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RomanianREVIST JournalA MUZEELOR of Museums

NNoR. 1/ 1 / 20152015

1 Editorial Board - Raluca Bem Neamu, - Dragoș Neamu, - Dr. Virgil Ștefan Nițulescu - Alexandra Ciocănel

Graphic Design : Gheorghe Iosif Desktop publishingLorem ipsum : Aurora dolor Pădureanu sit amet, consectetur adipiscing elit. Proin posuere efficitur tortor quis venenatis. Nam non dui elit. Donec congue ipsum et Address: 57, Barbu Ștefănescuscelerisque Delavrancea volutpat. Street,Pellentesque sector 1, interdum Bucharest, m 01alesuada1353 neque non http://www.culturadata.ro/categorie-publicatii/revista-muzeelor/elementum. Morbi in nunc et massa ullamcorper commodo rutrum at www.facebook.com/RevistaMuzeelor neque. Fusce placerat aliquet malesuada. Phasellus non © NATIONAL INSTITUTE FOR RESEARCH AND CULTURAL TRAINING ISSN 1220-1723 ISSN 1220-1723

2 NNoR. 11/ / 20152015

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CURACURATORSHIPTORIAT

3 Contents CUPRIN S

TABLE OF CONTENTS

5 Raluca01 Bem –Lo Forewordrem ipsum dolor sit amet, consectetur

8 Adriana12 Avramadipiscing – Curatorship, elit. Proin posuereparticipation e citur and management in redefi- ning museums. For an interdisciplinary approach to the revision of the occupational19 to rtstandardor quis venenatis of museographers.. Nam non dui elit. Donec congue ipsum et sceleris- que volutpat. Pellentesque interdum malesuada neque non elementum. Morbi 17 Angelicain nunc Helena et massa Marinescu ullam – Digitization of the museum heritage. Online collections of the National Museum of Art of Romania 31 corper commodo rutrum at neque. Fusce placerat aliquet malesuada. Anca PhasellusMaria Pănoiu non Lorem - For ipsum a naive dolor museology: sit amet, consec Maricicatetur adipiscing and the elit.museum 26 across the water 35 Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet, consectetur Gheorghe Petre – Themes and forms of expression in recent exhibiti- 42 ons of41 the Sloboziaadipiscing Museum elit. Proin of posuere Agriculture e citur

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4 FOREWORD PRIOR TO CHANGE Raluca Bem Neamu

Through this issue of the Romanian Journal of Museums new series, we are building a recent chapter in museology, which started long ago, but only now does it enter legality, CUPRIN S through a linguistic “baptism”, by assuming a new occupation in museums. It is about the theme of this issue, “the Curatorship and the Curator” – new words in most of the museums, the latter designating an occupation that does not exist in the Classification of Occupations in Romania (COR), or in the list of occupational standards, and which is 01 Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet, consectetur used and assumed exclusively in the environment of contemporary art galleries. In our 12 adipiscing elit. Proin posuere e citur country. As, otherwise, the European tradition has marked decades of history for this occupation. With notable differences associated to the geographical area where it is 19 tortor quis venenatis. Nam non dui elit. Donec congue ipsum et sceleris- used, the meaning of the word shifts from “collection coordinator” to “the person who que volutpat. Pellentesque interdum malesuada neque non elementum. Morbi protects the collection of a museum”, or to “the creator of the exhibition”, who devises in nunc et massa ullam the exhibition concept and brings the exhibition to life, from A to Z.

31 corper commodo rutrum at neque. Fusce placerat aliquet malesuada. Our undertaking is to try to dismantle the myth that the museographer is “the chief Phasellus non Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet, consectetur adipiscing elit. cook and bottle washer”, ready to know the most intimate details of the works within the museum collection, ready to set up a top exhibition with part of the artworks, 35 Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet, consectetur trained to know the field so well, that he would go precisely to museum X and borrow a certain work to complete an exceptional exhibition concept, having the project, time 41 adipiscing elit. Proin posuere e citur and risk management at his fingers and then, after having coordinated a great part of 43 tortor quis venenatis. Nam non dui elit. Donec congue ipsum et sceleris- the museum’s team, he would set up the exhibition, and, right after that (or, ideally, que volutpat. Pellentesque interdum malesuada neque non elementum. Morbi even while creating the exhibition concept), restless and eager, he would make public in nunc et massa ullam polls, in order to know the public’s likes, expectations and information on the exhibition theme and finally, as we said, he would restlessly begin to develop museum-related 48 corper commodo rutrum at neque. Fusce placerat aliquet malesuada. education programmes for various categories of the public that enter the exhibition Phasellus non Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet, consectetur adipiscing elit. or are attracted to it. And, towards the end, he would obviously assess the collection, the exhibition and the educational programmes. This is the situation nowadays: the museographer is the chief cook and bottle washer, who must have all those great skills that appear in the occupational standard. 5 The initiative of the National Institute for Research and Cultural Training (INCFC) has therefore started the process of inserting this occupation into the COR and identifying the skills a curator must have, respectively, in order for the museums and private art institutions to be able to use the term under legally-covered conditions. This long and (through its consequences) important process has started with a documentation on the meanings of the term in the specialised bibliography specific to regions with Anglo- Saxon and French tradition, and the structure we put forward is a synthesis adapted to the Romanian needs in the field.

Thus, the proposal we are forwarding is that occupational standard of “museographer” in existence at this moment in COR be divided in three distinct occupations, adapted to the museums’ new necessities: museographer, curator and museum education specialist. The first occupation will cover the skills referring to the management of a museum’s collection, the second – the management of exhibitions, while the museum- related education specialist would acquire skills related to the research of the public and the valorisation of the museum’s exhibition through education. Through this division we nuance the skills specific to each employee working in the current position of museographer, we propose their specialisation in one of the three directions, being aware of the fact that the current occupational standard of museographer cannot be met by a single person, as the three sets of skills are very different and cannot be achieved by a single type of personality or professional.

The undertaking regarding this specialisation started, on one hand, from studying the European trends in the field and, on the other hand, from consulting experts and museum managers from Romania. The need to differentiate between occupations proved to be impending, and INCFC has taken this mission upon itself, in close collaboration with museums and professionals’ organisations in the field.

Our consultations with them took place at the end of 2015 and will continue until the completion of the administrative steps that will bring about the official change.

A first step in this process is the insertion of the two new occupations (curator and museum-related education specialist) into COR, followed by the identification of the skills they require and the modification of the skills for the occupation of museographer, by reducing and refining them.

The skills for each occupation that we approach in this article, after consultations, are the following:

Museographer 1. Appropriate knowledge and use of the basics of museology 1 2. Appropriate knowledge and use of basic specific legislation related to the museum heritage 3. Appropriate knowledge and use of the basic guidelines of preventive conservation 4. Management of museum collections – planning, organising, monitoring and evaluation 5. Developing the museum heritage, circulation of cultural goods. 6. Research, interpretation and exploitation of the museum collection 7. Assessing and drawing-up the documentation with a view to classifying the cultural goods 8. Cultural goods administration and record keeping 9. Digitizing the cultural heritage and using the digital databases

* The first three skills are common to the three occupations

6 Curator 1. Appropriate knowledge and use of the basics of museology 2. Appropriate knowledge and use of basic specific legislation related to the museum heritage 3. Appropriate knowledge and use of the basic guidelines of preventive conservation 4. Appropriate knowledge and use of techniques, methods and work instruments in the set up of the space and exploitation of the exhibit during the curatorial/exhibition set up process. 5. Research and interpretation of the cultural goods with the purpose to organise exhibitions. 6. Appropriate language knowledge and use in the specific field of the exhibition. 7. Identification of visitors’ needs and expectations when setting up exhibitions 8. Drawing up the exhibition / curatorial concept and project 9. Planning, organising and developing exhibition / curatorial projects 10. Evaluating and monitoring the exhibitions’ impact on the beneficiaries

Museum-related education specialist 1. Appropriate knowledge and use of the basics of museology 2. Appropriate knowledge and use of basic specific legislation related to the museum heritage 3. Appropriate knowledge and use of the basic guidelines of preventive conservation 4. Appropriate knowledge and use of the innovative, interactive methods and techniques, as well as of the good practice models in the process of museum- related education 5. Identification of visitors’ needs and expectations for the development of the educational programmes 6. Research, interpretation and educational exploitation of the museum heritage 7. Planning, organising and developing museum-related education programmes 8. Drawing up the museum-related education project 9. Evaluating and monitoring the educational activities’ impact on the beneficiaries

As the specific skills regarding the museums’ public in museums and art galleries, as well as theoreticians relations and marketing are no longer found in the in the field helped shaping a curriculum that makes required skills of the above occupations, there was a sense for both categories of trainees. The pilot course tendency to supplement them with the basics of public helped coagulating the ideas and trends in the field, relations and marketing. on one hand by adapting the international trends in museology to the Romanian museology, on the other Depending on the interest shown by museum experts, hand at the level of those who exercise this occupation, the intention of the Museums’ Magazine board isto but in an empirical, experimental manner, far from the depict the process of changing the paradigm of the museum-related occupations, with emphasis on the requirements of the professional training. two new proposed occupations: curator and museum- We are waiting for suggestions from the museum related education specialist. experts community in order to nuance the skills and This process will be followed by INCFC’s taking on this we thank to all those who have got involved in shaping modification by organising authorised courses for all them up to this moment. We hope that, on short and the three occupations concerned. A first pilot course medium term, this undertaking shall result in a greater took place at the end of 2015, when, starting from the attention given to the public for whom, after all, the (would be) skills of the curator, lecturers, curators active exhibitions are open. 7 [Fig. 1. Museum (specialised) personnel participating in the process of setting up an exhibition. Source: author]

CURATORSHIP, PARTICIPATION AND MANAGEMENT IN REDEFINING MUSEUMS. FOR AN INTERDISCIPLINARY APPROACH TO THE REVISION OF THE OCCUPATIONAL STANDARD OF MUSEOGRAPHER

ABSTRACT

In the context of museographer standard being proposed for revision and division into three further areas of expertise, this article is intended to emphasise the need for an interdisciplinary approach to any change that would apply to the museographer profession as it is depicted today in Romania. The contribution proposes a stakeholder participatory approach to systemic change and tackles the issue from the point of view of project management (requirements documentation, change management), internal control and several legal aspects, put into perspective by international models and standardisation. Further analysis focuses on the standard`s inner overlapping of collections management, curatorship and edutainment practice and brings into discussion the way the museum professional, either in-house or outsourced, could and should engage in supporting the museum`s mission. The conclusions open a list of upsides and downsides to be taken into account when estimating the impact of the standard change and deciding which solution is feasible, necessary and opportune when leveraging the common denominator in beneficiaries` needs. A think tank is proposed to be constituted ad-hoc in order to ensure proper return on investment to advocacy efforts.

Key-words: participation, edutainment, good governance, advocacy, curatorship, standards

8 Any specialisation is a natural consequence of the museographer is a generic employee, in charge with complexity of labour, and, in order to be successful, marketing, museum-related education, guiding, any labour division depicted in the occupational as well as locking and unlocking the doors of the standard, should, paradoxically, come with not exhibitions. Sometimes, all these happen because of merely a deep knowledge of curatorship techniques the small number of employees. Other times, the – theory and practice – but rather with an increase reasons are different. of the degree of understanding the interdisciplinarity governing the museum work. The National Institute for Research and Cultural Training aims at reformulating and reconfiguring the Until recently – and on a wide scale – a museum occupational standard of museographer, by dividing was deemed established and functional only at the it into three occupations: museographer, curator and moment when it opened a „permanent” exhibition museum-related education specialist, each of them for the public, which says a lot about the museums’ with their own duties and skills. internal vision itself, lacking balance and perspective on their own activities and the role they should play Is their separation necessary? Is it feasible and in the society. Thus, the exploitation by displaying opportune? And, if the answers are „yes”, „yes” and - i.e. the exhibition is still considered the ultimate „yes”, which method should be used to intervene: by effort to valorise the collections. dividing the standard in three, in two, by re-writing it in promotion steps or through the more common, From the exclusive orientation towards collections but sometimes efficient enough instrument called to the (equally unbalanced) exclusive orientation job description, by means of which, at present, towards the public, the museums oscillate - in a numerous museographers cover - with their duties process wherein they curate their own role in the – only a part of the occupational standard, anyway? end -between means and purpose, any extreme This last argument should be, at any rate, necessary being just as damaging. and sufficient for re-writing the standard and In this context, the initiative to clarify and give correcting the anomaly. coherence to the occupational standard of However, the appropriate manner of the „open museographer becomes not only beneficial, but also heart intervention” on the standard in force is yet to absolutely necessary. be established. A radical intervention is called upon Nowadays, the museographer is a specialised by radical benefits or a sine qua non situation. A factotum, both by the nature of the assumed less radical intervention results in a smaller impact, occupational standard, and due to the state of a narrower scope of changes, yet easier to manage ambiguity in assigning secondary duties, which may and probably sufficient. be both beneficial and damaging, depending on the This article does not contribute with answers; it manner of application. There are not two museums merely has the time to raise questions. It addresses similar in every way – either in terms of the specificity of the collections, the size, the environment of the wide range of experts working in museums - either their activity (subordination hierarchy, capital city/ in-house or outsourced personnel – from cultural countryside etc.), or from the viewpoint of the managers to project-based hired persons employed organisational culture in particular. for a specific activity. We should emphasise from the start that this contribution comes to a debate not Every museum is a… household, and every manager yet started. And there isn’t a more damaging debate struggles to make it work as well as possible, than a nonexistent or superficial one, which might under the circumstances. Every quite often the lead to… „Let’s revise it, I agree!” 9 The revision project is… a project

Consequently, it is normal to apply management Any wide-scale change must start from an extended methods and techniques. Among them, the analysis of the needs and from the assessment of the identification of the real problem and the potential impact of its implementation. Therefore, documentation on requirements through a the vast diversity of institutions that might be participatory approach that should result in defining affected must be considered: local, county or national the objectives, as well as in the contents of the project museums, museums with five or two hundred and the manner of its implementation, the proposal employees, history, ethnography, art, natural history and the acceptance of terms and the identification museums etc. of any necessary resources, to name only several aspects. The initiative of INCFC as project promoter As a matter of fact, the list of involved/concerned is natural and beneficial, considering its capacity to parties is wider and it includes not only the museum make a coherent situational analysis and to mobilise management personnel, specialised or operating in other areas of execution (in order for them to better resources that would bring the project to a fruitful understand and organise their work), but also the end – from know how to people and logistics. labour unions (which should have an active role in Within this framework, the revision must not be labour regulations), the credit officers interested perceived by the stakeholders and the parties in audit trails, the law-makers, who will have to concerned as a goal in itself, but as a step in an accommodate the impact in other regulations, the advocacy process. The final result must come as private sector – the cultural and creative industries an answer and solution to a real problem of the to which sequences of the exhibition process are beneficiaries, clearly stated, solving punctual outsourced etc. problems, in manners that must also be defined and It is obvious that the occupational standard, as more widely supported. The result of the revision is, described at the moment, does not keep up with the after all, a… text. A new occupational standard. Or needs and trends of the contemporary museology. more. Any exhibition is a project that should integrate the finished product – and should respond to the needs The implications of its implementation must however of the beneficiaries to the extent of the museum’s be anticipated as realistically as possible and the specific role within society. entire museum community must be prepared, at least emotionally… A separation of the positions is delicate, like Siamese separations, and must be analysed with great Only an integrated project management approach can attention aforehand, in order for the undertaking to manage the successful definition and implementation prove its worthiness in terms of resource investment of a new occupational standard (re-written or as far as the expected results are concerned, as well divided), by connecting the museum management as in terms of feasibility, necessity and opportunity... to the internal environment (organisational culture – by the book. the „cultivated” version, mission, vision, programme objectives) and to the other activity fields and Such a change must be analysed from the viewpoint abilities, required for setting up an exhibition asa of the costs involved and of the benefits it brings. cultural product and service – conservator / restorer, Furthermore, we must ensure that the solutions to museum-related education specialist, sociologist, the problems do not create other deficiencies or new designer, technician etc. – whether in-house or adjustments to be made, and that we did not change outsourced, as well as to the external environment, a problematic state of facts for another one. In other which involves the acceptance and incorporation of words, the management of change must be made on the values of the participatory approach in museums. a national scale.

