According to sociologists, such as Anthony Giddens and others, modernity is characterized by its reflexivity. Here is a self-reflexive museum for you: the Cité de Sciences in Parc de la Villette, Paris, reflecting itself in the silver dome of its own IMAX movie theatre. To be honest, I was a bit underwhelmed by the science centre – but the park was nice

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This is #6 of the Museum Pics of the Week. Please come back in (about) a week to see the next one. Or follow me on Google+.

Today I attended the conference ”Sharing is caring – digital cultural heritage for all”. Lots of interesting presentations and discussions about how museums can – and should – use digital media, to make their collections more accessible, and to turn their audience into participants.

To do this we of course have to overcome technical obstacles. But probably even more organizational and even mental obstacles. And then there are all the issues raised by copyright and digital rights management. During the discussions of concepts such as Creative Commons and Public Domain, I got a sense of déjà vu. Suddenly it occurred to me: the museum as institution is inherently Public Domain.

Following Krzysztof Pomian,  a museum can be defined as a collection of natural or cultural objects
taken out of utilitarian circulation, placed under special protection and made
accessible to the public. Collections are nothing new in history. But the museum is not just a collection – it is a public collection. The museum, in a modern sense, does not belong to any individual – it belongs to an association, a public authority or the state. The private collection is a subjective endeavour, the public museum is inter-subjective. The museum has durability, independent of a human life span.

Museum visitor and future democratic citizen

The museum has its roots in the era of enlightenment and absolutism. But it acquired its present meaning with the formation of the bourgeois nation state. The museum, as we know it today, is closely connected with the concept of democracy: On one hand, it’s an element in the gradual recognition of the universal human rights to education and cultural fulfilment. On the other hand, the museum is also a vehicle for infusing national sentiments into the citizens, the new subjects of history, and to legitimate the nation-state.

The modern museum rests on the hope, that by looking at the objects – the left-over’s from history – in a certain, scientific way, it is possible to get behind their surface, and gain a deeper understanding of their original context, which we are otherwise separated from in time or space. This is the informative purpose of the museum.

But another, less obvious, but in reality equally important purpose of the modern museum, is
the formative one: through our relationship with the objects – whether this relationship takes the form of identification or alienation – we form an image of ourselves as individuals and collectives. The formative
role is a result of the simple fact that the museum does not exist in a time warp, but in its own historical context.

Thus, the role of the museum is twofold: it is on the one hand, created for information and understanding, and thus inherently retrospective. In the other hand, it’s created for forming society, and thus inherently oriented towards the present and the future.

The liberal bourgeoisie of the 19th century fully understood this. They build museums in order to be able to mobilize cultural history for their own political project: the museums were the piles of foundation, which bourgeois society hammered into the soil of history. And in a sense there is a parallel between representative democracy and the museum. In representative democracy, there are elections for parliament with regular intervals, but between elections decision-making is the sole prerogative of the politicians. In the same way, society employs museum professionals – not by election, though, but by an intellectual process of elimination – and once employed, interpretation of the past is the sole prerogative of the museum professionals.

Concepts such as web 2.0., social media, crowd-sourcing, etc. is challenging this concept of the museum. The challenge, however, is not new. It has been there for at least 50 years, if not more. An example:

Claims have been made, that it is no coincidence that the youth rebellion so far has totally ignored the museums. They are perceived (…) as repositories for left-over’s from previous societies, and simply not worth the effort.
It is undeniably true that museums are repositories - but they could be much more than that. (…) Exactly because the museums are dealing with all other societies than that, in which we actually live, they could become arsenals, from which arguments could be gathered for criticism of the present; points of departure for new ways of living

These are not the utopian reflections of some radical socialist. It’s a passage in an official report on cultural politics, published by the liberal-conservative Danish government in 1969. It’s not digital media that has put the participatory museum on the agenda. It is a change of political environment, which has made old concepts of citizenship gradually more and more obsolete.

What digital media has done is providing us with new, powerful tool, in our effort to realise the participatory museum. It’s no strange thing, that the museum community is excited about the new possibilities. We should use them to the maximum extent. But we should also realize that we are heading into a process, which is not only about changing the way museums disseminate knowledge and communicate with their audience. It is also a process, which has the potential of changing the formative role of the museum. We need to reflect on this and discuss the role of museums in society, just us as much as we need to discuss open API’s.

Who knows: just as museums in the 19^th century acted as vehicles for bourgeois democracy, the participatory museum of the 21^st century might be a vehicle for a new, even broader vision of democracy – a participatory democracy. Realising that the museum is inherently Public Domain – and should stay so, also in digital media – might be just a start.

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Note: The argument is inspired by Krzysztof Pomian: ”Museet: Europas kvintessens”. Den jyske Historiker, nr. 64, 1993. (Sorry, but I’m not aware of an English version).

Vaserely was born in Hungary, but lived most of his life in France, so it’s not surprising that his museum is to be found in Aix-en-Provence. Even if you’re not into op-art – which I’m not particularly – the building and the artwork form a fascinating gesamtkunstwerk. I like this particular picture, because of the relation of the persons to the strict geometry of the building – and because of their relation to me, since they happen to be my family

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This is #5 of the Museum Pics of the Week. Please come back in (about) a week to see the next one. Or follow me on Google+.

