men de forandringer, museet har undergået i nyere tid, nødvendiggør en stadig tilbagevenden til definitionen af museumsbegrebet.
Er den litterære diskurs et spor gennem Museum Studies, kunne forestillingen om museets
paradigmatiske skift ind i en ny fase med fordel
have været udråbt til et andet. Hudsons iagttagelser vinder genklang i ’Fracturing the Imperial Mind’, en artikel af Eleanor Heartney om
den tyske kunstner Hans Haackes subjektive og
kritisk kuraterede iscenesættelse af genstande
og kunstværker på Victoria & Albert Museum
skabt i et samarbejde med Serpentine Gallery i
London og kurator Lisa Corrin. Med det formål at belyse, hvordan en national institution
har været medskaber af en særlig ’æstetisk historie og national identitet’,7 kommer også Heartney frem til, om end på et museologisk refleksivt niveau, at såvel historien som museet selv,
kontinuerligt må udsætte sig selv for ’genforhandling’.
Genforhandlingen og den selvrefleksion det
indebærer i relation til at udforske og udvikle
museets art og position som kulturel praksis,
viser sig dermed som et gennemgående træk i
bogen. Ud over at melde sig som et karakteristikum ved museologien i den periode, hvoraf
teksterne er vokset frem, er det måske væsentligere, at tendensen ansporer til, at læseren selv
iværksætter ’museums-studier’ eller andre teoretiske betragtninger over, hvordan de her optrukne spor kommer til syne og problematiseres: det litterære/poetiske, museets paradigma-
tiske skift fra 1980’erne og frem, samt forestillingen om at museet og museologien er til stående genforhandling. På den måde gives der ud
fra det foreliggende materiale rig mulighed for,
at man som læser påbegynder en selvstændig –
eller i samråd med andre – kritisk ’genforhandling’ af museet og museumsbegrebet, og endelig giver mange af teksterne også anledning til
at tænke ud over bogens erklærede problemfelt.
Det er i sig selv et godt udgangspunkt for at
tage nye greb med museologien eller museum
studies, sådan som feltet fortsat gør krav på.
NOTER
1. Salmonsens konversationsleksikon.
2. Eksempelvis Peale 1792, Agasiz 1863, Hinsley
1846, Robinson 1857, Boas 1887.
3. Oversat fra citat in Findlen pp. 5, ’the way narrating itself is implicated in the narrative’.
4. Findlen refererer her til opslaget ’Musée’ i Encyclopédie X (1765) pp. 893-94, af Chevalier de
Jaucourt.
5. Porter pp. 106.
6. Se f.eks. Duncan and Wallach pp. 51; Preziosi
pp. 71; Bouquet pp. 193; Greenblatt pp. 541.
7. Heartney pp. 247.
Line Hjorth Christensen. Cand. mag. i Moderne kultur og kulturformidling. Ph.d., Afdeling
for kunsthistorie, Institut for Æstetiske Fag,
Aarhus Universitet, DK.
Adresse: Århus Plads 2,2. tv.,
2100 København Ø.
E-mail: [email protected]
151
FORFATTERVEJLEDNING
152
PROFIL
Nordisk Museologi udgives som et forum for
teoretisk, aktuel og kritisk debat inden for det
nordiske museums- og kulturarvsområde og
beskæftiger sig med kulturarvens mangfoldige
aspekter af musealiseringsproblematikker. Redaktionen bestræber sig på at indbyde forfattere fra forskellige fag og institutioner og med
forskellige tilgange til hele feltet.
REFEREE-TIDSSKRIFT
Fra 2006 nr. 1 benytter Nordisk Museologi
sig af en ekstern referee-ordning i vurderingen
af tidsskriftets hovedartikler. Referee-udtalelsen er anonym, det vil sige at referees identitet ikke er artiklens forfatter bekendt, og at
referee-udtalelsen udelukkende er en sag mellem referee og tidsskriftets redaktion. Det er
redaktionen, der forestår al korrespondance
med forfatteren af artiklen.
SPROG
Tidsskriftets sprog er dansk, norsk og svensk.
Islandske og finske forfattere må undtagelsesvis gerne indsende artikler på engelsk eller på
et af de nævnte skandinaviske sprog.
MANUSKRIPT. OMFANG, ABSTRACT
OG KEYWORDS
Artikler må max. fylde 8.000 ord og indsendes med dobbelt linjeafstand. Teksten leveres
som attachement via e-post eller som diskette/CD. I forbindelse med artikler medsendes
et resumé/abstract på max. 150 ord sammen
med 5-10 nøgleord/keywords som placeres
forrest i artiklen. For at undgå merarbejde
med redigeringsdelen bør den digitale tekst
være opsat efter følgende regler:
1. Der bør ikke foretages orddeling.
2. Kursivering (ikke understregning) anvendes for betoning af et ord eller en mening.
3. Andre typer af grafiske effekter markeres
på den tilsendte udskrift.
4. Indrykning udføres med tabulator.
5. Der anvendes tal til noter, og tallene efterfølges af et punktum og et tabulatorskift.
Noterne samles på en særskilt side efter artiklen.
6. Artikel, noter, litteraturliste og forfatterdata placeres i nævnte rækkefølge.
7. Afsnit i teksten markeres med overskrifter.
LITTERATUR
Reference i selve teksten angives med forfatteren/erne og trykår, fx (Hudson 1975: 213).
Referencen henviser dermed til den alfabetisk
ordnet litteraturliste efter artiklen. Bidragsydere bedes være omhyggelig med sammenhæng mellem referencer og litteraturlisten og
bedes undgå at medtage litteratur, som der
ikke refereres til eller benyttes i selve artiklen.
Litteraturliste kan opstilles på følgende vis:
Hudson, Kenneth: A Social History of Museums. Macmillan: London 1975. Hvis det er
en artikel, opstilles den på denne måde: Mads
Daugbjerg: De gode gamle dage genoplivet.
Nordisk Museologi. Nr 1, 2005: 3-14.
KORREKTUR
Forslag til abstract bliver sprogligt efterset af