10 About internal control and other demons

The role of a standard, be it an ISO, occupational assistant or even technician / designer, which do or or internal control standard, is to offer a common do not belong to the organisation chart, when the basis for analysis, prediction, planning, as well as for inertia, as well as – paradoxically – the instability monitoring and assessment, control and audit. All tend to the maximum and, on top of all, an audit of these – functions of the management. In other mission comes to verify how we apply the internal words, the standard is meant to make the manager’s control, how do we untangle the threads? Do we do it life easier. How do we run the „farming” of the relevantly, productively, or do we apply a momentary museum’s „yard”, in order to make sure it produces strategy to dodge and solve and blame the system’s what we intended, in terms of quantity and quality? lack of coherence? If a museum manager recognises himself in the above situation, even in part, he has Museums are different and, from one point onward, not only the right, but also the obligation to get it is normal for them to differently incorporate and apply the different mandatory or recommended involved actively in bringing a little more light in the standards of the profession. All public institutions field or to delegate others to do it. must comply with the internal control standards, but As far as the internal control is concerned, the they choose by themselves what procedures they revision of the standard (its division into three distinct undertake or not. Up to a point, the procedures must standards not being the only plausible version) be similar: heritage records, temporary exports and other activities – they all start from legal regulations, must justify itself from the viewpoint of a better but, in terms of flow and segmentation, they are compliance with the basic principles and objectives applied differently from one museum to another. of the standard, as provided by the legislation in 1 In some museums, the museographer follows all force . the exhibition process steps alone, and he may Moreover, the standard must be of real use for the be perfectly capable to keep doing this. In other manager who has a useful, handy instrument – a institutions, there is no choice. Or a more complex standard may be preferred, offering a greater check-list saved somewhere directly or as a shortcut flexibility for the management to assign duties and on the computer desktop, by means of which he to make or unmake project teams. Revision through ensures that he did not assign the same duties to division must not eliminate the benefits that may several positions, that the subordinated personnel result from cumulation. knows what to do and especially what not to do, that it is common knowledge who does what and that When we have a position payroll, a set of general there are no confusions in terms. and annual objectives, a series of job descriptions for museographers, which may not fully cover the A few additional notes regarding the curator, which, required duties and skills, as the resources to reach instead of clearing up the confusions in the field, the objectives or these duties and skills overlap one rather increase the inadequacies, may include the another in certain fields or they overlap with other dictionary definitions2, the Civil Code3 and the COR4 positions such as guide, researcher, stock keeper, PR Classification.

1 Order no. 400-2015 for the approval of the Code of the internal/managerial control of the public entities. Available at: http://lege5.ro/en/Gratuit/g4ydomzugq/ordinul-nr-400-2015-pentru- aprobarea- codului-controlului-intern-managerial-al-entitatilor-publice 2 CURATÓR, curators, n. Person who exercises the rights and executes the obligations arising from curatorship. From Fr. curateur, Lat. curator. Source: DEX ‘09 (2009) (Romanian Explanatory Dictionary, second revised and improved edition, Academy of Romania –Iorgu Iordan Institute of Linguistics, Univers Enciclopedic Gold Publishing House, 2009 CURATÓR n. 1. Person who exercises the duties arising from a curatorship 2. Person who closes up a bankrupt company. 3. Manager of a memorial house (< Fr. curateur, lat. curator) Source: MDN ‘00 (2000) (The Great Dictionary of Neologisms, Marcu, Florin, Saeculum Publishing House, 2000) curátor s.m. Caretaker, person in charge [of a memorial house] ◊ „The curator of the memorial house tells me joyfully [...]” R.lit. 28 II 85 p. 24 (DN, DEX, DN3 – other meaning) Source: DCR2 (1997) (Dictionary of Recent Words, 2nd edition, Dimitrescu, Florica, Logos Publishing House, 1997) curator n. person assigned by Justice to watch the interests of an emancipated under-age person, to manage the assets of an adult declared incapable or to take care of a vacant inheritance. Source: Șăineanu, 6th edition (1929) (Universal Dictionary of the Romanian Language, 6th edition, Șăineanu Lazăr, Scrisul Românesc S.A. Publishing House, 1929) – definitions available on dexonline.ro. 3 LAW no. 287 / 17th of July 2009 (republished, updated) on the Civil Code [Online] Available at: http://legeaz.net/noul-cod-civil - 4 ORDER No. 1832/856/6.07 2011 on the approval of the Classification of Occupations in Romania – occupation level (six characters) [Online] Available at: http://www.mmuncii.ro/pub/ imagemanager/images/file/Legislatie/ORDINE/O1832-2011.pdf 11 Thus, the curator is legally defined very clearly, by culinary field the Civil Code, where the curatorship and the curator are defined through dedicated articles - which Other specialists in the artistic, cultural and excludes from the start the use of the term curator... culinary fields combine the creative abilities as a stand-alone term, except maybe in the syntagm and technical and cultural knowledge in (...) „museum curator” or in other type of reference preparing the exhibits for display, maintaining which allows for disambiguation. the collections within libraries and galleries, maintaining the recordings and cataloguing Furthermore, the Order no. 1832/856/6.07.2011 on systems (...). the approval of the Classification of occupations in Romania – occupation level (six characters), instead With the sub-class: of bringing clarifications, gives the final blow through some relevant passages which I shall take the 3433 Technicians in the field of art (exhibitions, freedom to quote massively, for illustration: museums and libraries) Technicians in the field of arts (exhibitions, museums and libraries) Le rôle du curateur est bien indiqué dans la législation, prepare artworks, samples and artefacts for plus précisément dans le Code Civil, avec des articles collections, set up and display the exhibits in the spécifiques dédiés au curatoriat et au curateur, et galleries, (...) accompagnés des définitions afférentes. L’utilisation du mot curateur seul n’est pas possible. Ainsi, pour According to the description of the course „Basics of avoir une notion claire et éviter les ambigüités, Museology”, organised by INCFC, „the museographer l’utilisation des syntagmes tels que « curateur muséal is the specialist who sets up, develops, manages, » s’avère très utile. researches, protects, evaluates and classifies the museum heritage. Museographers exploit the 262 Librarians, archivists and curators – museum heritage through public display, aiming for Librarians, archivists and curators develop and the public’s knowledge, education and recreation”.5 maintain collections of the archives, libraries, museums, art galleries and similar institutions. The course is built around the Occupational Standard of Museographer, COR code 262103, subordinated 22621 Archivists and curators – Archivists to the category 2621 Archivists and curators. and curators deal with collecting, assessing, ensuring the safe keeping and conservation Besides the necessary domestic disambiguation, of the contents of archives, of artefacts and a look into the neighbours’ yard, on a global level, recordings of historical, cultural, administrative may help clarify a standard, this undertaking being and artistic interest. They plan, draw up and prone to produce an extra argument for extra efforts implement systems for the safe keeping of to adapt the form to the autochthonous substance. valuable recordings and historical documents: A fast analysis of several standards suggests precisely 262101 archivist; 262102 artworks and historical a national management of the museum community, monuments conservator (higher education)); where the curator and the museographer are 262103 museographer; 262104 artworks differently defined and set apart in terms of and historical monuments restorer (higher duties from case to case. As we cannot compare a education); 262105 archive conservator (higher national specificity to another, which would look education); 262106 archive restorer (higher like comparing two icebergs when only their tips are education); 262107 cultural goods restorer visible, the only line of recommendation worthy to (higher education). be more closely considered is that of ICOM7, which In other words, the museographer is subscribed to separates the research/exploitation positions from the curator category, but the curator should also those regarding the services for visitors. Thus, the have other duties, such as: separation of the curator from the museographer might be a functional, feasible and beneficial sub- 343 Other specialists in the artistic, cultural and division only if proven to be necessary in practice. 5 INCFC [Online] Available at: http://www.culturadata.ro/bazele-muzeologiei/ 6 http://encyclopedia.thefreedictionary.com/curatorship 7 Ruge (2008), p 12. 12 Today’s museographer thus covers, by exclusion, all DocPat), the nobler curatorial conceptualisation those specialised objectives in the definition of the (finalised at best with a thematic file in the scientific museum which are not covered by researchers or archive, preferably before the exhibition design) conservators/restorers. Besides the separation of and the visible activity of interpretation / mediation the duties, the issue of the desynchronisation of the of the heritage for the wide public – the intrinsic work sequences is also a touchy problem, pertaining component of museum education (made more to the operational procedure or to the system, which, obvious by refreshing the basic exhibition through in its turn, should find its justification and foundation punctual educational projects). within the occupational standard, too, which results in a set of prejudicial circular references. (We should At the moment, the mission to balance the mention that on the museums’ payroll we already museographer’s duties with his/her level of training, have a specialisation of „museum educator”, too, experience and motivation belongs to the direct which does not benefit from an occupational manager. Depending on the general or specific standard yet...). objectives at the level of the institution or of a sub- division of the latter, the manager decides the periods In the absence of a specification of the proponents of working more with the collections or with the on the manner of outlining a view on the division public. An appropriate regulation and a transparent of the curator’s and museographer’s duties so far, I and coherent system of evaluation help immensely. can only put forward the hypothesis - which seems In the end it is all about the 3 E’s –efficiency, to me the most plausible, based also on the current effectiveness, economy – and these are influenced curricula for the on-going professional training for by many other factors besides the inadequacy of curators8 – that the museographer is supposed to the frame offered by the occupational standard. We stay closer to the collections, the museum educator must only ensure that the resources invested in the – closer to the public, while the curator remains intervention on this standard can produce a good somewhere in between (?)... Although, so far, the return on investment (ROI). museographer has had to make a complete tour between the scientific records of the heritage (many How can we solve this dilemma, while pretending at times translated into the struggle with the bugs in the same time that we ensure a real internal control? How many make a... trio?

In order to better analyse how the three sectors of are people hired especially for the activity of duties can and / or must be separated, it is relevant museum-related education. Their position is that of to discuss firstly those aspects that unite them and museographer, advisor or museum educator, which make them work together. In the science of biological may rightfully be considered an a priori segmentation systems, the function creates the organ to perform and a lack of compliance with the occupational that function. Let us investigate whether ICOM’s dual standard, as where there is no void there is a separation would suit the current Romanian context normative conglomeration, just for the sake of it. or not. More often than not, the employment ofa Numerous museographers within smaller institutions museographer was made not out of management perform all the three duties at once (besides a reasons pertaining to the separation of duties on series of tasks pertaining to support processes: internal control objectives or according to the would- administration, PR/marketing, event planning, be procedural activities, but out of more mundane project management... which may weigh more than reasons, such as the comfortable inertia of an 50% of the monthly punctual tasks, to the detriment organisation chart, the desire to pay the personnel of specialised ones). Any of these duties could be and perceived as important (just a little) more, precisely is recommended to be taken over by another type for the higher wage on the payroll, as compared to of personnel – advisors, stock keepers-custodians, that of an advisor, in order to symbolically motivate guides, PR specialists. the personnel or simply because, in a very small team, this position offers more in terms of covering In larger institutions, with more personnel, there

13 all the duties to be accomplished. integrate in the exhibition process the curatorial concept proposed, «negotiated» with the rest of Not integrating one of the key positions of the the team and assumed by everyone, each member museum at the moment of an exhibition set up being all-important: specialised personnel – who may be not only prejudicial, but also disastrous, know the collection (the museographer in charge both for the process and for the result. The lack with keeping records, if different from the curator), of close cooperation during the initial phases the conservator (who also is oftentimes the person within the team – mandatorily made from the in charge with the stock-keeping of the collection, museographer-researcher, the curator-interpreter, therefore an additional responsibility), the museum the museum educator-communicator (more in one educator. In other words, we are speaking about a at the moment), the conservator-restorer and non- project manager and a project team. specialised personnel – and possibly coordinated by an ad hoc project manager (often one of the above Education is communication. It is an intrinsic or their direct manager), may result in re-doing the function of the museum-related activity and we work, exceeding the budget or deadline, as well as cannot ignore it, even if we wanted. It is simply in the team›s frustration and demoralisation, weak there and it takes place every second a visitor enters results in the cultural service/product, missing the a museum space (be it real, virtual... or taking the objectives and the mission on a longer term. Just form a poster or a publication). Although there is imagine the case where, at the moment of the significant focus on how the museum education thematic project implementation, the recently- programmes and projects are built and developed consulted conservator re-writes half the project out (and we do not refer here to pedagogy, which would of reasons that pertain to non-compliance with the be reduced to a kind of meta-education: education norms of conservation in display or does not give the about education within a museum...), education is green light to an open-air programme out of reasons simply There. Because of this, it all the more involves of the monument›s integrity... Or the more subtle the responsibility of the entire museum personnel, cases – but unfortunately just as numerous – where, beyond the specialist who plans-manages-evaluates after setting up the exhibition, possibly even after the this component in the best possible way and for the opening, the museum educator is called and required best quantitative/qualitative results. to create programmes to match the product, because exhibitions address the wide public, anyway, and he Today›s museographer in charge with the museum- only has to make further segmentations by himself... related education meets all the conditions to become and yes, it›s just as good to invite the schools in the a position by itself – heritage interpreter, or a position neighbourhood, the youth are anyway the favourite to be integrated within the support processes such as of the idea of education, and the segmentation is marketing or PR/event planning, as an advisor. Their easy and matches the investment... All these are main mission would be to «translate» the scientific, mistakes which reflect directly in the quality of the overly specialised language, into an accessible finished product. one, intended for the life-long learning. A museum educator should analyse, plan, select and apply those In order to be relevant and to generate a real learning strategies and techniques that would make impact, museums propose / may propose sensitive the heritage more accessible for the public, should reflection subjects for the wide public. In order to make the visitors reflect beyond the moment of the do this, curatorship becomes a critical activity, with visit so that a satisfaction perceived as a real benefit related «soft» abilities that complete the picture of should stay with them. a museum expert›s abilities and skills, and this is a challenge for the activity of the manager, who must Last, but not least, in order to better identify integrate any types of processes and resources and and analyse the deficiencies that occur within a deliver... quality. cumulated, too complex a standard, like the current one, we may raise the problem of outsourcing – a The curator would have the main function to test that functions every time! Legally speaking, any 14 other contract forms besides the Individual Work concept built by the curator, who, in his turn, should Contract (IWC) has no standard, recommendation or respond to the needs of the public›s education, norm to serve as a framework, which makes the per- identified by the museum educator. In fact, in real project specification of museographer or museum life, the process cannot be segmented in relations of educator service-providing requirements all the cause-effect or stimulus-response, and it is not only more difficult. In other words, it is all about what normal, but also absolutely necessary that there we keep in-house and what we outsource. Thus, should occur reiterations, returns, negotiations of we discover that the delineations are sublime, but... meanings and feasibility between these members of they are totally absent and subject to interpretations the team (with the occupations we have in view for hard to be laid down in a product specification. the revision of the standard: museographer, curator A simplistic approach would require the and museum-related education specialist) and museographer employed by the museum to be the rest of the specialists cooperating to complete the person who provides the basic information, an exhibition project and make it successful pertaining to the record-keeping of the collections, (conservator, designer, technician, administrator, PR for the exhibition/curatorial process, on the basis of a etc.).

