This book is the result of a scholarly intervention into the space of the Kraków Ethnographic Museum. While reflecting on one specific project, it opens many questions relevant for reformulating our ideas about both the museum and the academy. The project’s approach to intellectual deliberation is horizontal, engaging students on equal footing with professors, resulting in a publication that embodies collaborative practice. It is also a unique example of how thought can be manifested in creative action, which itself then produces a new object for critical reflection. It is a true blend of theory and practice; an attempt to embed the university in the broader social world while similarly urging museums to speak directly to the societies about which they teach. The project thus proposes both a new form of research and a new take on the presentation of academic knowledge. Thinking through the museum becomes – as promised – not only a critical view of the institution, but also a meditation on society, its rules, and the identities of its inhabitants.
Inhoudsopgave
PART I: MUSEUM THINKING
Erica Lehrer
Introduction: My Museum, a Museum about Me 13
Roma Sendyka
Dreaming, Wishing, and Thinking in the Museum 21
Marek Tuszewicki
Slavic-Jewish Contact and Its Representation in Museum Space 31
Magdalena Zych
The Ethnographic Museum I Dream of Is a Shared Space 35
Shelley Ruth Butler
Workshop Reflections: To Play, Ponder, and Plan 45
Adam Leszczyński
Erasing Violence: The Trouble with Decolonizing the Polish Past 51
PART II: HERITAGE IN DISPUTE
Erica Lehrer
From Heritage Communities to Communities of Implication 65
Roma Sendyka
Caduca, or Es(cheat)ed Legacy 81
PART III: CURATORIAL DREAMING
Shelley Ruth Butler, Erica Lehrer
Curatorial Dreaming 95
PART IV: THE INTERVENTION
Intervention—Introductory Materials 103
Jason Francisco
Photo Essay 116
Aleksandra Guja
To Whom Does the Legacy of the Polish Village Belong? Notes on a curatorial project 123
Marta Matuszak
Jewish Society in the Polish Village 135
Sylwia Papier
Deconstructing the I in the Museum: Eye to Eye with Personal History 143
Iga Figiel
The Village—A Difficult Inheritance 151
Marlena Nikody
When We Think of Folk Costume, What Kind of Clothing Do We Imagine? 155
Karolina Koprowska
Lesson 1. Subject: The Classroom—an Area of Contact or Conflict? 159
Daria Kołecka, Natalia Giemza
Digesting Culture 163
Mariola Gucwa
Kołatka 167
PART V: COMMENTARIES
Jerzy Franczak
Awakening 173
Maria Kobielska
She-Hackers 177
Monika Gromala
The Virus of Trans-Formation Haunts the Museum 181
Notes from Visitors to the Intervention 185
Magdalena Zych
Afterword: A Shared Space—What Next? 187
Index of Personal Names 193
Over de auteur
Erica Lehrer is Professor in the Departments of History and Sociology-Anthropology at Concordia University in Montreal. She is the co-founder and first director of the university’s Curating and Public Scholarship Lab (Ca PSL). Roma Sendyka is Professor at the School of the Anthropology of Literature and Research on Culture in the Department of Polish Studies at the Jagiellonian University in Kraków. She is co-founder and the first director of the Research Center for Memory Cultures.