Collecting and Collections in Times of War or Political and Social Change

Collecting and Collections in Times of War or Political and Social Change

The proceedings from Celje conference, we gather in this book, are focused on the importance of mutual dependence within the triangle formed by ideology, the mission of museum collections and types of collections.

Changes in ideological perspectives influence the formation and development of collections, and museums’ missions are shaped and adapted in line with socio-political developments and the related changes. The themes of changing collecting strategies and practices, and the formation of collections as the medium of specific ideologies are also of interest to Slovene museology. This is why the Celje conference represented also an opportunity for international reflection on the transformation of Slovene museums and the transforming power of museum collections and objects.

Collecting and Collections in Times of War or Political and Social Change COMCOL Annual Conference, Celje 2014 edited by Jože Hudales and Tanja Roženbergar

ISBN 978-961-237-943-8 (44) Zupaničeva knjižnica

ISBN 978-961-237-943-8

Cena 20,00 €

edited by Jože Hudales and Tanja Roženbergar

Jože Hudales and Tanja Roženbergar

9 789612 379438

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COLLECTING AND COLLECTIONS IN TIMES OF WAR OR POLITICAL AND SOCIAL CHANGE: COMCOL ANNUAL CONFERENCE, CELJE 2014

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Collecting and Collections in Times of War or Political and Social Change: COMCOL Annual Conference, Celje 2014 Uredila/Edited by Jože Hudales Tanja Roženbergar in collaboration with Eva Fägerborg Léontine Meijer-van Mensch Åsa Stenström Recenzenta/Reviewers Jurij Fikfak Bojana Rogelj Škafar Zbirka/Book series Zupaničeva knjižnica, št. 44 Lektor/Proofreading David Limon Odgovorni urednik zbirke/ Editor in chief Boštjan Kravanja

© Univerza v Ljubljani, Filozofska fakulteta, 2017/University of Ljubljana, Faculty of Arts, 2017 Vse pravice pridržane./ All rights reserved.

Published by/Založila: Znanstvena založba Filozofske fakultete Univerze v Ljubljani (Ljubljana University Press, Faculty of Arts) Izdal/Issued by: Oddelek za etnologijo in kulturno antropologijo in Mednarodni muzejski svet (ICOM) Slovenski odbor/Department of Ethnology and Cultural Anthropology and International Council of Museums (ICOM) Slovenia Za založbo/For the publisher Roman Kuhar, dekan Filozofske fakultete Univerze v Ljubljani/The dean of the Faculty of Arts, University of Ljubljana Ljubljana, 2017

Uredniški odbor zbirke/ Editorial board Bojan Baskar, Mateja Habinc, Vito Hazler, Jože Hudales, Božidar Jezernik, Miha Kozorog, Boštjan Kravanja, Uršula Lipovec Čebron, Ana Sarah Lunaček Brumen, Mirjam Mencej, Rajko Muršič, Jaka Repič, Peter Simonič

Naklada/Number of copies printed 300 izvodov

Fotografija na naslovnici/Cover photo Peter van Mensch

Tisk/Printed by/ Birografika Bori, d. o. o.

The photo is taken at the Cēsis History and Art Museum, Cēsis (Latvia) in July 2016. It is the statue of Lenin unveiled at Union Square at Cēsis on 7 November 1959, and taken down on 17 October 1990. Sculpturer: Kărlis Jansons.

Cena/Price 20,00 €

The authors acknowledge the financial support from the Slovenian Research Agency (research core funding No. P6-0187).

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Oblikovna zasnova zbirke/Design Vasja Cenčič Prelom in priprava za tisk/Layout Jure Preglau

This book was published with the support of International council of museums (ICOM) Slovenia, Ministry of Culture Republic of Slovenia.