Conclusions

Since trying to clarify things only increases the integrating the three major sets of duties; fuzziness, a think-tank, a conceptualisation and • the practical problem or reassigning/re- advocacy hub is inherently required. The function employing the existent personnel on the position of this group would be to evaluate the current of museographer. practices, to identify and consult the stakeholders, • the disparity between the specifications of to explore new methods to improve the processes the job descriptions, the new occupational standard that yield the museums› results. and the availability/adequacy of the existent human resources. A list of pros and cons for the division – or even the Which way the balance shall tip – for or against – re-writing – of the standard may be opened further. remains to be seen. The certain thing is that the The advantages of separating the standard into purpose is for all the parties to have something to three occupations might include: gain, otherwise a non-intervention might be more beneficial. • a better distribution of the roles within a team, provided that they understand they should A possible revision, amongst many other options, further cooperate closely; would involve performing the museographer • the specialisation and division of labour within functions stipulated in the current occupational a framework already too complex and offering standard, but with a distinction between the too much, which would automatically lead to an promotion steps, which would involve supplemental increase of productivity, as prosaic as it may seem duties of curatorship and / or museum-related in the elitist cultural environment of museums. education. Currently, the distinction of the The disadvantages of the division / re-writing might museographer›s duties is made by means of the job include: description, randomly – not to say preferentially – related to the promotion degree, and the • often insufficient personnel and teams deficiencies of this habit must be analysed and to small to divide the tasks, which results in a straightened. cumulation of positions (whatever their name); • raising a false problem, as many well-trained Moreover, the advocacy capacity of the sector is and experienced specialists already have the precarious, as expected under these conditions of capacity to brilliantly cope with the challenges of unavailability and scarcity of resources of any kind 15 (human, financial, time resources); therefore it is all undertakings should have an echo and we welcome the more worthy to be wisely led towards directions this special issue of this magazine – an important of importance and impact, perceived as priorities by means of intra-professional communication – the majority of the cultural operators in the museum dedicated to this theme for debate. Like in any other field. Furthermore, a participatory undertaking offers field, the risk that a quiet majority should give way legitimacy, representativeness, and often lays at the to an active minority is significant. I hope that this basis of good governance. article may offer a point of view, some nuances that might contribute to the identification or to the Because of all these reasons, a wide debate within building of consensus and, in the end, to the better of the sector and a wide consultation with the parties the museum community that we all desire. involved/concerned are necessary. We wish that our

Web references (consulted on the 1st of November, 2015):

INCFC. n.d. Basics of Museology – Museographer. Gratuit/g4ydomzugq/ordinul-nr-400-2015- pentru- [Online] Available at: http://www.culturadata.ro/ aprobarea-codului-controlului-intern- managerial- bazele- muzeologiei/ al-entitatilor-publice - INCFC. n.d. Curator [Online] Available at: http:// Law no. 287/17.07.2009 (republished, updated) www.culturadata.ro/curs-curator/ on the Civil Code. Issuer: Parliament of Romania. Dexonline. ro. n.d. Curator. [Online] Available at: Published in the Official Journal no. 505/15.07.2011. https://dexonline.ro/definitie/curator Date of effect: 1st of October 2011 [Online] Available Thefreedictionary. com. n.d. Curatorship. [Online] at: http://legeaz.net/noul-cod- civil Available at: http://encyclopedia.thefreedictionary. Order no. 1832/856/6.07.2011 on the approval of com/curatorship the Classification of Occupations in Romania – Ruge, Angelika (ed.). 2008. Museum Professions – A European Frame of Reference. [Online] Available at: Ministry of Labour, Family and Social Protection; http://icom.museum/fileadmin/user_upload/ pdf/ National Institute of Statistics No. 856 / 11.07.2011. professions/frame_of_reference_2008.pdf Published in the Official Journal no. 561/08.08.2011 Order no. 400/2015 on the approval of the Code [Online] Available at: http://www.mmuncii.ro/pub/ of internal/managerial control of public entities, imagemanager/images/file/Legislatie/ORDINE/ 2015. [Online] Available at: http://lege5.ro/en/ O1832-2011.pdf

General references:

ICOM. n.d. Professions. [Online] Available at: http:// icom.museum/professional-standards/professions/

Adriana Avram Head of Department, Universal Ethnography Museum „Franz Binder” CNM ASTRA Sibiu, Str. Piaţa Mică nr. 11 [email protected]

16 DIGITIZATION OF THE MUSEUM HERITAGE The Online Collections of the National Museum of Art of Romania

ABSTRACT*

This study proposes a theoretical investigation on the digitization of artworks, placed in the framework of the relationship between technology, museums and the contemporary art world. The new information and communication technologies are changing the social and cultural landscape, bringing under discussion the functions of museums, museology and art, as well as the latter’s representation in the public sphere. From museum sites to online museums and the more recent virtual tours, the Internet proves to be a useful tool for art and museums, for trustees, experts, museographers, who are hence able to envisage new forms of cooperation between the exhibition creators and the visitors – users. The virtual tour is an interactive tool allowing a 360 degrees view of a museum space or an exhibition, the online collections of the Romanian National Art Museum being an example.

KEY-WORDS: digitization, art, internet, virtual tours, new information and communication technologies

* Communication within the 16th Forum of the Trans-Mediterranean Network and within the Conference „Comprendre la transition III. Locul tehnicii și al tehnologiilor în practicile sociale și interculturale” („Comprendre la transition III. The place of technics and technologies in the social and intercultural practices), Bucharest, 1-3 July 2015, the Faculty of Journalism and Communication Sciences. 17 This study is a theoretical reflection on what the phenomenon of artworks’ digitization means, within the framework of the relationship between technology, museums and the contemporary art world. The presence of museums in the World Wide Web is a process that has been developing in the last years, from the online museum, electronic museum, hyper-museum, digital museum, cyber-museum, to the virtual tours, this translation into the Internet’s space and ideology being close to the museum with no walls, as envisioned by Malraux1. The cyber-space, as a network and as a communication and dissemination medium, queries the heritage preoccupations of museologists, of curators, in close relation with the process of culture democratisation and with the institutional cultural policies. Thus, the online technologies are more and more present in the museum-related experience, as the visitors virtually connect themselves to the collections, and the museum’s virtualisation may be an opportunity for the art world, from a new type of museography to new museum-related experiences, being responsible for the contemporary cultural mutations2. In order to analyse this phenomenon in Romania, we chose the online tour of the Romanian National Art Museum and we conducted interviews with the initiator of this virtual tour, Emilian Săvescu and with a Romanian plastic artist, Vlad Ciobanu.

The Art Museum in the Era of Virtuality

The art museum has as main function the activity Ever since 1991 (when the World Wide Web appeared, of preserving the works registered in the movable according to CERN), there has been talk about the heritage3. The establishment of the museum means digital democracy, the cyber-citizenship, the society of the detachment of art from the life context, art for knowledge/information10, as well as about the digital art’s sake4, but the museum is also a „phantasmal divide11. Dominique Poulot highlights that „the assertion community” in the 19th century Europe – the material of the human rights will make us consider the access to elements of the past being deemed indices, witnesses, artworks as a legitimate request, which must be satisfied as well as ways to learn; by contributing to the order efficiently and equitably”12. Technology participates in of history5, museums become intellectual and social the creation of „new spaces of economic and cultural environments, bearing a patriotic conscience. Towards creativity and production”13, in a context wherein a shift the end of the 20th century, museums become places from industrial systems to economies of knowledge is of artistic and patrimonial6 difference and today made. „Within this framework, it is considered that the they continue to be privileged spaces of building the new information and communication technologies and „meanings of the material past7”, as well as the main the possibilities of interdisciplinary collaboration have frames to exhibit contemporary art, being, from this generated a change in the museums’ behaviour, more point of view, the ideal exhibitions wherein we find the precisely a focus on the impact of the institution as authorised narratives9. regards the individuals and the communities14”.

1 Malraux (1965) 2 Levy (2001), p. 44 3 In Romania, the national movable cultural heritage is regulated by the Law no. 182/2000 on the protection of the national mobile cultural heritage, republished in 2008. 4 Gadamer (1992), p. 40 5 Nora P. (1972) 6 Poulot (2005), p. 141 7 De Certeau in Le Goff & Nora (1974), p. 57 8 O’Doherty (1986) [Artforum, 1976] 9 Poinsot (1999) 10 Jeanneret (2005), p. 66-76 11 Perriault (2002) 12 Poulot (1988), p. 332-341 13 Mathien (2005), p. 7 14 Striepe (2013) p. 207-217 18 Within this social, informational and technological The current discussions on the technological update context15, the new forms of virtual communication and computerisation highlight the problems of post- which the Internet facilitates prove to be interesting humanism, which becomes one of the explanatory instruments for museums, allowing the experts, theories of the virtuality and cyber culture „through museographers and curators to keep up with the present the assertion of the de-corporality and immateriality and resulting in new forms of cooperation between of information”18. Anita Hammer stated that „the the exhibition creators and visitors, included in the activities in the cyberspace are somewhere between same cultural sphere by means of a new technological social and ritual or aesthetics and can be defined as support for communication16. Technology can not only ‚reflexive’, because they take place at the boundaries generate an increase of visitors’ interest in art, but also between the individual and the community, through the enhancement of the wide public’s knowledge in this collective representations”19. The theorists of post- field: modernism consider that „the virtual reality can be understood as a reality mediated by the information and Creators increasingly resort to technological instruments communication technologies, while the virtualisation in order to facilitate the understanding, which should process is a creative exploitation of the multiple result in a behaviour different from the physical visit to a valences of humankind [...] technicalness is not an museum. In fact, this is about a harnessing factor for the intrinsic prolongation of corporality or imagination, museum’s popularity, from a marketing perspective, for it is not completely subsumed to humankind, but the increase of museum attendance by a wider public, represents a mediated relationship of the humankind different from the regular one (researchers, pupils, with the technical side, materialising itself as a means, students, neophytes, art amateurs, tourists etc.) 17. not as an autonomous way of being”20.

Art and Edutainment

The phenomenon of online museums leads to new artwork’s circulation, because, as far as art is concerned, ways of dissemination, as no longer does the public go „ignorance is more destructive than knowledge, and to the museum, but the museum comes to the public21 this availability of the artwork is preferable to the – the collective presence when visiting exhibitions disappearance of the work23”. is substituted by the individual, solitary consultation from a distance. Although in the beginning there was It is considered that the mediation of the Internet allows fear that, by making the collections accessible online, the development of a perspective which combines the the visitors would stop going physically to museums, production of education-oriented information with it seems that the virtualisation of museums has other ludic manners of display, the so-called edutainment24, functions, corresponds to new uses, stimulating the which facilitates the learning of complex notions. very cultural consumption. Moreover, these forms of This way, the virtual museum makes art accessible to online presentation „make the visitors’ relationship the young audience (teens), who are trapped in the with the works more intimate”22, due to the greater popular culture25. As Deborah Schwartz explains, given closeness and possibility of selecting the content and that „youngsters are consumers and producers of new route. More than anything, there is the interest in the media, it is important to aim for the evolution of the

14 Striepe (2013) p. 207-217 15 Rotaru (2010), p. 12 16 Grancher (2003) [online] 17 Ibidem 18 Rotaru (2010), p. 36 19 Hammer (2004), p. 260-268 20 Rotaru (2010), p. 22 21 Quitté (2009) 22 Ory-Lavolée (2002) [online] 23 Arsenault (2003) 24 Bernier (2001) 25 Hill, Douillette (2014), p. 250-261

19 youth-oriented programmes. Through the participation museum attendance27, but they become representative of this media-saturated generation we shall see how for the studies on visiting practices, as, when they much of the museum experience will be shaped become grown-ups, „the long-term prospects of by the Internet”26. Teenagers are deemed the most museums and their relationship with the community under-represented age category from the viewpoint of may reflect in the level of audience engagement28.

Art resources in the online environment

The appearance of museums within the virtual visiteurs virtuels, selon leur âge, leur environnement et space has generated pro and con reactions from the leur niveau de connaissances); le musée virtuel (qui n’a beginning. Some see this environment as „a grave of pas toujours d’équivalent dans le monde réel, il contient arts”29, arguing that it results in a misrepresentation of des collections numérisées)32. art, as it „assigns a transitory substance to the objects”30; others speak about a technological populism, meant to The virtual museum was defined as „a collection of attract the young public (the gadget effect) or about the digitized objects, articulated and composed from McDonaldization of culture, as the visitor/user seeks various supports which, through connectivity and multi- rather a sensation than an aesthetical reflection. access, allows the transcendence of traditional ways of communication and interaction with the visitor...; does Among the advantages offered by online museums not have a real place or space, and its exhibits, as well there are: the democratisation of culture for a wide as its related information, can be disseminated all over public, the accessibility off the working hours and the the world33”. liberation from space limitations: Among the sites containing databases with artwork ...as an institution of the memory, the museum images, there are: Virtual Library Museum Page (vlmp. associates digital substitutes of collections and museophile.com), ARTHLink (witcombe.sbc.edu/ archives, of libraries and museums, in an interactive ARTHLinks.html), Art webgraphie (bump. fundp.ac.be/ environment, and it allows the access to content art), Web Gallery of Art (wga.hu), Artcyclopedia. regardless of the nature of the institution. The com, Base Joconde (culture. gouv.fr/documentation/ memory institution aims at keeping the contents for joconde), Corbis (pro. corbis.com), Musenor.com, the future generations and at promoting its use and Le Louvre (louvre.fr); Virtual Guggenheim Museum management in time. The virtual museum is neither a (guggenheim.org/ exhibitions/virtual); GALLERY 9 rival, nor a threat to the „brick and cement” museum, (walkerart.org/ gallery9/), Fondation Cartier pour l’Art as its digital nature does not allow it to present the Contemporain (fondation.cartier.fr), MOMA.org, Tate real objects, unlike the traditional museum. However, Gallery (tate. org.uk/webart), NARCISSE, Network of Art it can be a continuation of the ideas and concepts Research Computer Image SystemS in Europe (culture. of the collections in the cyberspace, and thus it can gouv.fr/ documentation/lrmf/pres.htm). reveal the quintessence of the museum. In parallel, the virtual museum reaches visitors who will never have The virtual tours of the world’s greatest museums can the possibility to physically go to a certain museum31. be viewed on http://www.googleartproject.com, a platform that presents real images from the museums Werner Schweibenz identifie les catégories suivantes: like MoMA (New York), Versailles Palace, Van Gogh le musée-brochure (proposant des informations Museum (Amsterdam), Hermitage Museum (Sankt essentielles sur le musée); le musée-contenu (banque Petersburg), Tate Britain (London), Alte Nationalgalerie de données des collections muséales); le musée (Berlin) etc. pédagogique (proposant différents points d’accès à ses

26 Schwartz (2005) 27 Striepe (2013), p. 207-217 28 Ibidem 29 Doray, Bibaud (1999) 30 Bernier (2001) 31 Schweibenz (2004) 32 Ibidem 33 Grancher (2003) [online]

20 An exhibition in the virtual reality may totally or there are museums that thrived in the second partially represent places of art display, placing the half of the 19th century, open-air museums exhibits spatially or metaphorically (according to an of monumental ceramics and sculpture, architectural or museological concept); there may be results of creation camps. In Romania, the thematic virtual exhibitions, transposed from reality Sculpture Camp from Măgura Buzăului is or created for the virtual space: emblematic and notorious. Similar examples are the Monumental Ceramics Camp from It presents the exhibits in a light through Medgidia, mostly destroyed because of the which the specialists (restorers, art historians, authorities’ negligence, the Commemorative professional artists) may have access to Sculpture Camp from Oarba de Mureş or the commonly inaccessible characteristics of the Sculpture Camp Căsoaia Arad, to name only object (such as: brushing, surface treatment, the important ones. The virtualisation of these materiality, primer coating type), as in the real open-air museums would create the necessary space the exhibits are protected in various landmarks to follow the evolution in time and ways. The virtual tour may be a very good to perform the conservation and restoration replacement for albums. It has the extra feature interventions when necessary. They are all to make the dimensional relation between the more vulnerable as they are exposed to objects intelligible and to make available the the elements and sometimes to the reckless exhibit’s dimensional aspect for the (virtual) acts of people. Sometimes, during the course viewer. The albums had no other chance but to of history, natural earthquakes (sic!) occur, have the dimensions written under the photo. with serious consequences on the museums, As a personal memory, I was shocked when such as the bombings of the World Wars I and I first saw Theodor Gericault’s “Raft of the II, the reckless acts taking place right now in Medusa” at the Louvre. Up to that moment, I the Near East, the destruction of the National had thought that it was a painting of regular Library and of the National Art Museum during size (2 m x 2 m maximum) – I remember the the events of 1989. Keeping the art object in shock I felt when I saw that this painting is a digital form can also be a kind of protection. sized 7 m x 5 m... or Veronese’s “Wedding of [interview with Vlad Ciobanu, plastic artist, Canaan”, 10 m x 7 m. Besides indoors museums, November 2015].

The Virtual Tour of the Romanian National Art Museum

At European level, the project “Europeana, Europe’s run the risk of progressively eroding and losing digital archive” was launched in 2008 (euro- peana. what has been the foundation of European eu/portal). According to the report The New countries and civilisation in the last centuries.34 Renaissance, of the „Comité des Sages, Reflection (Brussels, the 10th of January, 2011, i. 2.3.2) group on bringing Europe’s cultural heritage online”, which can be found on the site of the National In Romania, the partner of this project is CIMEC Network of Romanian Museums (muzee.org/ (the Collective of the Cultural Memory Institute), romania/final-report-cdS3.pdf): participant both in the EDLnet project and inthe Europeana v.1.0 - E-ContentPlus, 2009 – 2010. The site Digitization is more than a technical option, it e-patrimoniu.ro, a project belonging to the National is a moral obligation. In times when more and Heritage Institute (patrimoniu.gov.ro) is a portal of more cultural goods are consumed online, information on Romania’s museums. For instance, when screens and digital devices are becoming there are links to the “museum blogosphere”, ubiquitous, it is crucial that we bring culture sites and blogs of the museums, or to the Guide of online [...]. If we don’t pursue this task, we Romanian Museums (http:// ghidulmuzeelor.cimec.

