"La función de los museos en pequeñas localidades" . Autor: Tomislaw Sola.

Museums and Social Commitment How should museums behave in small places

(La funció dels museus en localitats menudes)

Tomislav Šola

Valencia 25. Feb. 2015

ALL THE VISUAL MATERIAL IS USED ONLY FOR THE LECTURING WITHIN THE HERITAGE

PROFESSION AS A NON-PROFIT SECTOR

AND CANNOT BE USED PUBLICLY

http://wallpaper-s.org/42_~_Heaven's_Rays.htm

0.

ME


Read manuals for the job and books for the profession.

MNEMOSOPHY

An essay on the science

of public memory

T. S. Sola

Searching for the

publisher

Any Professor of Heritology or

Mnemosophy is a geek:

Architecture, History of Art,

English language, Journalism,

Museology (with G.H. Riviere and

K. Hudson), “own” conference...

Here are some general

statements:

© Tomislav Šola, 2007/2012

......................

• Museums are about present.

• Museums are working for democratic insight and

understanding of the world.

• Museology (-ography) is theory of museum practice.

• Museums are also scientific institutions.

• Object do not make a museum; they only form a

collection; there can be museums without objects or even

without collections and museums without a building.

• Curatorship is not a profession but can be part of one.

• Collections, instititutions and knowledge are not the

objectives but means.

• PMIs form public memory sector: like public health,

public education etc.

• There is a science of public memory.

• Public memory profession is appearing.


• ....................

• There cannot be a recipe for any creative work.

• Changing the mindset is the condition of successful

change.

• Tell YOUR story.

• Celebrate your specificity.

• Know the identity (that you are in the charge of) better

than anybody.

• Success consists of solutions to the needs.

• Solution to wants is not our business.

• Study ecomuseum paradigm.

• Heritage as cybernetics in social project/contract &

working for the welfare state

• A guarantee of success: talent, creativeness, devotion,

honesty, professional education

Read manuals for the job and books for the

profession.© Tomislav Šola, 2007/2012

1.

WORLD


To understand

the actual world

as it is,

not as we should wish

it to be,

is the beginning of

wisdom.

Decadence of public

intellectuals

observation capsule

ENDLESS TAKING BRINGS MISERY AND RAGE

GLOBALISATION

2.

UNDERSTANDING

CONCEPTS


The museologists

1. Recognize

2. Collect

3. Restore

4. Care

5. Exhibit

3 “C”

1. Research

2. Bringing the life back

3. Revive the context

4. Communicate the values

5. Choose the values the

piano stands for

6. Use piano as art of

memory item

There is nothing so practical

as the good theory.

Kurt Zadek Lewin, 1951

MNEMOSOPHIA

Mneme = Memory

Sophia = Wisdom

Science of Public Memory, - selected, understood and used as social wisdom

Tomislav Šola, 1987.

Total heritage

PM domain

Museums

Archives

Monumentsand sites

Knowledgebases

networks

DB systems

Privatelyowned

heritage

Living heritage

Libraries

The forgotten whole of heritage

or the public memory domain


Wisdom

as quality,

noble

memory

of the past

Heritage

profession

Culture

Industries

Concept of the integrity of heritage

© T.Šola, 1986/2002/2013.

Public memory

sector

Collective

memory

Social memory

sector

Everyday social reality

3.

THE PROFESSION


The Reformist Manifesto

MUSEUMS HAVE ALWAYS

ANALYSED THE WORLD,

WHEREAS THE POINT IS

HOW TO CHANGE IT

i.e. how to serve the world towards the harmonious continuity and survival.

© Tomislav Šola, University of Zagreb, 1989.

Public memory institutions

are not

about preserving past.

They are about

change and continuity.

All the rest

is either circumstance

or means towards this.

© Tomislav Šola, 2008.

Knowing problems – Finding solutions

1. Educate voters

2. Inform and train consumers

3. Inform and inspire true travelling

4. Educate for hedonism and taste

5. Inspire, inform entrepreneurs

6. Educate family members

7. Educate society members

8. Reveal values of professionalism

9. Support ethics of quality and harmony

10. Present beauty, virtues and taste

1. Political illiteracy

2. Manipulated consumers

3. Aimless wanderers’ culture

4. Uncritical, indifferent consumption

5. Lack of inventiveness, unemployment

6. Poor quality of family life

7. Lack of social discipline, solidarity

8. Lack of criteria in evaluation of services

9. Rudeness and imbalance, violence

10. Ugliness, teach beauty and virtues

Historia est magistra vitae. (???)