This is the sort of museum, which most museum professionals scorn. What you see in the picture are probably the only real objects in the Museum of the partisans in Dongo, Italy – the rest are faded photo copies. The texts are in Italian only, and there is dust in every corner. By its subject, this modest little museum, however, is as important as any national gallery. It’s about the actual place where Mussolini was caught, sentenced and executed by partisans – thus finally ending the despicable era of Italian fascism. In a world where neo-fascists can become respectable members of government, we should not criticise those, who strive to keep the public memory of these important events alive, for not doing it well enough. Let’s criticise the Italian state and museum professionals for neglecting their effort.

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This is #4 of the Museum Pics of the Week. Please come back in a week to see the next one. Or follow me on Google+.

What’s in a life? Well, medicine, for instance. Like in this fascinating installation by Pharmacopoeia in British Museum. It shows the number of pills, swallowed through lifetime, by too different persons – supplemented by pictures, letters and other reminiscences of their lives. A moving and thought-provoking cross-over between art and ethnography.

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This is #3 of the Museum Pics of the Week. Please come back in a week to see the next one. Or follow me on Google+.

Gazing through a replica of one of Tycho Brahes instruments on the island of Ven. The Tycho Brahe museum is not necessarily exceptional, but it’s nice and easy going – like the rest of this small island, which is sort of a condensed version of any tourist’s dream of the Swedish countryside. Take the ferry for a daytrip around midsummer – but watch out for the yellow bikes.

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This is #2 of the Museum Pics of the Week. Please come back in a week to see the next one. Or follow me on Google+.

This woman is without doubt the most iconic of all museum objects. Ever. Period. We all know her from innumerable reproductions.
Maybe that’s why we feel such an urge to make our own, personal reproduction, when we get close to her in real life? I reproduce, therefore I exist….
I made my reproduction at the Louvre, Paris.

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This is #1 of the Museum Pics of the Week. Please come back in a week to see the next one. Or follow me on Google+.

D. 24.08. skriver Politiken igen om sikringen på Nationalmuseet. Det fremhæves bl.a., at der fremover vil være færre vagter i museets afdeling i Brede. Det er skidt. Men sikringen er desværre ikke det eneste offer for museets skrantende økonomi. I Brede findes også Nationalmuseets nyeste, faste udstilling, Brede Værk. I den gamle tekstilfabrik fortæller vi om det danske industrisamfunds historie. Her kan man se fabrikkens arbejdere og direktør komme til live i en interaktiv film, midt mellem de store tekstilmaskiner. Man kan prøve arbejdet ved samlebåndet på sin egen krop. Man kan se eksempler på hvordan industrialiseringen forandrede vores hverdag. Og til sidst kan man gi’ sit eget besyv med om industrisamfundets nutid og fremtid – en højst aktuel problemstilling.

Denne store udstilling er kun blevet til virkelighed, fordi velvillige fonde har bevilget et tocifret millionbeløb til etableringen. Driften skal derimod dækkes af museets faste bevilling. Men museet skal spare, så fra starten er åbningstiden indskrænket. Efterfølgende er der afsat et rundt 0 til markedsføring – med det resultat, at publikum udebliver fra en udstilling de aldrig har hørt om. Men så slipper de da for at opdage, at cafeen og butikken nu også er faldet som de seneste ofre for besparelserne.

Nationalmuseet har én million besøgende, plus de mange der følger os på nettet, læser vores publikationer, osv. De forventer kulturhistorisk formidling på et højt fagligt niveau, men også et museum som gør fortiden relevant for nutiden og fremtiden. Det knokler museets mange engagerede medarbejdere dagligt for at leve op til. Desværre må vi opleve, at opgaven bliver sværere og sværere at løfte. Stadig mere tid går med at flytte rundt på de sparsomme midler for at lappe de værste huller. Og som i tilfældet Brede Værk oplever vi, at vores arbejdsindsats undergraves af nye sparekrav.

Museet må selv prioritere, lyder standardsvaret fra politikerne, når de konfronteres med konkrete følger af nedskæringerne. Det kan museet også godt. Eksempelvis kan vi prioritere at holde sikkerheden helt i top. Det vil så blot kræve, at vi skærer endnu mere ned på andre aktiviteter, som f.eks. at udvikle og drive nye og engagerende udstillinger.

Nationalmuseet er nået til det punkt, hvor der ikke blot skæres ind til, men også ind i benet. Diskussionen bør derfor ikke kun handle snævert om sikkerheden på museet. Den bør handle om hele Nationalmuseets fremtid. Skal Danmark fortsat have et Nationalmuseum, som er levende, engageret og relevant for nutidens publikum? Eller skal museet skrue ned for ambitionerne, nedprioritere forskning og formidling, men til gengæld sikre fortiden et trygt liv på lukkede magasiner? Vi kan levere begge dele – men ikke til samme pris.

(Oprindeligt bragt som debatindlæg i dagbladet Politiken d. 25.08.2011. Dagen efter fulgte Politiken op med dette interview)

It is only about 4 years ago, that Deutsches Auswandererhaus was opened as a museum of emigration, in the port of Bremerhaven. A visit to the museum allows you to follow in the footsteps of the emigrants: from the impressive re-creation of a pier with steamship ready to be boarded, through the steerages and cabins of the ships to the landing at Ellis Island, New York.

With the use of an active ticket you will also be able to follow the destiny of a selected emigrant. And in the beautiful “archive-room” you will learn about reasons for emigration in different periods, as well as be able to look into the file cabinets for histories of real emigrants.

Should you happen to be in the vicinity, the emigration museum is definitely worth a detour.