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Collecting and Collections in Times of War or Political and Social Change COMCOL Annual Conference, Celje 2014 Edited by Jože Hudales and Tanja Roženbergar in collaboration with Eva Fägerborg, Léontine Meijer-van Mensch and Åsa Stenström

Ljubljana 2017

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Table of Content

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INTRODUCTION Tanja Roženbergar and Jože Hudales

The socio-political connotations of museum collections: Collecting and Collections in Times of War or Political and Social Change – COMCOL Conference 2014

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KEYNOTE PAPER Léontine Meijervan Mensch

Profiling and reflecting on collections and collecting

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I. CULTURAL HERITAGE AND MUSEUMS IN TIME Božidar Jezernik

The politics of the preservation of memories

31

Marija Đorđević

From a museum to an artefact

45

Mario Buletić

The role of traditional musical instruments and folk music in the wider socio-political discourse in Istria

61

II. COLLECTING PRACTICES AND URBAN PHENOMENA Thomas Järmann

Collected 'Swissness': The significance of Fritz Dür’s tape collection for the Swiss Short Wave Service and as a manifestation of a spiritual national defence

81

Nazia Ali

Collecting in a changing city: Birmingham, the heart of sociopolitical metamorphosis

93

Alenka Pirman

Protesting and collecting: insight into 105 the musealisation strategies for the uprisings in Ljubljana 2012–2013

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III. REFLECTING AND USING COLLECTIONS TO MEMORISE WAR Karin Tetteris

Collecting a soldier – from helmet to memory

121

Nina Gorgus

The “sleeping” collection or how collections survive in museums

131

Tone Kregar

Missing years: the memory of World War I at the Museum of Recent History Celje

143

IV. REFLECTIONS ON SOCIALISM AND THE POST-SOCIALIST EUROPE Andreja Rihter

Cultural heritage as part of the socialist period in Slovenia

155

Sandra Koštric

How “socialist” museums survived post-socialist transition: the case of the Slovenian National Museum of Contemporary History in Ljubljana

169

Aleksandra Momčilović Jovanović

Chronicles of anxiety in times of 179 ideological shift – context, process and current standpoint in developing the collections of the Museum of Yugoslav History

Vojislav Martinov

The misfortunes of post-socialism: the case of the Museum of the socialist revolution of Vojvodina

189

Višnja Kisić

The collection lifecycle: a basis for (re)defining the museality of collection as thesaurus

197

Meta Kordiš

207 National ideology and the collection policy of an art museum: the case of Maribor Art Gallery

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Andreja Kaučič

The attitude of the new authorities toward cultural heritage in Slovenia after the Second World War

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STUDENT PROJECT Tajda Blazinšek, Rok Košir, Urška Nemec, Mateja Slovenc

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Uncovering the horrific heritage of 243 the Huda jama mine

Name Index

249

Summary

253

About the Authors

261

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Introduction The socio-political connotations of museum collections: Collecting and Collections in Times of War or Political and Social Change – COMCOL Conference 2014 Tanja Roženbergar and Jože Hudales

The rapid social changes occurring on the socio-political map of Europe are reflected in the world of museums. The ICOM committee for collecting, COMCOL, deals with these changes at the level of theory and good practice.

The COMCOL conference Collecting and Collections in Times of War or Political and Social Change continued the discussion about the socio-political connotations of museum collections, museums and heritage. The Celje conference thus concluded three years of research into the political and social context at a theoretical and practical level, as well as in terms of the ethics of the development of museum collections. The 2012 conference (Cape Town) opened up the theme Museums and the Idea of Historical Progress, about how the concept of utopia has influenced and still influences the formation of collections. In 2013 (Rio de Janeiro), there followed reflection on modern reinterpretations of old

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museum collections and the role of exhibiting in changing the message.

And the final conference in 2014 (Celje) focused on the importance of mutual dependence within the triangle formed by ideology, the mission of museum collections and types of collections. Changes in ideological perspectives influence the formation and development of collections, and museums’ missions are shaped and adapted in line with socio-political developments and the related changes.

The themes of changing collecting strategies and practices, and the formation of collections as the medium of specific ideologies are also of interest to Slovene museology. This is why the Celje conference represented an opportunity for international reflection on the transformation of Slovene museums and the transforming power of museum collections and objects.

PRESENTATION OF THE CONTRIBUTIONS

This monograph follows the conference concept and presents different theoretical views on the theme in question, studies of examples, and analyses and presentations of good practice in individual museums.