© T.Šola, 2007/2015

CAN YOU CONCEIVE ANYTHING IN EQUAL SPIRIT ?

…like revealing to people their identity in the real time ?

When you cannot miss?

4.

WHAT CAN WE DO?


Museums are about change

Seven advices

for a quality museum institution

1. Contemporaneous, as to deal with real time, real people, real problems; offeringan overview and insight into the reality

2. Versatile, as to be open, dynamic, accessible, quick in reaction to the changedcircumstances, communicational

3. Wise, so that it offers knowledge, inspiration, enriches the experiences and becomes a help in living by creating sensibility and understanding

4. Useful, so as to contribute to the wisdom necessary for the balanced development; make the users better and ennobled;

5. Effective so as to make a museum (HI) able to create information, messages, knowledge and wisdom in a persuasive and usable way, with immediate consequences upon attitudes and behaviour

6. Comfortable so that it cares for the comfort of the users to be a pleasant, encouraging environment for the exchange of values

7. Honest, so that employees know who is the “owner” of the museum, and that the museum stands for common values and contributes to common good

© T.Šola, IV / 2001

Innovative answers

may redefine collecting….

• Socially: whose past we document and communicate?

• Politically: whose interests are reflected in collections

• Conceptually: product or process? object or concept? Far past or immediate past included?

• Proprietary: who is the interested owner?

• Communicationally: in character and spread

• Professionally: participation and distribution as policy of the total museum

• Organisationaly: co-ordination, pools, re-distribution

• Intentive: final use of the material (type of exhibition or activity)

© Tomislav Sola 2007/14

….from treasure to interpretive inventory ?

But, how do you help population which hears no more

their own ancestors ?

• Find their ancestors

• Select wise ones

(and use bad ones to demonstrate the criteria)

• Breath in the life into the wise

• Be yourself the wise mediator

• Let them speak and advise

• Use science and procedures of your trade to

assure responsibility and relevance

© T.Šola, IV / 2001/2013

The MMoAA parked the the Union Square Farmers’ Market in Somerville, MA

“The tinniest museum in the world”, Kapele, Slovenia, 1999.

Concept and design Tomislav Šola

Innovation

……. is a new idea, device, or method, BUT…

• We like innovation that can be bought like a device (machines,

equipment = technology; Museography)

• We also like innovation that that can be trained (managerial

techniques; formal knowledge)

• We less like innovation that requires education,possible change

of attitudes, new understanding, different sensitivity, change of

mind or worldview…- metanoia.

© Tomislav Šola, 2014

• Will museums, like art, music, literature and theatres and be on our side (and be beloved for that)?

• Truth and beauty are the names of excellence.

• Intellectuals and public institutions have largely betrayed citizens.

• We stand for our community

• We can make the world a better place.

© Tomislav Sola 2014

Musée combatant ?

......and saying NO to the masters of chaos

5.

MAIN POINTS


The qualities of democratic society

i.e. of social humanity

Equal chances

Humanist ethics

Objective information

Free knowledge

Free social security

Respect for ancestral heritage

Respect for nature


The meaning of heritage

is the wisdom usable

for quality of life

(provided by the cybernetic

counter-action )

General solutions

• Harmonized PM sector (legislation, network)

• Spaces of functional synergy

• Set of original, innovative, international activities, events

and institutions

• Network of micro-museums

• Obligatory, innovative, education for PM sector

• Contributing to world’s heritage movement

© Tomislav Sola, 2014

Culture and heritagecan contribute

to prosperity

by

promoting and generating

CIVIC AND SOCIAL LITERACY

because

the main condition of prosperity

is undisturbed,

own peace

and real democracy

© Tomislav Sola, 2005

Societal project / social contract

The age of museums

was the age of subdoing,

of conquest

and of taking.

The age of heritage

is that of recognition,

of returning

and of giving.


Giving is the clue:

the giving back, contributing, sharing, giving

away…

• Return what does not belong to you

• Return to the places where the collections come from

• See what you can do in reinforcing or sustaining the

value systems they belonged to.

• Be a pace-maker to dying hearts of identity.

• Do not resurect anything: leave it to the industries of

heritage, entertainment and tourism.


Mith about Siziphus only means

that our ideal goals will always remain

in front of us, - nothing else!

Can we change the world?

CREO QUE PODEMOS

©Tomislav Šola, 2014

24 - 26 2015

Gràcies i ens veiem a Dubrovnik!

Gracias y nos vemos en Dubrovnik!


"La función de los museos en pequeñas localidades" . Autor: Tomislaw Sola.

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Transcript of "La función de los museos en pequeñas localidades" . Autor: Tomislaw Sola.