34 The New Renaissance, Report of the Comite des Sages on bringing Europe’s Cultural Heritage Online (2011) [online]

21 ro). According to this platform (e-patrimoniu.ro), and launched publicly in April 2014. According to 109 Romanian museums have virtual tours (http:// the initiator of the project of virtualisation ofthe www.cimec.ro/muzee/muzee- cu-tur-virtual.html), Romanian National Art Museum’s collections, visual 14 of which being art museums. artist Emilian Săvescu, a virtual tour can be useful in presenting and promoting a museum or exhibition, The virtual tour is a way to attract various categories in the archiving activity, as well as in research and of public and tourists, and puts the museum on the restoration: new marketisation track35, which is reflected, for example, in the press release on the TripAdvisor The virtual tour does not seem an act of creation excellence certificate, awarded to the Romanian to me. It seems to me it is rather an accurate National Art Museum (MNAR) in 2014, based on the recording of reality, like a service [...] I see it like a visitors’ reviews:

MNAR is unfolding a rich exhibition activity and gives a growing importance to the diversification of the activities for the public. Thus, in 2014, at the museum’s headquarters 210 programmes for schools, families and teenagers and 107 programmes for adults were organised and a total of 16,182 persons participated in these programmes. The endeavour to make the institution accessible for all the categories of the public also included launching the virtual tours, accessible for free on the site of the museum. Fig. 1. Museums and galleries included in the virtual tour of the Romanian (MNAR Press release [online]). National Art Museum (screen capture www.mnart.arts.ro) Besides the permanent galleries of MNAR (the Old Romanian Art Gallery, the Modern great instrument for an artist and for a museum to Romanian Art Gallery and the European Art Gallery), show the exhibition exactly as it was [...] The tour is the tours of the museum include MNAR’s satellite- an accurate representation of the exhibition, it is like museums – the Art Collections Museum, the “K.H. you take a stroll in the exhibition again. Zambaccian” Museum and the “Theodor Pallady” (Interview with Emilian Săvescu, imagofactory.ro, Museum. May 2015) A virtual tour falls into the category of the techno- It is considered that the new ways of figuring and semiotic devices that exist in the online space36, a spatializing allowed by the digital technology and hypertext, a virtual architecture or world, which is a an images, are based on the interactivity “through the interactive computer model in three dimensions that figurative form: this is an action upon something, can be explored with the mouse or with a keyboard nearly felt, [...] a sensorial and at the same time command, bringing on the idea of interactivity. cognitive exploration”37. The set up of a virtual The virtual tour of the Romanian National Art tour depends on the manner texts and buttons are Museum is a project of the Imago Factory company displayed on the screen, included in a virtual route/ for MNAR, carried out in the period 2012-2014 itinerary.

35 Lipovetsky, Serroy (2013), p. 395 36 Souchier, Jeanneret, Le Marec (2003), p. 118 37 Sauvageot (1994), p. 221 37 Sauvageot (1994), p. 221

22 First of all, virtual tours represent the concept of “virtual spatiality”, as in the first place the visit to a museum means “consuming spaces, absorbing places”38. The computer interface is a different frame, it is framed off from other activities39, whether it is a mirror, a window or a portal40, the framing is clearly defined and the reflexive activity may take place within this frame41.

A virtual tour proposes panoramic images of the exhibition halls (360 degrees perspective), made by means of photographic images, processed with a computer application (realtime panoramaeditors / panoramasoftware), in Fig. 2. Browsing tips this case the Autopano Giga and Panotour (screen capture www.mnart.arts.ro) Pro applications from Kolor:

The professional virtual tour may contain dozens of such panoramas, interconnected through connections points. A complex 360o virtual tour represents a unitary and interactive whole; it is realistic, objective and comprehensive, facilitating the visit of all the details with no time limit. By comparison, the photograph “freezes” a moment and a part of the place, the film may present the space in a limited period of time, in a succession that depends on the talent and subjectivity of the producer (www.imagofactory.ro) Fig. 1. Museums and galleries included in the virtual tour of the Romanian National Art Museum (screen capture www.mnart.arts.ro) A virtual tour is a presentation of the object-oriented rather than context- Fig. 3. Visiting layout of the Old Romanian Art Gallery (screen capture oriented information. Macrophotography www.mnart.arts.ro) is useful in restoring and digitizing, as one can see any details of an object, before or after the restoration. The images can contain “witnesses”, text with information about that object.

As far as the content elements of an exhibition are concerned, various files may be attached to the virtual tour, in order to make the visit more pleasant or more documented: audio (music), texts containing information, navigation history, video inserts, maps, links to other sites etc.

Fig. 4. Panoramic image, Old Romanian Art Gallery, Hall 5 (screen capture www.mnart.arts.ro)

38 Poulot (2005), p. 141 39 Hammer (2005), p. 262 40 Turkle (1996) 41 Hammer (2005), p. 262

23 Fig. 5. Old Romanian Art Gallery, example of explanatory text „Epitaph, 1457”, Hall 1-2 (screen capture www.mnart.arts.ro)

Conclusion

As we have seen, the digitization of the museum art It is true that, in order to understand art, technical heritage requires the collaboration between technology knowledge is not sufficient; the educational virtues of and museology, it modifies the relation with the public this instrument are still to be explored and exploited. and the perception on art. Considered useful by artists, The most important thing about it is its role to make art restorers, museographers, art experts or neophytes, visible and to democratise the access to the museum the virtual tour is a useful instrument for knowledge, space. exploration, as well as for archiving and restoration.

Bibliography

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24 Levy, P. 2001. Cyberculture. Minneapolis: Rapport à Mme la Ministre de la Culture et University of Minnesota Press de la Communication, online: http://www. Lipovetsky, G., Serroy, J., 2013. L’esthétisation culture.gouv. fr/culture/actualites/rapports/ du monde. Vivre à l’âge du capitalisme artiste, ory-lavollee/ory- lavollee.pdf Paris: Gallimard Sauvageot A. 1994. Voirs et savoirs. Esquisse Mathien, M. (ed). 2005. La „Société de d’une sociologie du regard, Paris: PUF. l’Information”. Entre mythes et réalités. Schwartz, D. F. 2005. „Dude, Where’s My Bruxelles: Etablissements Emile Bruylant Museum? Inviting Teens to Transform Museums,” Museum News, September/October (2005), Malraux A. 1965. Le Musée Imaginaire. Paris: online: http:// www.mercermuseum.org/ Gallimard assets/Education- Documents/Learn-and-Do/ Nora P. 1972. „L’événement monstre”, Dude-Wheres-My- Museum.pdf. Communications, Vol. 18, Issue 1, pp. 162- Schweibenz, W. 2004. „L’Evolution du musée 172, online: http:// www.persee.fr/doc/ virtuel”, dans Les Nouvelles de l’ICOM, nr comm_0588-8018_1972_ num_18_1_1272 3, online: http:// icom.museum/fileadmin/ Poulot D. 2005. Une histoire des musées de user_upload/pdf/ICOM_ News/2004-3/FRE/ France, XVIIIe-XXe siècle, Paris: La Découverte. p3_2004-3.pdf Poulot, D. „Le droit au musée : un droit du Souchier, E., Jeanneret, Y., Le Marec J. (eds.). citoyen?” in Chianea G. 1988. Des Droits 2003. Lire, écrire, récrire. Objets, signes et de l’homme et la conquête des libertés. Des pratiques des medias informatisées, Paris: Lumières aux révolutions de 1848. Saint-Martin- Bibliothèque Publiques d’Informations d’Hères: Presses Universitaires de Grenoble, p. Striepe, S. E. 2013. „How Some Art Museums 332-341 Can Appeal to Teenagers”, Journal of Museum O’Doherty, B. 1986. Inside the White Cube. The Education, Volume 38, Issue 2 (July 2013), p. Ideology of the Gallery Space. Santa Monica/ 207- San Francisco: The Lapis Press [Artforum, 1976] 217, online: http://www.maneyonline.com/ Poinsot, J.-M. 1999. Quand l’œuvre a lieu. L’art doi/ful l/10.1179/1059865013Z.00000000022 exposé et ses récits autorisés. Villeurbanne: Art Turkle, S. 1996. „Virtuality and Its Discontents”, Edition The American Prospect, Winter, Vol. 7 (24), Perriault, J. 2002. L’accès au savoir en ligne, online: http://hevra.haifa.ac.il/̴soc/lectures/ Paris: Odile Jacob talmud/ files/547.htm Quitté, A.-L. 2009. „Une Typologie pour The New Renaissance, Report of the Comite des appréhender l’art contemporain sur Internet”, Sages on bringing Europe’s Cultural Heritage Virtualité, Art & Culture, in Champs Culturels, Online, Brussels, 2011, online: http://www. no 18, online: http:// escales.enfa.fr/ muzee.org/ romania/final-report-cdS3.pdf files/2009/08/quitte.pdf MNAR Press release, online: http://www. Rotaru, I. 2010. Comunicarea virtuală. mediafax.ro/cultura-media/muzeul-national- Impactul noilor tehnologii informaționale de- arta-al-romaniei-a-primit-certificatul-de- și comunicaționale in spațiul educațional excelenta- tripadvisor-pe-2015-14454593 contemporan. Bucharest: Tritonic Ory-Lavolee, B. 2002. La diffusion numérique du patrimoine, dimension de la politique culturelle,

Angelica Helena Marinescu Faculty of Journalism and Communication Sciences, Bucharest University, Calea Victoriei 1-5, Bucharest angelica. [email protected]

25 Fig.1.The traditional house where the museum was installed

FOR A NAIVE MUSEOLOGY Maricica and the museum across the water

„For the peasant, museality is ridiculous. Just as he does not have a sense of nature – that is he does not faint when seeing a landscape – neither does he have the sense of a value deposit, where you must go all dressed up and sigh. On the other hand, it is interesting to know how much the peasant is preoccupied with his own identity.” (Andrei Pleşu**)

ABSTRACT

In Podu Nărujii, a village in Vrancea county, Romania, the new and the archaic are intertwined, as natural as in any other village of the 21st century. However, the image that the villagers have of themselves and therefore want to transmit seems to spring rather from the old times. Maricica, a young peasant aged 34, wears blue-jeans and T-shirts, but knows how to weave, spin, tell stories of the past and, as well as that, she is a depositary of the antique traditions of the village. ‚Over the river’, in an area rather difficult to reach, Maricica settled a micro-museum of the Vrancea village in the old house of the deceased Apostol Zaharioiu. There, without any expertise, but with a lot of creativity, she arranged objects that are more or less peasant-like, gathered from the village dwellers. This paper aims to present the manner in which personal creativity and intuition can serve the representation of local identity, materializing in a naive, but not unaware syntax of old and new objects.

KEY-WORDS: material culture, ‚naive museology’, (auto)representation, local identity, cultural memory, tradition, museum discourse

* The article was drawn up starting from an ethnological research in the field made through a partnership between the Faculty of Letters of the Bucharest University and the Cultural Centre of the Vrancea County, in the period 14-19 August, ** Pleșu, Andrei. „About a character with countless faces”, Folio. Information Bulletin of MTR 1(2001), p. 3 (Interview by Silvia Cazacu).

26 Fig. 2 Traditional female costume displayed in the museum

Can we call a private village collection a „museum”? Consequently, by the letter of this definition, the initiatives Considering that such a structure is most of the time of the peasants who choose to represent their locality, made up by people with no specialised training in the commune or ethnographic area by exhibiting personal field of museology, with no curatorial expertise and who, collections of objects in their own space would not be most of the time, do not have appropriate conditions for worthy of the attention of the specialists in the field, as this the conservation of the exhibits, who rather work out would be too profane an aspiration towards what we like of pure passion, the opinions on the answer are quite to claim as a Temple of Museums. However, consecrated different. Some voices prefer a radical position, arguing voices of museology, such as Dominique Poulot, state that that a private village collection does not meet the sine qua ICOM’s definition is a hegemonic one and, more than that, non conditions for the operation of a museum institution. characteristic to the museums globalisation trend, showing Indeed, the definition given by the International Council of at the same time that there are a series of alternatives that Museums (ICOM), taken over by the Romanian legislation, come both from semiology or communication sciences, 2 too, stipulates: and from the professional culture of conservation experts .

The museum is the public cultural institution, in The voices open to such alternatives belong to experts in the service of society, which acquires, conserves, the anthropology of objects, with a broader view, who show researches, restores, communicates and exhibits a little more preciseness in perceiving the nuances of the the tangible and intangible heritage of human spontaneous curatorial gesture, acknowledging not only its communities’ existence and evolution, as well as legitimacy, but also its value. For instance, Thierry Bonnot, of the environment, for the purposes of education, by dedicating a volume to the attachment to objects, to the study and enjoyment1. histories and personal markers that they may incorporate, speaks about those monoparental museums, “where the charm counts so much, and the rules barely at all”3.

1 The Law on museums and public collections no. 311 / 8.07.2003 available at http://www.cimec.ro/muzee/lege/index.htm (last consultation: 20.04.2015). 2 Poulot, Dominique. 2009. Musées et muséologie. Paris: Editions La Découverte, p. 6 3 Hudson apud Bonnot, Thierry.2014. L’Attachement aux choses. Paris: CNRS Editions, p. 106 .

27 Fig.3. Pottery plate, „abundance of the house” type

In the Romanian space, the thriving of these recommend themselves and which they take pride unspecialised forms, supported with passion, patience, in. Moreover, beyond being an identity marker and a personal effort, organically considered „museums” by factor of civic cohesion that marks the communities’ their authors and their communities, was noticed by cultural life, such collections, appropriately exploited, the team of the Romanian Peasant’s Museum. In 2008, could also bring economic advantages to the localities, the institution dedicated the project LOCAL IDENTITY becoming an efficient means of promoting the values AND HERITAGE. Identification and promotion of and the image of the respective communities outside village collections from Romania to the support and the locality, through their inclusion in the tourist training of these local endeavourers, as well as to the landmarks. valorisation of their initiatives. The collectors directly What makes them different from the big, established involved in the project after a prospecting campaign museums, being at the same time a drive for the enjoyed a week’s training stage at the Museum on visitors, is the fact that these installations are living the Roadside, a stage made from five introductory cultural spaces, wherein the testimonies of the past modules and an application consisting in setting-up are brought together in various ways and tonalities, an exhibition that would represent them, by using completed by a warm welcome, an eagerness to share their own objects4. In the volume occasioned by this stories ever-differently told, wherein the informal project, Carmen Mihalache admits that these private dialogue with the host may cast a passion for the village collections within the Romanian space are exhibits upon the visitor, who will probably return, nowadays characterised by precariousness, not due to thus possibly enlarging the network of visitors in a intrinsic causes, though, but because of the lack of an geometrical progression. In this light, the relaxation as institutional protection, of a coherent set of cultural regards the rules within the private village collections policies to protect and launch them, to encourage is not a proof of ignorance, but, on the contrary, a those people who want to become cultural operators in resource that allows the owners to starkly assume the private sector. The ethnologist draws the attention their status as “something else” – a “something else” upon the fact that the potential of these museums in full of charm, like the traditional peasant icons on nuce is worthy of consideration, as they represent glass, face to face with the Renaissance paintings, an important heritage resource, a community’s preoccupied with proportions and concreteness. identity and originality factor, an identity resource The naivety of these lively places allows them to deemed representative, through which the owners reinvent themselves with every visitor, just like in a

4 Romanian Peasant’s Museum, 2008. The serfs of beauty. Village collections and museums from Romania, Bucharest: Martor, p. 7. 5 Ibidem, pp. 5-11.

28 Fig.4. Loom displayed in the „good room”

fairy tale. However, in order for them to live like this, subject areas nearly unexplored in the Romanian they need heritage organisations, cultural institutions academic landscape, such the anthropology of the and authorities to support them without tarnishing object or museology, they would enrich the research their ingenuousness – as Carmen Mihalache also on identity and would contribute to the abandonment emphasises5. Moreover, as the manner the existence of a certain archaic-Mioritical fixation that still survives of these collections interferes with the cultural life of in certain areas of in-field ethnographic research, communities is still a subject merely studied, I believe they are an important resource not only for the rural and would, in exchange, consider the village in its areas where they were installed, therefore not only dimension of contemporary, complex, heteroclite, for the practical order. Their thorough exploration open reality – a hub for great changes in the paradigm, within in-situ anthropological studies would fertilise of reconfigurations and searches for meanings.

The story of the museum across the water

In the following pages, I shall not hesitate to call the estate, set-up two months prior to my research. And, private village collection a „museum”, as the name as a “partner” and owner of the museum – a space that itself is of great importance for those who devised enjoys heavy local prestige – his image of son of the it. Maricica, a 34 year old woman from Nistorești, village becomes ever so strong. The little ethnographic Vrancea County, who wears tight jeans, flip-flops and a museum was installed by Maricica in the Măgurele T-shirt, yet she can weave and knows all the old ways, area, across the water, in an old traditional house takes pride in having installed a museum together which C.B. had bought from late Apostol Zaharioiu with her sister, Ionica I., using the objects collected (Fig. 16). The owner, very longeval, had been a lower from the locals by C.B., “Old Man”, as she calls him. middle-class peasant, with 3-4 ha of land: „He was 1.5 C.B., a native from Podu Nărujii, is highly respected m tall and weighed about 50 kg – short, but roguish among the villagers. A former schoolmaster, then a guy!”, as the buyer says. Apostol Zaharioiu had suffered bailiff in Focșani, bagpiper with knowledge of the local the communist oppression: because he had opposed tradition, amateur hunter, the man owns the boarding the collectivisation of ’52-’53, he was imprisoned for house and the farm in Podu Nărujii, not yet integrated 14 years. In his absence, the collectivisation never in the travel circuit, as well as the riding club on the took place, though, but the communists saw to his

6 All the photos in this article belong to its author and were made during the research made in Podu Nărujii (14-19 August 2014).

