Nordisk Museologi

Preface

2023-12-27T17:31:38+01:00

Rematriation as museum practice

2023-12-27T18:24:45+01:00

This article discusses repatriation and rematriation linked to museum practice. A number of return projects are taking place both nationally and internationally. Former colonial powers and nation-states thereby take responsibility for oppressed colonial objects, and indigenous peoples are gaining access to their own cultural heritage. In a decolonization perspective, ownership of one’s own cultural heritage is important. But what does that mean in practice? The board game sáhkku is used as an example of how cultural heritage can be activated when the community of origin has access to an object and the intangible knowledge linked to the use of the object. By being actively used, objects are rematriated in their context of origin in a new age. In this way, the object and the knowledge about it take on a new meaning. Theoretically, the philosopher Ricoeur’s perspectives on narrative identity are used, which implies that identity is the result of an interpretation process and that access to cultural expressions is crucial for the individual’s opportunity to shape their identity.

Facts and imagination – the uses of history and the credibility of museums

2023-12-27T18:43:09+01:00

This article discusses a somewhat controversial exhibition at the UNESCO World Heritage Site Kronborg Castle in Elsinore, The Royal Series at Kronborg Castle – Facts and Imagination with Jim Lyngvild and Poul Grinder- Hansen, which opened at Kronborg Castle in April 2021. The authors contributed to the exhibition’s content and form, Signe Lykke Littrup as curator and project manager, senior researcher Poul Grinder-Hansen as historical co-creator of the exhibition’s content in text, speech, and film. The article is built around experiences from the exhibition, methodological and theoretical considerations about its communication skills and quotes from interviews with guests who visited the exhibition in the summer and autumn of 2021. The article concludes that a cultural-historical exhibition can, through the conscious use of both contemporary and ancient works of art in a dialogue-based form, involve guests and create considerations about the conditions for the uses of the past in storytelling.

The Sound of Authenticity

2023-12-27T19:09:20+01:00

From 2020 to 2022 Struer Museum in collaboration with academics from Aarhus University worked on the implementation of a soundscape for the historical house of author Johannes Buchholtz. The task was to make a historic soundscape that enhances the visitor experience without interfering with the authentic feeling of the house itself. It is argued that producing soundscapes for historical houses is made difficult partly by their defined settings and partly by demands for historization. By adopting an approach inspired by R. Murray Schafer’s acoustic design and thoughts of constructivist authenticity we produced a soundscape that was less restricted by historicizing thereby making it more flexible and better suited for enhancing visitor experience. We suggest that this is one way to engage more museums in the production of soundscapes for historical houses and discuss the experiences we made in the process.

Museums as Deathscapes

2023-12-27T19:29:28+01:00

The museum is very often equivalent to a place that is filled with objects and references to human death. Accordingly, this article aims at bringing greater clarity into some of the precautions taken by museums when they choose to expose what can be considered as a highly sensitive matter, namely human remains. Put differently, the scope of the text concerns how museums deal with the task of displaying the dead in public. How do they act in order to facilitate the actual display, and at the same time minimize the risk for public criticism? The overall discussion is informed by the idea of museums as deathscapes, and the intentional use of a kind of ‘morbid aura’ that is sometimes attached to museum objects with a close association to human death.

Reframing the stigma of failure with playfulness

2023-12-27T19:35:53+01:00

Within the field of software development, notions of agile development, failing fast, and learning from your mistakes are ingrained in the culture. However, this is seldom the case for legacy cultural institutions, such as museums. This is detrimental to their innovative potential. The importance of acknowledging failure as a part of innovation was one of the key insights coming out of an action research process involving ten museums from the EU and the USA. Here we will account for the ideas on the value of failure resulting from this process and how one museum partner tried to leverage the learning potential residing in past failures. However, the social stigma surrounding failure proved too strong. Adopting a playful approach to rapid prototyping of ideas, instead, as a way of reframing this stigma, seems more promising. We argue that museums should learn from other sectors that have a less risk-averse approach to innovation and adopt a bolder culture of active experimentation even if it will inevitably involve failure and therefore require a better failure resilience of the organization.

What is museology?

2023-12-27T19:45:33+01:00

This article is an edited version of an inaugural lecture as professor of museology at Aarhus University, Denmark, on September 22, 2023. It targeted colleagues from Danish museums and universities and students.