Considering that the conference took place at the time of the commemoration of the centenary of the outbreak of World War I, a special theme was dedicated to reflection on the use of collections for the preservation of the memory of war times in our history.

The collected articles are divided into four sections. The first, “Cultural heritage and museums in time”, offers a more theoretical view about our past and the basic concepts of heritage over time. The second, with the theme “Collecting practices and urban phenomena”, presents different models of collecting in the urban and consumer society and related issues. The topic “Reflecting and using collections to memorise war” follows the centenary of World War I and presents papers that discuss issues and transformations of war museums, as well as the characteristics of and neglected topics in the presentation of war periods. The fourth part, “Reflections on socialism”, analyses the types of collections and collecting strategies, and the power of museum objects within the socialist socio-political system in the former Yugoslavia and the present-day Slovenia, and offers an overview of reflections and examples of good museum practice from Slovenia and Serbia.

The publication includes 20 papers from various parts of Europe, which analyse examples from Croatia, Germany, Britain, Netherlands, Slovenia, Serbia, Switzerland and Sweden.

Tanja Roženbergar and Jože Hudales

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The paper by the introductory author Léontine Meijer-van Mensch, the Chair of COMCOL, introduce the conference theme from different points of view.

LÉONTINE MEIJER-VAN MENSCH in her paper Profiling and reflecting on collections and collecting, emphasises the importance of understanding collections from a development point of view and their profiling in line with the museum’s mission. Taking as an example the innovative Het Schip Museum (Amsterdam) and the museum collections of the LGBTIQ communities (in reference to the conference Queering Collections), she analyses the problems and pitfalls of the definition of museum objects and collections which act both in the social and artistic domains. Only a clear profile of a collection can determine the clear mission and profile of a museum. With regard to the example of the private Ricardo Brennand Institute in Recife, Brazil, founded by the private collector Ricardo Brennand, the author raises the question of subjectivity and irrationality in the formation and presentation of private collections and the issue of their sustainable development. The author discusses a different understanding of museums with the concept of museums as intermediate spaces or Foucault’s heterotopical spaces, concluding with the guideline that the essence of collections lies in their interpretation, which is fluid and differs in space and time.

The first thematic section Cultural Heritage and Museums in Time is theoretically introduced and substantiated by the paper by BOŽIDAR JEZERNIK on The politics of the preservations of memories, in which he shows how the mid-nineteenth century witnessed new political communities, nations, entirely without precedent in how they influenced the first Slovene museums and collections. An important part of constructing a narrative of the images of the past is the manipulation and adjustment of elements of the past to the needs of the present and the representation of the links between the past and present as an unbroken and coherent series. The national(ised) past became a selective criterion for choosing events that should be remembered as significant milestones in the nation’s life, and determining which persons could claim credit for shaping the nation. This led to fundamental changes in the set of important historical events and personalities, as the events and personalities important to the country’s past as a rule did not have the same significance for the nation’s past. In the national sieve, there remained only those events and personalities that allowed the composition of the story of the nation and its struggle for existence, of its achievements and virtues, and of its triumphs and defeats.

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Introduction

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Collecting and Collections in Times of War or Political and Social Change

The proceedings from Celje conference, we gather in this book, are focused on the importance of mutual dependence within the triangle formed by ideology, the mission of museum collections and types of collections.

Changes in ideological perspectives influence the formation and development of collections, and museums’ missions are shaped and adapted in line with socio-political developments and the related changes. The themes of changing collecting strategies and practices, and the formation of collections as the medium of specific ideologies are also of interest to Slovene museology. This is why the Celje conference represented also an opportunity for international reflection on the transformation of Slovene museums and the transforming power of museum collections and objects.

Collecting and Collections in Times of War or Political and Social Change COMCOL Annual Conference, Celje 2014 edited by Jože Hudales and Tanja Roženbergar

ISBN 978-961-237-943-8 (44) Zupaničeva knjižnica

ISBN 978-961-237-943-8

Cena 20,00 €

edited by Jože Hudales and Tanja Roženbergar

Jože Hudales and Tanja Roženbergar

9 789612 379438

Collecting_and_Collections_naslovka_2.indd 1

5.10.2017 15:00:44