29 Fig.5. Bourgeois-style hardwood desk exhibited in the good room vilification, spreading bad words about him around We reached the place guided by the woman herself; the village, that he supposedly was an evil-hearted we went down a soft slope, on quite a hilly ground, person. Because of this, the locals used to avoid him, behind C.B.’s garden, then we crossed a water on a and he lived a solitary life in the house in Măgurele, little improvised wooden bridge, then we went up now a museum. To a certain extent, he enjoyed the another difficult slope, as the branches of the trees companionship of Uncle Gheorghe Vulpoiu – an fallen over the path during the last storm occasionally “ascetic” himself, also a widower, also longeval (he scratched us. Quite a complicated access, softened lived to be 107) – who was living in the only house down by an enthusiastic Maricica, who, careless about in Măgurele close to Apostol Zaharioiu’s. Gheorghe having hurt her heel quite harshly in a wood chip, was Vulpoiu had fought, as C.B. says, in both World Wars, talking to us, the research team, about her museum, which he survived safe and sound. He only went down which, in the local horizon, was deemed a cultural to the village for matches and they say that he used to pièce de résistance7. Thus, the woman was heartily light his cigarette from the cigarette before, in order to introducing us to a visiting experience wherein the save the matches. He used to have 10-15 cherry trees, local pride, permanently doubled by references to of which children used to steal cherries; the past and guarantees of authenticity (“Everythin’, everythin’ here’s authentic, made here, by us!”), Uncle Vulpoiu caught C.B. – a little boy at the time interwove with the respect she bore for “Old Man” – by the leg and warned him he had a big, wild dog C.B. In Maricica’s view, Old Man knows everything and and that he had better asked for cherries, as he was can get any object to complete the collection – even a entertaining guests. His house is now a ruin. Not far cuckoo clock (“Like they were making in the ole days”), from Zaharioiu’s, Vulpoiu’s house seems the reflection more suitable than the plastic one, with no batteries, in debris and dampness of the museum installed and left in the house from the time when the workingmen taken care of by Maricica. worked there: “Who, Old Man? Well, yeaah, he sure 7 We should detail here how we, the team of ethnologists from the University of Bucharest, were perceived by Maricica and the community in general during our five day’s work in the field. In their eyes, we were „the gentlemen from Bucharest, preoccupied by culture, in search for traditions and, consequently, the villagers’ discourse exalted the folklore richness of their region; they were very eager to show us those things they thought we were looking for. The mayor of Nistoreşti even insisted, by stylistically exaggerating his speech with pride, that their region was ideal for “folklore poaching”, as there was an abundance of it. 30 Fig.6. Syntax of objects displayed on the desk gets ‘em! You bet ya!” Old Man is the silent partner by metaphorical means of a charming naïveté and of the museum and the owner of its secrets, the one imaginativeness. who knows everything there is in the “backstage”. He is renowned as an authority, on the one hand through Then, at a second sight, questions arose; I wanted to his financial power, on the other hand through the fully understand the manner in which they, the villagers, recognition, respect and influence he enjoys within chose to represent themselves through the gesture of the community, all of which allowing him to invest in a arranging objects that they considered specific – what project beyond the everyday urgent needs – otherwise objects? Why those objects and not different ones? I quite harsh in this Vrancea village. He is, in a way, a wanted to take a step further towards understanding little Demiurge of a small slice of myth, who is very this spontaneous, in nuce heritage establishment, so powerful because he knows very much and enjoys much more interesting precisely because it totally complete trust. However, his presence is quite discrete lacked the intervention of a specialist, while showing, in the museum’s narrative, as Maricica is the one who in exchange, what these people wanted to convey does everything, who knows the practical order. Old about themselves. Then: to whom should they convey? Man is upstream, while Maricica is downstream. The non-inclusion of the museum in the travel circuit, in spite of Maricica’s good will and the closeness of I must confess that, as at first sight the nature of this C.B.’s boarding house and estate, has small and big museum reminded me of the naïve painting, I had a causes: an absolutely impracticable infrastructure reaction very close to a coup de foudre: there was a for the wide public, the absolute absence of any lot of distinct originality there, as well as a very fresh form of communication and promotion, as well as look, which, despite certain object syntax errors and cultural policies too frail to protect such initiatives; a lack of problematization, was the expression of a all these constitute the risk that this museum might strong, vivid urge to tell stories about the place, often not surpass its endogenous importance of strict self-

8 Baudrillard, Jean. 1996. System of the objects. Cluj: Echinox, p. 53. (transl. Horia Lazăr) 31 representation at the level of the community and of circularly feeding its sense of identity. As a matter of fact, several decades ago, Jean Baudrillard showed that in this respect there was a trend regarding the mythological object – an old object, emptied from a concrete functionality, aesthetically valued as a sign of one’s own past and even one’s own origins:

Maricica’s museum is meant – and manages – to be a microcosm of local traditional life, as it contains a quasi- complete collection of objects that

Fig.7. Drum for carolling leaning against the loom in the big room

Objects looking at the past signify the entire scope of the regional archaic life9. It is from that bunch!” The apple bunches were hanging a quintessence of a certain way of dwelling, with all the from a peg in the beam. They looked like clusters, they related occupations, it is a metonymy for an ethnographic used to dry like raisins and smelt so nicely to Maricica wholeness, whose fidelity towards the latter is nuanced – the child. Grandfather is the exponent of an archaic only by the reconstructions from the memory, marked world from which somehow Maricica reclaims herself, by the nostalgia of an often uncertain time. Maricica by using this world as an inspiration source in her is a talkative person, and her explanations – alongside museological endeavour. However, Maricica adds to the demonstrations on the loom installed in the “big these vivid, concrete, pregnant memories the viscous, room”, accompanied by the inherent regional terms10 – uncertain consistency of an unhistorical time. A time of somehow “help” the objects, by strengthening what the tradition, a non-time in fact, present in her imperfect museification gesture and the lack of problematization discourse. “’t is how we were doing it in the ole days!” had inherently weakened, as well as by immersing seems to be a recurrence which takes an explanatory the naïve museum into orality. There are also stories, value in her discourse. Thus, the past continuous tense as grandfather Ion Cornea’s: short, glabrous, always she uses when speaking about people of the old days or wearing a woollen vest over his nylon or traditional, about archaic practices represents a time of continuity, holiday shirt, he used to cover his baldness with a green a time that fixes all the breaches by generalising an hat adorned with two blue feathers; he used to patch action of the past, but at the same time a verbal form his trousers by himself, on the old sewing machine of imprecision and pastorality. The past continuous where he used to make his cloth-slippers, and he wore smoothes out the avoidance of circumscribing a fact of an old traditional belt, where he took some “shekels” culture or a practice to a certain past moment and shows from, for his favourite granddaughter. He used to say to somehow that we are dealing with a reconstruction of his wife, Ilinca, who lived to be nearly 100 and survived the past which eliminates history and replaces it with a him by six years: “Ilinca, go get this girl some apples refreshing, even gratifying idea of the past.

9 The list with the exhibits in Maricica’s museum, broken down on functional categories, is available in Annex I of the paper. 10 See the list in Annex I.

32 Fig.8. Version of the “Abduction from the Seraglio”

and are willing to present «the last vestiges of the ancient ways».”11 This is, undoubtedly, an attitude which later on, in the ’60s and the ‘70s of the 20th century would be called emergency ethnology: the feeling that there is an endangered past, about to be extinct, which consequently must be preserved as quickly as possible. During that period of the end of the 19th century, this phenomenon was not at all unfamiliar with the romantic feeling that was aiming at strengthening the political idea of nation-states about to occur on the foundations of the archaic populations, of their wisdom and knowledge, reflected in the folklore. It may be that a certain fascination with the peasant – the “local savage”, after all – that was already in existence made the undertaking of the Swedish team of the 1867 Paris Universal Exhibition tremendously successful: not only did the artists show traditional peasants’ This behaviour, however, does not pertain to Maricica’s costumes to the whole world, but they also set up naïveté, or to that of her museum, either. Moreover, a complete on-site scenography of the ancient rural it is not a naïve, peasant-like behaviour, as it has an life12. It seemed to be the success recipe of the time, intellectual origin and made its career in the entire as a decade later the success would also belong to the Europe in the second half of the 19th century and at the Scandinavians in 1878, at the Paris Exhibition, when beginning of the 20th, accompanying the establishment Swedish linguist Artur Hazelius would inaugurate an of the first ethnographic museums of the period and innovative and spectacular modality of expression setting the direction for the upcoming times. Inthe that would inspire the entire European ethnographic second half of the 19th century, the great conquests museography of the following decades13. It was a of western science and technology are displayed for diorama, a dramatisation of characters, a theatrical the entire world to see within Universal Exhibitions. In reference that turns these installations into a stage set- 1867, in Paris, as a counter-current to these progressive up of the rural, archaic life, obviously dedicated to the displays, a stand is installed, flanking the modern modern urban audiences, who came to wonder at “the industrial achievements by exhibiting old traditional different” – neatly encased and harnessed, immobilised peasants’ costumes, from France and from abroad. within thick glass walls, therefore harmless. Six years “The task is assigned to a group or artists who believe in before, doctor Artur Hazelius had publicly displayed his the pending disappearance of the traditional costumes personal collection of ethnographic objects collected

11 Thiesse, Anne-Marie. 1999. La création des identités nationales. Europe XVIIIe-XXe siècle, Paris: Editions du Seuil, p. 197 12 Ibidem, pp. 197-198. 13 Ibidem, p. 198.

33 Fig.9. Display of the traditional kitchen from Dalarna - a very isolated, and therefore deemed “genuine” area. He formulated his goal in a highly explicit manner: “to use the heritage objects with the purpose to raise and stimulate the visitors’ patriotic feelings14.

In the Romanian space there was a figure similar to Artur Hazelius: lieutenant-colonel Dimitrie Pappasoglu, who, in 1864, opened a small ethnographic museum in his own house. His success was not as fast as the Swedish’, though. The lack of vision, of practice and order, caused by the immaturity of the field in this region at the moment resulted in the failure of the first museographic undertakings of this type. However, Pappsaoglu’s collection would be the foundation of the Museum of Ethnography and of National, Decorative and Industrial Art, established by royal decree on the 25th of February 1906, under the direction of Alexandru Tzigara-Samurcaș - today’s National Museum of the Romanian Peasant15. As a matter of fact, this establishment of the museum was synchronous with a connection with a historical past, the strangeness of plethora of ethnographic museums which opened their the “invented” traditions resides in the fact that this gates at the crossroads of the 19th and 20th centuries, continuity is very artificial. In short, they are responses particularly in Western Europe. They represent the to new contexts, which take the shape of references materialisation of the interest in folklore of the elites, to old situations, or which establish their own past educated by specialised magazines that flourished at through a quasi-mandatory repetition. What makes the time, alongside with specialised institutions, such as the “invention of traditions” so interesting […] is the the Folklore Society (London, 1878). The convergence contrast between the perpetual innovation and change of these cultural phenomena resides in the vast of the modern world and the attempt to structure at movement of the national identity creation. At the least several parts of unchanged and invariable social dawns of a modernity that was as fascinating as it was life. 16 threatening through the radical changes that it forecast, The inner drives that animate Maricica’s naïve the return to the archaic life – in its comfortable stage- museological gesture largely overlap with both Eric version – was not very far from the inner drives that Hobsbawn’s problematisation, and with the context led to the phenomenon of inventing traditions, in Eric that gave birth to the fascination with the ethnographic Hobsbawm’ vision: object over a century ago. Of course, times are different, In fact, through them [invented traditions – A/N] people so are the causes, but the social and economic change, seek the establishment of a continuity with a convenient often violent, often incoherent and puzzling, remains historical past. However, to the extent that there is a a feature of the contemporary village of Vrancea,

14 Ibidem, p. 200. 15 http://www.muzeultaranuluiroman.ro/istoric.html (dernière consultation, le 20 avril2015). 16 Hobsbawm, Eric. 2012. The Invention of Tradition. Cambridge:Cambrige University Press, pp. 1-2 (trad. m. AMP)

34 unexpectedly opened towards a heteroclite modernity, during the interviews I made with her, she referred to full of highly diverse cultural forms, wherein it is hard the women’s, children’s, men’s “national costumes”, to find identity markers. Consequently, the view is or to the shirt grandfather Ion Cornea used to wear redirected towards the past, towards its liberating aura on holidays, the idea of “nationalism” slipped into of archaicness. As Russel W. Belk showed in an article Maricica’s regional discourse, but more like a speech dedicated to the role of objects in building and keeping cliché acquired by force of habit than an intention a sensation of the past, “we are especially preoccupied with a programmatic character. However, even in the with having a past at the moments when our current absence of the nationalistic nuance, we must not identity is challenged”17. forget that Maricica’s discourse might be, more or less consciously, the answer to a certain pressure exercised The objects receive then an anti-amnesic role, they upon Vrancea over the decades – an inherited view become markers in the cultural memory: “The objects that has consecrated the region in the eyes of many as stabilise us, reminding us of our past, turning this past a cradle of traditionality and archaicness. Let us only 18 into a substantial part of our present” . Obviously, think of what the studies in Nereju, conducted by the Maricica’s discourse – both museum-related and verbal team of the Bucharest Sociology School have meant, – lacks the nationalistic dimension so present in the 19th what expectations regarding this region they might century. I did not find in her museum any tri-coloured have created. flags broached ostentatiously, assertively. When,

A sensitive scenography

Maricica’s museum is not only a collection of traditional exploration of the way the objects are “lived”21. objects brought together, but also a complete scenography, a syntax wherein each piece has its Let us take a look at the traditional female costume, meaning and purpose, determined in relation to the hung on a hanger – an intuition of the displaying others. In this manner, they get the force to generate panel in the galleries – on the wall in the bedroom, a space, because, as Jean Baudrillard emphasises, partially hanging over a wall mat (Fig. 2, Fig. 3). Its “with no connection there is no space, as space only position raised my interest, despite the absence of exists if it is opened, provoked, rhythmic, enlarged by a mannequin or some other form of corporality to correlating objects and by exceeding its function into support it. Maricica cleared up her choice for me: she a new structure”19. In this respect, Maricica is not far had hung the costume in that position in order to evoke from the display of the archaic life exhibited by Artur the grace of the women of the past, who used to wear Hazelius’ diorama in 1878 – a way of expression this kind of costumes in front of the gate, on holidays. which she certainly does not know anything about, Obviously, this answer contains a form of devotion for at least theoretically. This is the reason why feminine the femininity of her female ancestors, probably fed intuition is the strong point of the museum narrative by childhood memories, yet I was equally compelled devised by Maricica: the fact that the woman acts in to notice the theatrical reference of the costume’s total lack of expertise, creating, despite this, extremely posture – a kind of minimalistic version of a diorama strong meanings, even though she is not aware of their without a showcase – as well as the intuition of what implications. This is why the analysis of several exhibits Horia Bernea explained in his reflections on the set-up of her museum that I shall make in the following lines of the Romanian Peasant’s Museum: in the absence does not follow the classification on functional criteria20, of a body to support it, the costume is a flabby case, but valorises the ingenuity of the narrative and the force therefore it loses its code. Consequently, there must be of the objects. Because, in the line of the same Jean found a substitute of a body, which the costume should Baudrillard, an analysis of objects does not become contain, should dress up, thus completing the body- more relevant through classification, but through the garment relationship and regaining its sense22. To all

17 Belk, Russel, W. „The Role of Possesions in Constructing and Mantaining a Sense of Past”, NA – Advances in Consumer Research, 17(1990), pp. 669-676 (trad. m. AMP) 18 Mc Cracken apud Belk, Russel W. ibidem. 19 Baudrillard, Jean, op. cit., p. 13 20 A voir l’Annexe 1 21 Baudrillard, Jean, op. cit., p. 6 35 22 Bernea, Horia. 2010. Câteva gânduri despre muzeu, cantități, materialitate şi încrucişare,n.d. : Editura Liternet, p. 31. Fig.10. Plastic doll these I add Maricica’s intention to suggest the peasant asked if she is going to finish the mat installed on the couple, through the juxtaposition of the male and loom, Maricica answers: “I think this one he [Old Man, female costumes – a choice strengthened by displaying A/N] keeps like that, for the museum. I wove a piece at between the two the “abundance of the house” pottery first, to see if we could weave on the loom and... if people ask me, I show them... no problem!” Even in Maricica’s plate, whose text not only refers to the abundance and eyes the object has the importance of a reified reality, luck of the home, but, in a wider sense, it also represents meant for a showcase. – as Maricica says – a consolidation of the union between the masculine and feminine principles. In this “strong” In the same big room, the name of which Maricica insists connection it is unimportant that the plate is not even to translate to me as “the living room”23 (“the living a handmade peasant’s object, but one of the numerous room, like they call it today... A room where guests was mass-produced kitsch pieces that can be found in the so- received... I mean not in the bedroom or... ‘t is a room called traditional fairs across the country. where you wouldn’t enter every day”.), she placed a In the largest room – “the good room” – Maricica installed bourgeois-style hardwood desk (Fig. 5). Undoubtedly, the loom, still functional – an object which reminds this piece marks a rupture in the syntax of objects, by of an archaic practice that still survives in the locality, dynamiting the intended “peasant phrase” through an through the skills of a few women (Fig. 4). Although object that would not justify itself in a peasant’s house she knows how to weave, Maricica has not performed dated at the beginning of the 20th century. “’t is an ole this activity for herself since her wedding, in 1999. But piece of furniture, too... Don’t know from who... Look at the woman does not hesitate to sit down and show us it: ‘t is different, with drawers!” Her intuition dictates the a demonstration. It is this very demonstration – which “otherwiseness” of the piece of furniture, as the drawer has become the object’s main function – that gives it its itself is a cultural marker of the town, of the bourgeoisie, status: it is there for others to see “how we were doing with no connection with the peasants and the peasant- things in the ole times”. The object therefore becomes a like way of arranging the objects24. In her view, the sign of a diffused time: “Only see that ya don’ stumble oldness seems to legitimate the presence of the object on it, cause the loom is precious, too, ain’t it?” When in the museum. To her, “town-like” is the synonym for

23 The Insider translated an ethnographic reality of her own cultural horizon into the ethnologist’s cultural code. Actually, she is between two worlds and masters both codes. 24 Nicolau, Irina. 2001. „Despre cădere, punere și așezare”, in Talmeş-balmeş de etnologie şi multe altele, Bucharest: Editura Ars Docendi, p. 64.

36 “new”, while “peasant-like” is the synonym for “old”. – nearly a Maecenas. The frame and the vase are still waiting for the moment when they accomplish their Again, the idea of tradition and the idea of the past enter function or catch life from the rich imagination ofthe the stage. The naïveté of the gesture consists in the visitors. intersection of two axes of thinking and valuing: rural/ urban and old/new, respectively, which actually do not Another “rupture” of the peasant phrase which the overlap perfectly. The chronological criterion of choosing museum’s narrative intends to keep perennial is and ordering the objects weighs more than their nature represented by the carolling drum leaning against the and origin, thus diminishing their importance. When loom in the “big room” (Fig. 7). It is an object extremely asked why she put it in that place, the woman makes her representative for the blend between the old and the new case: “Well, ‘it’s the living room, the big room...” Here the within the community: the instrument is a remainder of an idea of “good object”, of “good thing” occurs, therefore ancient practice, complemented by a regional dimension we are dealing with an axiological syntax of the objects, through its distinctiveness, while, curiously enough, at depending on the value given to them by the peasant- the same time the children of the new generations have beholder. This is, in my opinion, the feature of a typical assumed it, by adding to it inscriptions in English and peasant-like behaviour, different from the contemporary even drawings of skulls. In the museum’s discourse, the urban space, prone to consumption, where objects carolling drum is an oxymoron and it causes a “breach”, belonging to different areas are more mixed together, and Maricica is not very proud of how the children have more prone to rapid wear, on their way to the trash played with the object. However, at a second sight, this can. Moreover, the desk is a “pièce de résistance” of the oxymoron involuntarily and sincerely testifies about the “bourgeois corner” because, alongside the mat hung real status of tradition within the community and gives on the wall, it is a support for the photos of the former the object the organicity of the contemporary village, owners of the house. The positive valorisation – the where past and present, traditional and media culture distinction contained within this piece of furniture – is meet without rejecting one other. a kind of tribute to their memory. In this axiology, it is unimportant that the desk is equally the support of several In the chiler – a room habitually used by the family’s wool carding combs, a knife stuck in a wooden trencher, elderly – behind the door, I discovered a local (as next to a photo frame with no photo and a flower vase Maricica emphasises) version of the “Abduction from the with... no flowers (Fig. 6). The combs, the knife and the Seraglio” (Fig. 8). Relatively difficult to recognise because trencher might be another peasant-like “rupture” in the of the infantilised, quite non-elaborated nature of the bourgeois syntax of the corner, but, laughing, Maricica image, the object is a reason of pride for the woman: it reveals to me the ludic gesture of choosing those objects: is “from our places”. The “Abduction from the Seraglio” “I said: what if someone comes? They mus’ be waited on, is itself a post-peasant fact of culture, marking the right?! In the same way I chose the jar and two bowls...” passing from the household industries and handwork to The syntax she devised is “playing the guests”. Even the the preference for the mass-produced object, external material the knife is made of – wood – empties it of its and perceived as “beautiful”. Yet, Maricica presents it practical function and reifies it, its cutting edge becomes as a local cultural fact, with a distinctive regional note, harmless and the object gains some other sense. Any set- therefore contained in the identity equation. up of a diorama is, essentially, an “as if”. But Maricica’s laughter adds to the naive museum a playful note, the Next to one of the lime-washed clay stoves there is simulacrum is not only museum-like, but also childish. a place meant to be a set-up of the traditional kitchen Although permanently referring to the quite rigid matrix (Fig. 9). Beyond the objects laid on the “ blidar” (open of tradition, Maricica does not hesitate to play and this cupboard), which, indeed, belong to this semantic field can be seen in her museum. On the other hand, the (napkin, wooden spoon), we can notice the display photo frame with no photo and the flower vase with of some objects belonging to the same kitsch of the no flowers rather represent a double depletion of the specialised traditional fairs, unable to even signify an objects’ functions: firstly, through their museification, idea of functionality: a wooden beer pint and a miniature secondly, through the fact that they are containers peasant’s house, also made of wood, near a pair of without content – which strengthens their value of signs forked dear horns. This is the moment of a long-delayed in the little naive museum. Maricica’s suggestion to question: how much and in what way does the kitsch bring in a photo of C.B.’s family highlights their potential object weigh in a peasant’s exhibition? In an attempt to as signatures and reasserts the authority of the owner theorise the kitsch, Jean Baudrillard states that the kitsch 25 Baudrillard, Jean. 2005. Societatea de consum. Mituri şi structuri. Bucharest: Comunicare.ro, p. 139 (transl. Alexandru Matei),

37 objects are “pseudo-objects, in terms of simulation, copy, Among Maricica’s original ideas – which she is very proud factual objects, stereotypes, in terms of scarcity of real of – there are the plastic doll wrapped like a baby and signification, combined with an overabundance of signs, “put to bed” near the stove (Fig. 10), nicknamed “little of allegorical references, of incongruent connotations, dumpling”, and the piece of “cheese” – actually a rock in terms of detail exaltation and detail saturation”, wrapped in white paper, with a white thread attached “inarticulate overabundance of signs”, “erratic outbid to it, representing the whey spilt during the making 25 of prefabricated signs” . But in Maricica’s economy, the of cheese: “I put a rock instead of the green cheese kitsch character is not acknowledged and the objects and this thread as if it were t’ whey flowing into the of this scope are valued as beautiful – and, more than şâtar•!” The improvisation asserts not only the force of that, decorative. Yet the very decorative attribute is non- representation of installations evoking a “known”, crucial peasant, at least in the archaic spirit that the museum for the ancient peasants’ life, but also the narrative is supposed to evoke. It anticipates the urban; in the boldness of the installation: Maricica knows how to village there is no beauty for the sake of beauty only. The aesthetic function is essential, but not exclusive. Far play, she is free, she breaks the slightly high-brow cliché from being a gratuitous gesture, it is always interwoven of the museum discourse with outbursts of creativity, with utilitarity. Or, as Horia Bernea said, “the traditional freshness, individuality. However, to a certain extent, the object is a powerful object through its perfect purpose- two installations somehow operate an immobilisation look match”26. Therefore, we may conclude that we are of what is normally characterised by movement, vitality rather facing an aestheticising view on a thing which, and transformation – the bustle and hustle of babies and ethnographically speaking, should signify functionality – the fermentation of milk – a depletion of the core of the a kitchen. object, inherent to its museification. ...however, the objects are silent

In the 60s, face to face with an unprecedented owned objects have this capacity to prolong the self not industrialisation, which reverberated upon the western only into space, but also in time, by embedding memories material culture, drastically shortening the lifecycle and feelings. Moreover, the self which they anchor in of objects, Violette Morin wrote an article which the present by means of reference to the past may emphasised the distinction between the “cosmocentric irradiate from individuality to an entire community or or ceremonious object” and the “biocentric or (sub)culture, migrating towards the notion of “collective biographical” one27. According to the author, the former identity” / “collective self” – a notion that at certain is the mechanised object specific to modernity, with moments in history and in certain places tends to be an ephemeral existence within the household, with a more operative than the individual self30. Through their fast trajectory between the factory and the trash can. It display, the objects in Maricica’s museum trend towards is meant to become waste and to be quickly replaced. and aspire after these qualities, but some of them have On the contrary, the latter is the object that is part of “handicaps” standing in their way. This is not at all about its owner’s intimacy and destiny; such objects are in the museological “blunders”, about the syntax ruptures, symbiosis with their owner, becoming part of him and not even about kitsch, since we have shown in the growing old together with him28. In the same line, Jean previous pages how the error may be understood and Baudrillard highlights: “Rich in functionality and poor valorised in this type of museum narrative. in signification, [the functional object – A/N] refers to topicality and wearies into everyday life. The mythological The “handicap” of the syntax conceived by Maricica object, with all its minimum functionality and maximum resides in the quasi-absence of the stories that could power of signification, refers to ancestrality or even to have been associated with every single object. While the absolute anteriority of nature”29. When viewing the museum, in its totality, breaks the barriers of time Maricica’s museum and considering the type of through the tradition it is supposed to display, the objects preservation proposed by its narrative, we may say that are “silent” precisely because of the lack of a note of its objects tend to be part of the second conceptual historicity and personality that they could have contained. category, the main feature of which is durability, doubled Moreover, if the route of each and every object could be by their weighty identity. Russel W. Belk shows that documented and shown, besides Maricica’s stories and

25 Horia Bernea, op. cit., p. 23. 26 Horia Bernea, op. cit., p. 23. 26 Violette Morin apud Bonnot, Thierry, op. cit., p. 83. 27 Ibidem. 28 Bernea, Horia op. cit., p. 24. 29 Belk, Russel W. „Possessions and the Extended Self”, The Journal of Consumer Research, 15/2 (1988), pp. 139-168 30 Belk, Russel W. „Possessions and the Extended Self”, The Journal of Consumer Research, 15/2 (1988), pp. 139-168.

38 benevolent demonstrations, it might be a “narrative would come in handy to the naïve museology only by fabric” - a support for the strictly material syntax. accident, which we cannot count on a priori. On the other side, Russel W.Belk draws the attention on the fact that Horia Bernea states that the objects, taken out of their the museification gesture operates a kind of sacralisation organic context and emptied of their primary functions of the object32 – therefore a consolidation of its meaning through museification within weak contexts, “grow – because the museum itself is a temple of the modern weaker”, in their turn, they become artificial, therefore world33, and the transfer of the object from its everyday they must be helped: “I think it is useful to give them the chance to exist in an active space, in an open cultural organicity to the privileged array of other sacred objects space that would bring them out of the dormancy of would bestow this dimension upon it. In the case of the old symbolic-emotional comparisons. The object the naïve museology, though, the connections that can must become the agent through which we produce enhance this effect can also blow it up, because they are, information” 31. His solution consists in the permanent, to a great extent, subject to accident. In the absence of rhythmic dialogue between the strong and the weak narrativity as a strategy to “repair” the historical void of object, making up a network of significations. This is, the discourse, the objects will but signify time itself, in an however, an intellectualist approach, which perhaps abstract manner 34. Instead of conclusions: the Museum and the Peasant

In the field of naïve museology there is an excess of peasant in order for it to yield the crops and the peasant meanings, generated by the freshness and spontaneity needs to work the land in order to eat and sustain of the gesture, by the courage of the view that does not himself economically. With this umbilical cord between care about the error. On the other hand, this involves the peasant and the land also comes a way of life and of two kinds of voids: a constitutive void, supposed to be looking at the world, around it an entire culture is woven. filled by the very curatorial gesture – an identitary void of Or, the more elements come between the body and the someone in a state of “in between”, who turns to the past bare land, the more the umbilical cord breaks and the to search for their guiding landmarks; the other is a void peasanthood dilutes. Perhaps not to that extent so as of reception, which might be repaired by re-establishing, to speak about a disappearance, but definitely about to a certain extent, the historicity, within a space emptied a substantial dilution. Even if they are still intimately of time by the thirst for origins and authenticity, thus the connected to their land and reclaim themselves as past which is to be expressed being dynamited. peasants, the persons in the rural environment who call themselves peasants will be a niche in an adverse system. There are several causes which Vintilă Mihăilescu places at the origin of what he radically calls the disappearance One of the effects of this change of paradigm is the of the peasantry in the Romanian space of the present: normalisation of the museification gesture in the village. the dissolution of the community spirit as regards the Someone whose identity as a peasant is intrinsic and propriety, as a consequence of communists depriving assumed, not extroverted and declaimed, would not the peasants of their land and of cooperativization, the recognise the necessity of a gesture of museification of communist industrialisation and the forced and somehow their own life. They would possibly museify historical false urbanisation of the peasant (the occurrence of figures and events haloed in glory, from which they the intermediary category of worker-tofter), followed would “contaminate” themselves with prestige, they by a fulminating exodus towards the rural space would museify facts that break the everyday life. But after December 1989, then by a reinstatement of the not the everyday life itself. As long as it is living, organic, property without a sustainable agricultural plan focused as long as it flows naturally, why should one conserve on production and by the massive migration abroad, in it? Why exhibit it? The emergency behaviour regarding search of work35. All these things must have bewildered the facts of traditional culture has modern roots and the Romanian peasant, permanently separating him represents an intellectualist approach on the archaic from his matrix: the land. In the anthropologist’s view, space. If the people of the place have absorbed this the peasant is a person intimately connected to the behaviour so as to present it as their own initiative, this land, a non-mediated, codependent relationship is set being a reason for pride, it means we are not dealing between the two: the land needs to be worked by the anymore with peasants in the sense they state they are,

31 Bernea, Horia op. cit., p. 24 32 Belk, Russell W. The Role..., op. cit. 33 Rheims apud Belk, Russel W. ibidem. 34 Baudrillard, Jean Sistemul..., op. cit., p. 50. 35 Vintilă Mihăilescu, Nu mai există țăran român, available at http://adevarul.ro/news/societate/vintilamihailescu-nu-mai-exista-taran-roman-1_513786b300f5182b85d855f1/index.html (interview by Oana Dan; last consultation: 22.04.2015).

39 but with post-peasants who cannot isolate themselves growing. And the museified object tends to fill this void, from the implications of a post-peasant society, which is as a discourse directed inwardly, because the object is a looking into a modern future. If the more or less skew- bearer of ghosts. And furthermore, maybe even a ghost eyed sight is directed at the same time towards an idyllic aggregator, as long as it is able to evoke an idyllic past past, identitarily assumed, it is because these people excised from evil and to offer the refreshing illusion of feel that they are losing something, that in the answer its prolongation up to a present not so rich in identity to the question “Who are we?” a threatening void is markers. Classification of the objects in Maricica’s museum, by functional categories

1. Household industries 4. Kitchen objects • loom • trencher • shafts • wooden knife borsch bowls • slay • cofiță (jar) • treadles • wooden spoons • rollers 5. Traditional peasant’s costumes • temple • Girl’s apron (at the entrance) • urioc (warp) • Woman’s costume (in the bedroom) • raghilă (a type of comb for goats) • Man’s costume (in the bedroom) • „combs” 6. Furniture objects • wool • Headboard bed (in the kitchen) • reel • blidar (open cupboard) • shuttle • Bourgeois-style desk (in the „big room”) • țăghii (fabrics) • wall mats • „special” chair for the reel • mats 2. Rooms / parts of the lodging • mirror • „the big room” • cabinet-table • chiler (elderly’s room) • beds with straw mattresses (in the bedroom) • portar (door) 7. Festive / holiday objects • „blind” doors (without window) • buhai (musical instrument used in carolling, • „dairy” (kitchen) made of a cone-shaped barrel with a leather 3. Household objects bottom, through which a horsehair tuft is inserted) • gas can • drum with sticks • crintă (tub for the whey of the green cheese) • bagpipe made of billy goat leather (at the • scales for weighing the green cheese entrance) • cabinet table (used to belong to the owners of • alpenhorn (wrapped in cherry-tree bark) the house) 8. Ritual objects • feredeu (laundry tub) • Icon with basil • kneading trough for flour straining 9. Medical / healing objects • roller • cupping glasses (near the stove) • blidar (open cupboard) 10. Infant care objects • strain • feredeu (baby tub) • gas can • “little dumpling” (wrapped baby doll in the • botă (water tub) bedroom cradle ) • „șâtar” (tub for milking the cow) 11. “Fantasy” objects (creativity of the museum • cow bell narrative) • scissors for sheep • “little dumpling” (wrapped baby doll in the

(*** The objects were classified into categories in the order they appear in Maricica’s presentation discourse

40 bedroom cradle) • Clay knick-knack („for the sake of its beauty”) • „green cheese” (a rock wrapped in paper, • Deer’s horn with two branches („for the sake with a textile thread playing the role of the whey) of its beauty”) 12. Non-peasant objects • “The Abduction from the Seraglio” wall mat • Clock with no batteries (in the chiler) • Two new interior doors (non-original, • Clay wall-plate, “Abundance of the house” replacements brought to the museum by Cornel type (in the bedroom, between the traditional Bercariu) costumes) • Bourgeois-style desk (in the “big room”)

References

Specialised publications: Paris : Editions La Découverte Romanian Peasant’s Museum. 2008. Robii frumosu- Thiesse, Anne-Marie.1999. La création des identités lui. Muzee şi colecții săteşti din România (Serfs of nationales. Europe XVIIIe-XXe siècle. Paris : Editi- Beauty. Village Collections and Museums from Ro- ons du Seuil mania), Bucharest: Martor Thiesse, Anne-Marie.1999. La création des identités Baudrillard, Jean. 2005. Societatea de consum. Mi- nationales. Europe XVIIIe-XXe siècle. Paris : Editi- turi şi structuri (The Consumer Society: Myths and ons du Seuil Structures) Bucharest: Comunicare.ro (transl. Ale- xandru Matei) Baudrillard, Jean. 1996. Sistemul obiectelor (The Sys- Online references: tem of Objects). Cluj: Echinox (transl. Horia Lazăr) The Law on museums and public collections no. 311 Belk, Russel W., „The Role of Possessions in Construc- / 8.07.2003 available at http://www.cimec.ro/mu- ting and Maintaining a Sense of Past”, NA zee/lege/index.htm – Advances in Consumer Research, 17(1990) http://www.muzeultaranuluiroman.ro/istoric.html Belk, Russel W., „Possessions and the Extended Self”, MIHĂILESCU, Vintilă, The Romanian Peasant no lon- The Journal of Consumer Research, 15/2(1988) ger exists, available at http://adevarul.ro/news/so- Bernea, Horia. 2010. Câteva gânduri despre muzeu, cietate/ vintilamihailescu-nu-mai-exista-taran-ro- cantități, materialitate şi încrucişare (A Few Thou- man- 1_513786b300f5182b85d855f1/index.html ghts on the Museum, Quantities, Materiality and (interview by Oana Dan) Intercrossing). f.l.: Liternet Publishing House Bonnot, Thierry. 2014. L’Attachement aux choses. Paris: CNRS Editions Hobsbawm, Eric. 2012. The Invention of Tradition. Anca-Maria Pănoiu Cambridge: Cambrige University Press Romanian Peasant’s Museum Nicolau, Irina. 2001. „Despre cădere, punere și așe- [email protected] zare” (About Falling, Setting and Laying), in Tal- meş-balmeş de etnologie şi multe altele (Hod- ge-podge of Ethnology and Many Other Things). Bucharest: Ars Docendi Publishing House Pleșu, Andrei, „Despre un personaj cu nenumărate chipuri” (About a Character with Countless Faces=, Folio. MȚR’s Information Bulletin, 1(2001) (intervi- ew by de Silvia Cazacu) Poulot, Dominique. 2009. Musées et muséologie. 41 Fig. 1. Museum of Agriculture, “Poiana” wooden church

THEMES AND FORMS OF EXPRESSION in the recent exhibitions of the Slobozia Museum of Agriculture

ABSTRACT

Abstract: Reaching the maturity of exploring and promoting Romanian national rural culture, the Slobozia Agricultural Museum continues, in the same tradition of preserving and revealing the essence of the heritage that is under its management, to choose a large variety of themes regarding its exhibits that are meant to enrich the thinking, imagination and sensitivity of the modern man. Intuition was the one that managed to survive over the last years,in spite of the financial issues, mostly because the museum is oriented, concerned and dedicated to its public, thus organizing event – exhibitions that contain many interactive activities (creative workshops, artistic moments, practical demonstrations of traditional cooking, etc.). These are supposed to not only develop specific skills, but also facilitate a better understanding of the language of the world of the museum. Therefore, this paper is going to focus on the ways of presenting the spiritual and material culture through temporary thematic and symbolic exhibitions that are all ready to answer the needs and interests of the visitors. Such exhibitions play also an important role in revitalizing the heritage and the Agricultural Museum itself, that is more and more preoccupied with the relationship and interference between the traditional world and the nowadays rapidly growing technological society.

KEY-WORDS: Slobozia Agricultural Museum, rural culture, exhibitions, traditional, practical demonstrations

42 Fig. 2. Lanz Bulldog tractor for sowing (made in 1939) and Rud Sack two-thrifts iron plough (1936)

The inauguration of the permanent exhibition, accompanied by the collection catalogue, has probably been the most important event from the establishment of the museum up to the present. The Museum of Agriculture was established by the Ialomiţa County Prefecture’s Decision no. 178/1990, under the Law no. 311/8.07.2003, and received the name “The National Museum of Agriculture”. On the 15th of November 2006 the law was republished, with no annexes, and the museum’s name remained “The Museum of Agriculture”. In 2011 efforts were made to return to the name “National Museum of Agriculture”, but the results are being delayed, due to bureaucracy.

The museum was officially opened for the public on with the purpose to present a valuable and diverse the 25th of March 1996, thanks to the special efforts national heritage to the public. of the authorities, of the management and personnel of the museum at the time. The building, improper for During the last years, there has been a special focus a museum, particularly for an agricultural museum, on the consolidation of the material resources, on which needs adjoining spaces, necessary for storage, the exhibition exploitation, through a programme demonstrations with agricultural machineries and that comprises the circulation of an important part of equipment, fairs etc. made us conduct a pre-feasibility the heritage owned by the museum, on the editorial study that will allow the consolidation, re-arrangement exploitation through exhibition catalogues, on the and development of the museum spaces, of the conservation, restoration and maintenance of the storage houses, of the conservation and restoration exhibits, on the professional training of the personnel, workshops, which will grant this museum its proper through a project of the County Council of Ialomiţa, importance, alongside with a proper museum circuit, on the dialogue and exchange of experience with

43 Fig. 3. Fuierea’s Mill museums, cultural institutions and organisations, Heritage and the National Commission of Historical education institutions with similar institutions Monuments, the lack of a realistic vision on the from abroad, via the International Association of restoration of these buildings and the delay of some Agricultural Museums, on the relationships with the works that were absolutely necessary resulted in the media, the local and national TV broadcasters, on the ruin of some buildings. well-advised use of the budget, in accordance with the management project approved by the County The historical monument “Agricultural Farm Ensemble, Council of Ialomiţa. All these things and many more Perieţi commune, Ialomiţa County” was endangered, have permanently kept the Museum of Agriculture in along with the heritage objects stored here. Therefore, the public conscience. by the Order no. 2656/16.11.2012, issued by the Ministry of Culture and National Heritage, the building The “Poiana” church, where all the Christian- of the Perieţi Agricultural Farm, having the legal Orthodox services for the Annunciation Parish have status of historical monument, group “B”, code IL-II- been performed since 2000, is, at the same time, a a-B-14153 in the List of Historical Monuments was tourists’ attraction not only locally and nationally, partially declassified. At present there is a feasibility but also internationally. In the spring of 2011, all the study, which allows the institution to access non- administrative services of the church were taken over refundable European funds, because the county of – naturally – by the Annunciation Parish. Ialomiţa does not have the financial availability to support such a vast project. The Model Farm of Perieţi, with a 5.4 ha of land and 18 buildings, was donated to the museum in 2005. The movable heritage of the museum comprises 13,416 Established in 1936, the Perieţi Farm becomes a Model exhibits, structured in representative collections: tools, Farm and a landmark in the context of Romanian agricultural machineries and industrial archaeology agriculture’s modernisation in 1945. The absence installations, ethnography (agricultural tools made in of coherent projects approved by the Direction for rural workshops and households, means of transport,

44 Fig. 4. Pillar of the Sky Fig. 6. The Village Hall

household objects, furniture, pottery, textiles, costumes, props, customs), memorial history, art, religion, literature, natural sciences. Our duty is to value, within exhibitions, the heritage objects, priceless through their artistic, documentary, historical, scientific, cultural and memorial value, purchased from all the country’s ethnographic regions. Undoubtedly, a simple, synthetic imaginary foray through the exhibits is not sufficient to catch the technical, creative, spiritual richness of the human genius, and this “national specificity”, defined in academic books, does not offer enough information for us to know the intimate fibre of each object, but nonetheless we invite the visitor to Fig. 5. The hardware workshop

45 Fig. 7. The Bakery reflect, to try to imagine, even for a few moments, about what once was and never will be anymore. the old-time atmosphere of the Romanian village, the spectacle in the village lanes during holidays, The Museum of Agriculture organised such a general the almost forgotten customs and traditions, - signs, exhibition, which includes objects from all the symbols and testimonials showing that everything collections. We engaged in an endeavour requiring seen here really existed once, that it is not just a story. considerable efforts, we had difficulties in re-tracing These are all memories that must be carefully kept in the history of some objects, which, unfortunately, our souls, and the museum, through its objects, may became heritage objects without anyone knowing awake our nostalgia for our childhood years or our minimum pieces of information about them (owner, grandparents’ youth, to stir our curiosity to know more dating, origin etc.), but we hope that, through this

Fig. 8. The Photo Studio

46 Fig.9. Inside a peasant’s house. The work room

Fig. 10. The old times’ kitchen exhibition, we will value the exceptional collections act – which will also ensure the increase of the county’s of the museum. We mainly focused on the following and region’s attractiveness. collections: tools and machineries for land-working, old agricultural machineries, means of transport, The Museum of Agriculture is at present the only Viticulture, Horticulture, Apiculture, Grain barns, agricultural museum in the country and it has the Household objects, Traditional textile instruments, responsibility to offer quality, professionalism, Textiles, Trades and Crafts, fire-extinguishing means, freshness and continuity. These are dimensions of our Glassware, Pottery, Metrology, Clocks, Photo cameras, institution which give it cultural representativeness, Vintage photos . prestige and exemplarity, all of which being our message within the current Romanian cultural life. Our mission is to create, by valuing the cultural, historical and heritage resources that we possess, a “visible” institution, a renowned, appreciated and visited museum, which shall ensure its future Prof. dr. Gheorghe Petre existence and its funding in particular. Through this Museum of Agriculture 20031, Slobozia, B-dul Matei exhibition project we are trying to take the step from Basarab, nr.10, Tel./Fax: 0243-231991, a traditional, rigid structure, to a flexible one, adapted e-mail: [email protected]; to the environment, to the needs of the visitors, of www.muzeulagriculturii.ro the members of the local community – permanently concerned with the quality of the museum-exhibiting

47 Fig. 1. Mureşans’ House Interior – 2007-2015. The permanent exhibition

ARTS & HISTORY a new vision for an old museum

ABSTRACT

Art&History - A New Vision for An Old Museum. This article presents the nuances in defining a museum in relation to its museum-collection. Usually, a museum is the reflection of its collections, but sometimes, in particular cases, the exhibition may not be only the reflection of its collections. In our case study, Mureșianu House Museum from Brașov, Transilvania, we describe a museum that is translating from a classic memorial museum to a modern museum, adapted to the requirements of contemporaneity.

KEY-WORDS: Mureșianu House Museum Braşov, 2015, modernization, museum, collection, modern museum space

48 Fig. 2. Mureşans’ House Interior 2007-2015. The permanent exhibition

The Mureşans’ House Museum in Braşov is one of Romania’s most important memorial museums . After having established itself through community projects and educational activities marked by excellence in the last decade, in 2015 it started its re-orientation towards a more intense activity of promotion of contemporary culture and arts, at the same time keeping its component of exploitation of the classical heritage. The paper presents the manner of reorganising the museum spaces and the re-positioning/rebranding campaign, respectively. The museum-collection relation is vital in the economy of our specific activity.

„Museums «as holders of primary evidence...» have a «...primary duty to preserve [their] collections...», to acquire objects with the «... expectation of permanency...» and to «...keep them for posterity». However, in some situations such as «living» or «working» museums, it may be necessary to regard «at least part of their collection as replaceable or renewable»”1. ICOM’s Code of Museums repeatedly reasserts that these collections must be preserved, conserved and documented in an appropriate manner.2

1 Donahue, Paul F. (2004), p. 4 2 idem

49 Fig. 3. Interior of the Mureşans’ House, before 2007. The permanent exhibition.

However, there are also a series of exceptions, among the tangible and intangible heritage of human which we believe that the Braşov “Mureşans’ House” communities’ existence and evolution, as well as of Museum is included: „There are many exceptions the environment”4. Obviously, a memorial museum’s to this definition and to the traditional concept function of collecting is significantly reduced by of a museum as a collecting institution. Examples the very nature of the collection’s origin – usually a are one-object museums, such as a ship museum donation of the personality’s/personalities’ heirs or or a house museum with a plethora of culturally family, by the number – limited both in space and associated objects, the avocationalists’ museum that time – of these material testimonials, respectively. puts its member’s models on exhibition but does not concern itself with acquisition, preservation or Going onward with our arguments, a natural research, the art museum that appears not to have question arises: how does the operation of such a acquired a permanent collection – [see also Andrew museum respond to the strategic priorities of the J. Pekarik, „Museums as Symbols”, in „Curator” 46/2, field of Culture, as described in the “Sectoral strategy April 2003, pp. 132-135] – the virtual museum with in the field of culture”? This document – vital for virtual objects, and the science centre or children’s the direction of the national cultural phenomenon museum with no collection”3. We believe that the – is set within the timeframe of the period 2014- museum presented in our case study may go in this 2020. The sectoral objectives focus on the National direction. Cultural Heritage (both movable and immovable, as well as intangible) and on the Contemporary In order to fully analyse the position of the Braşov Creation. Furthermore, there are also the horizontal museum, we must refer to the definition of museums, objectives, i.e.: as stipulated by the Law 311/2003: The consolidation of the institutional capacity, the “The museum is the public cultural institution, in cultural education and professional training, the the service of society, which acquires, conserves, Cultural intervention, as well as the Development of researches, restores, communicates and exhibits the cultural infrastructure5.

3 Ibidem 4 Law 311/2003 [Online] Available at: http://www.dreptonline.ro/legislatie/legea_muzeelor_colectiilor_publice.php 5 CCDC. (f.d.) 50 Fig. 4. Interior of the Mureşans’ House – 2015. Temporary exhibition

The new museum vision put forward for the Mureşans’ teachers, journalists, politicians, writers, historians House, as stipulated by the management project for and musicians. The museum’s “pièces de résistance” the years 2014-20196, is holistic, integrating the are the few documents left behind by Andrei majority of the sectoral strategic priorities for the Mureşanu (among which a 19th century transcription field of culture. Thus, at the end of this process of of the poem “Echo”, today Romania’s official re-positioning and rebranding, the Braşov museum national anthem), as well as a massive family archive must become a modern museum, prepared for (containing more than 25,000 cultural heritage major cultural projects, with exhibition spaces able goods), accompanied by a series of furniture pieces, to accommodate the exhibitions of the present plastic and decorative art, musical instruments. and of the future, with a reasonable and successful alternation of the classical heritage themes with those Initially, the museum looked like a “classical” of the contemporary creation and with an increased memorial museum, with furniture belonging to attention given to the cultural education, all of which the family, completed with showcases and wooden meant to lead to the institutional consolidation. panels, where explanatory texts and documents were exhibited. This museum had never been adapted to The Braşov “Mureşans’ House” Museum was the exhibition requirements specific to a classical established in 1968, following a donation of the museum, i.e. a modern illuminating system, doubled descendants of Iacob Mureşianu (1812-1887), by the obturation of the natural light etc. Moreover, member of the Romanian Academy, pedagogue, the prolonged display of documents from the 19th journalist and exceptional politician of the 19th century did not comply with the guidelines of century Transylvania. The name of the museum is conservation and exhibition of the movable cultural related to the name of one of the most important heritage7. Romanian cultural dynasty, which gave us exceptional

6 Rus (2014) 7 According to GD 1546/2003. [Online] Available at: http://www.bcu-iasi.ro/docs/HG1546-2003.pdf.

51 Fig. 5. Interior of the Mureşans’ House – before 2007. The permanent exhibition.

Fig. 7.

Fig. 6. and Fig. 7. Interior of the Mureşans’ House - 2015. Rembrandt@Braşov temporary exhibition

In 2007, the permanent exhibition of the museum plastic and decorative art elements from the initial was remade according to a new exhibition vision, donation were kept. In addition to these, there were which derived from the idea of recomposing the three permanent exhibition halls, where cultural atmosphere of the period, specific to a civil lodging heritage goods representative for other personalities of the second half of the 19th century. Thus, the of Braşov’s cultural life, such as George Dima and exhibition was based on a new concept: the panels Paul Richter, were exhibited. One of the halls was and showcases were removed, the walls were exclusively dedicated to the technological evolution covered in wallpaper in 5 halls out of the 8 of the of music-playing objects (music boxes, phonographs, permanent exhibition, and only the furniture, the gramophones, record-players or harmonicas). Two

52 Fig. 8.Mureşans’ House Interior – 2015. The permanent exhibition

other exhibition halls were dedicated to temporary exhibitions.

All these factors considered, the radical solution of changing the exhibition spaces of the museum was adopted, as follows: the new temporary exhibition space of the museum has 8 halls, connected through a long corridor, with a space of more than 220 sq m, and approximately 90 m of panels; the permanent exhibition has three halls allocated, with approximately 100 square metres. Fig. 9. Mureşans’ House Interior – 2015. The permanent The new permanent exhibition of the museum exhibition contains approximately 500 objects freely displayed – cultural heritage goods and replicas (objects and photographs). In two of the exhibition halls the The new temporary exhibition halls are the largest idea of reconstructing the epoch (19th century) was and most modern exhibition space of Braşov. They observed, while the third room is dedicated to the are equipped with a modern illumination system, two centuries’ evolution of music-playing equipment. with railed LED spots (15 W each, 94 pieces in The exhibition space is equipped with a mixed total). The natural light was obturated by blinds at illumination system (incandescent light-bulb lamps every window of the building. This space is meant and LED spots), as well as with sound-playing devices to respond to the new organisational mission of the (classical music and audio guiding, in Romanian and museum, as formulated by its management, for the French). 53 years 2014-2019: “Our mission is to interpret and that re-opened the museum on the 5th of October: celebrate the past within a context of the present „Rembrandt@Brașov”. This exhibition contains 273 and of the future, in a manner adapted as much stamps made in the 19th century at the National as possible to the needs of modern tourism. The Library of France, replicas of the original works of the Braşov “Mureşans’ House” Museum exists with the great Dutch painter. The collection is the property purpose to show a possible human model to follow. of Mr. Thomas Emmerling, who had the amiability The people of today’s Braşov must know how the to bring this exhibition to Braşov, after having been people of old times’ Braşov were, and this museum in Cluj-Napoca, Timișoara, Iași and Câmpulung permanently reminds them that the future has an Muscel. The exhibition was promoted appropriately ancient heart. during the pre-opening period, by means of banners, posters, stickers, electronic billboards, radio and TV The Mureşans and their contemporaries (Gheorghe spots. Dima, Paul Richter, Ioan and Ştefan Baciu etc.) were a model of multicultural urban civilisation, and this In conclusion, Romanian museums can and must museum will try to bestow this spirit upon the young adapt their exhibition discourse to the needs of generation, by initiating community partnerships the communities they operate in, by permanently and projects, with extra-budgetary financing, as pursuing the strategic national cultural priorities, well as by setting-up exhibitions adapted to the in a manner as integrating and holistic as possible, expectations of the public and of the tourists of prepared for the alternative promotion of the national Braşov”8. Therefore, the new exhibition space was cultural heritage, as well as of the contemporary properly prepared for the first temporary exhibition creation, in a modern and attractive way.

Bibliography: „Casa Mureşenilor” (Management Project,

Centre for Research and Consultancy in the Field of “Mureşans’ House” Museum, Braşov, 2014-2019, Culture n.d. Strategia sectorială în domeniul culturii MS. şi patrimoniului național pentru perioada 2014- 2020 (Sectoral strategy in the field of culture and national heritage for the period 2014-2020) [Online] Available at: http://www.cultura.ro/uploads/files/ STRATEGIA_%20SECTORIALA_ IN_DOMENIUL_ CULTURII_2014-2020.pdf

Donahue, Paul F. „Reevaluating the ICOM Definition of the Museum”. Focus 2 (2004), pp. 4-5 [Online] Available at: http://icom.museum/fileadmin/ user_ upload/pdf/ICOM_News/2004-2/ENG/ p4_2004-2. pdf

GD 1546/2003. [Online] Available at: http://www. Dr. Valer Rus bcu-iasi.ro/docs/HG1546-2003.pdf. Mureşans’ House” Museum Brașov, Piața Sfatului Law no. 311/2003 [Online] Available at: http:// www.dreptonline.ro/legislatie/legea_muzeelor_ 25, Brașov, code 500025 colectiilor_publice.php [email protected]

Rus, Valer. 2014. Proiect de management. Muzeul

90 Rus (2014)

54 THE CURATOR: WHAT’S HIS USE?

ABSTRACT

The article analyses the terminological difference between the existing term, “museographer” and the more recent term in use, “curator”, as well as their descriptions as job requirements in Romania and abroad. The need foran official recognition of the “curator” is questioned, under a brief overview of the current circumstances that could have led to the necessity of introducing a new term or a new occupation – the curator, along with a critical approach on the market exigencies and available tools and resources in the curatorial work in Romania. After identifying several major deficiencies that could interfere with the quality of the curatorial act, the article does not attempt to find solutions to these particular problems, but suggests ways of overcoming existing obstacles instead, in an achievable manner, stating that issues lay in changing perspective, rather than in amending terminology.

KEY-WORDS: curator, museum professions, museum job description, museum exhibition, exhibition planning.

„Curator”, with its meaning in museography, which from a museographer: general conservation, inven- we are tackling in this paper, is a new term in Roma- tory, research, interpretation and exploitation of the nia. It sometimes tends to replace the more modest heritage, for the well-known and renowned educa- term of „museographer”, which lacks the aura of mo- tion and enjoyment purposes. Here we should also dernity and intellectualism. And it helps us compen- add: propaganda and „soft power” or cultural diplo- sate for the lack of a term applicable to other types macy purposes. of exhibitions than museum-exhibitions, quite rare So: where does the need to coin a new term alongsi- until not so long ago. de the official „museographer” come from? It is quite useless to say that „curator” entered our I dare say that it comes from the need for moder- language through the Anglo-Saxon connection, whi- nisation. And from the comparison of our curatorial ch has an increasing influence not only in the langua- products with those in other, luckier countries. ge, but also in the everyday life. What do we lack? First of all, the spectacular. The However, let us remember that the term is not new vastness. The novelty. The complexity. The (material) in the Romanian language, it has an old legal mea- means. The boldness. And, unfortunately, creativity. ning – that of a person in charge with managing the possessions and/or the interests of another person. All the above-listed are observable in the visible area More precisely, in charge with their good manage- of the curatorial activity. The research, the conserva- ment. tion, the inventory are not accessible to the public, either physically or for their evaluation. My personal If we take a look at the „job description” of the Fren- experience has shown to me that here we do not have ch, British, American or Italian curator, for instance, we notice that the description of the tasks overlaps major or fundamental breaches, as our museums are with the job description of the local museographer the creation of a bureaucratic, authoritarian state – (from whom the Classification of Occupations expec- not necessarily in a negative sense of the word. ts quite a lot). So far, there is no difference between However, what can be seen is subject to the evaluati- what we expect from a curator and what we expect on of all the beholders and to the test of time, a more 55 and more accelerated time. strategy at central level, drawn-up by the specialised And what can be seen, after all? Except, maybe, for authorities, there are no detailed exhibition policies, the painting and the decorative art objects, all the not even in the well-known „management projects”. exhibits in the museum exhibitions are extracted from their initial, authentic, utilitarian context. They Drawing up a substantial exhibition takes time. The are subject to our current interpretation, which sim- annual budgetary exercise is not the most fortunate ply alters their initial meaning. frame for drawing up, preparing and implementing And this alteration through interpretation cannot an exhibition project. Not to mention the fact that serve objectivism, it remains in relativism, serving the route of the „approval” of a project is rather a circumstantial choices, which can be evaluated- ac cording to circumstantial criteria. In order to satisfy, way to frame the project within the existent budget it has to adjust itself to the current taste. and not the other way round. This does not mean that we shall choose to simply The museographer should adapt to the institution’s satisfy or to satisfy the taste of the majority. But no- management contract, should anxiously wait for the wadays success is defined through quantity, through number of visitors and, oftentimes, through financial approval of the annual budget and diligently write profitability. down, in the „risks” section, the data of the budge- Let us set foot on the path of satisfying the taste of tary revisions. the majority this time, and not on the road to recog- Therefore, given all these premises, it is somehow nition within the guild, for instance, within less nu- merous elitist environments or niche audiences. predictable that we shall lean towards less costly exhibitions, which would require minimum adminis- The current taste: visual, very visual, fast, cooler than the competition, with easy and accessible informa- trative and human resources and a short time to im- tion, technologically adapted (and digitalized). Com- plement. The results match these premises: small or municated and marketed following the rules of the minor projects. market economy. Namely, aggressive. What prevents us from having more successful exhi- How can we then compensate for these discouraging bitions in our museums? premises? I suggest two treatments: aggressive com- In order to figure out an answer to this question, let munication, particularly by online means, and a little us see first the instruments of the curator-museo- „film direction” – the maximum exploitation of the grapher, the ingredients of an exhibition, in short: object’s interpretation, the novelty of object selecti- on, as well as giving up the classical structures of the • in a biased manner, I would choose to start display. my listing with the exhibits, either heritage objects or not; Therefore, what is the use of the curator, termino- • the exhibition space is in close competition logically speaking? It may be about highlighting the with the exhibits, with all its coordinates: dimension, value of public valorisation of the museum activity. display devices, illumination, microclimate conditi- ons, ways of access; An additional specialisation of the types of museo- • the time necessary for setting up and imple- graphers may be useful, but at least as useful would menting the exhibition project; • the meta-exhibition materials; be the revision of the exhibition policies and of the • the available financial and administrative re- curatorial way of thinking. sources; • the target public All these ingredients condition each other and limit the curator’s freedom of choice and creativity. Under the current circumstances, few are those who can afford, financially and logistically, to include in a Alis Vasile display objects that do not belong to the heritage of British Council România their own institution. 14, Calea Dorobanţilor, sector 1, Bucarest The exhibition-related policies are absent. There is no [email protected]

56 I VISIT. I SEE. I UNDERSTAND. Reflections on the curator’s role in influencing the visitor

ABSTRACT

Museum visitation is relatively low around the world, one of the main justifications given is the poor quality of the museum offer. Whatcould museums do in this context, not only to increase the number of people who enter their exhibitions, but also to increase their socio-cultural impact, namely to achieve their complex missions in good conditions. This paper proposes the investigation of the points of reference a curator of an exhibition should consider when designing a successful exhibition. The proposed solution is to adopt a marketing vision, taking into account both museum visitors and other stakeholders. The landmarks are multiple: the characteristics of the public, its motivations, the interests of contemporary society, the discourses that animate the public space, the context in which the visit takes place and such. The curator is not only a connoisseur, a protector and promoter of heritage. She must be a good marketer, understanding the visitors, and open to their specificities.

KEY-WORDS: Exhibition planning, museum marketing, visitors and exbitions, heritage interpretation.

The museum visitor

Museums have become animated, they have compared to 2007 1. changed their ways to communicate and relate with the visitors. In order to visit some museums or In Romania, only 21% of the population (aged at least exhibitions, the public must wait in a queue for hours. 15) has been to a museum or gallery at least once a Many museums report higher and higher numbers of year, 6% less as compared to 2007. The percentages visitors, and the interest in these institutions seems for other cultural activities are: 20% have been to a to be rising all around the world. In Asia blockbuster- cinema at least once, 33% have visited a historical type exhibitions are organised, which attract even monument or site (palace, castle, church etc.), 25% more visitors than in Europe or the United States. have been to a concert, 17% have visited a public In the Arab world imposing museums are opened, library, 15% have been to the theatre and 11% and the great museums of the world contribute have attended an opera/ballet performance2. A low with collections and open branches in this region. cultural participation was recorded overall, and the However, the cultural consumption studies show that cultural practice index is much lower than the EU the visiting numbers do not seem to have modified average. significantly. In the European Union, for example, in 2013, 63% of the population had not been to a Only 7% of the population has a high or very high museum in the previous year, a 5% increase as index as compared to the overall 18% European

91 EC (2013a), p. 9 92 EC (2013b), p. 1

57 average. Moreover, 55% of the Romanians have a The Cultural Consumption Barometer conducted in low cultural participation in 2013, 4% higher than 2015 in Romania8 shows that the most important the average of 20073. This situation may be related values of the museum visitor are education, leisure, to the economic crisis between the two issues of the relaxation and culture. These values are different Eurobarometers. from the main values of the non-visitor.

As we can see from these figures, museum visiting In order to design exhibitions with impact, it seems to be more attractive than other cultural is important to consider not only the visitors’ activities, but the most attractive cultural sites characteristics and motivations, but also how the seem to be the palaces, the castles etc. – historical visitor decodes the messages conveyed by the monuments and sites in general. Oftentimes, they museums. We must take into account that the are visited during vacations and various trips. The visitors do not come to the museum alone, but they question is whether the museums also fall into the are accompanied by friends, colleagues, relatives category of vacation visits for many Romanians. and that social interaction is relevant in the context The main reasons they do not visit museums are, in of a museum visit9. A visitor does not perceive decreasing order: lack of time – 32%, limited choices/ an exhibition only from the perspective of the poor quality of the offer in the locality of residence – informational content received, but also from the 26%, lack of interest – 22%, expensive access tickets viewpoint of the associated experience, mediated by 4 – 12% . A lower percentage of the Romanians – as the group they belong to at the moment of the visit10. compared to other Europeans – state that they are not interested in museums (22% as compared to the The behaviour within the museum generally European average of 35%). The least interested are varies depending on gender, age and education young and elderly people, as well as those with a low level. Youngsters interact more with the exhibits education level5. and exhibition-related equipment, with the new technologies integrated into the museum narrative, An important indicator for a better exhibition design and they have expectations in this respect. As far and for an interesting interpretation of the heritage, as Romanians are concerned, we can generally respectively, is the visitors’ motivation. We can list a speak about two main types of approaches: the great variety of visiting reasons: education, curiosity, „selective” visitor and the „bird’s eye” visitor11. socialisation, family habits, interest in certain The first category comprises persons with a high subjects etc. education level, who visit the museum selectively, The public has also certain expectations from the according to their interests and knowledge, who are museums, according to these reasons. In general, the not very interested in the new technologies and are public expects the museums to be both educational willing to participate in the museum’s educational and entertaining6. Furthermore, the museum is often programmes. The „bird’s eye” visitors try to learn as associated with spending one’s time in an agreeable, much as possible from the available information, use interesting and even unique manner, during holidays7. of new technologies included; they are customers of The public’s expectations from a museum visit can the museum’s shop. This second category of visitors also be related to the general values of the visitor. is more numerous than the former.

3 EC (2013b), p. 1 4 EC (2013b), p. 2 5 EC (2013b), p. 2 6 Hooper-Greenhill (1994), p. 67 7 Hooper-Greenhill (1994) 8 Croitoru & Becuț (2015), p. 151 9 Falk & Dierking (2000) 10 Falk & Dierking (2000); Lehn, Heath & Knoblauch (2001) 11 Zbuchea & Ivan (2013) 58 Interpretation of the museum heritage. What the curator does. What the visitor perceives.

The interpretation of the museum heritage and the When this goal is reached, the importance of the display of the latter in an exhibition are based on a visitor in the process of designing the exhibitions is complex and interdisciplinary endeavour of scientific once again highlighted. research. Many times, this process is not simple and it is influenced by the values assumed by the Adopting a marketing approach – focused on the researchers, as well as by the position of the heritage museum visitor – when designing, setting up and within the society, at a certain moment – which is communicating an exhibition yields numerous 15 well-illustrated by one of the most famous works of beneficial effects . We mention only a few of them: art in the world: Venus de Milo12. choosing a perspective on the subject that should be interesting and enticing from the public’s point The manner of presenting the results of the research of view, setting up an ergonomic exhibition – which to the public should be closer to the visitors’ language should not overburden the visitors, allowing them to and interests. It is the successful exhibitions, easily focus on the content of ideas –, attracting a higher „accessible”, both mentally and physically, that make number of visitors by means of integrated marketing the visitors have special experiences. Reaching this and communication campaigns etc. In the end, the goal is not easy, not only because of the logistical marketing approach helps the respective exhibition limitations or other objective elements, but also be efficient, it contributes to ensuring the expected because subjective matters, pertaining to the impact among the public. management of some museums or to the curators of some exhibitions. Twenty years ago, Hooper- However, we mention that the process of setting up Greenhill noted, probably referring to the situation a „visitor-centred” exhibition is a difficult one. On the in Great Britain: one hand, it is about a series of objective difficulties, such as not knowing the visitors too well and the Among some curators there is still a great fear that, multiple obstacles related to carrying out complex by facilitating the visitors’ understanding of the ideas studies regarding the visitors. On the other hand, the represented by the collections and approached by the visitors’ reaction to a theme and to an exhibition is exhibitions, the fall on a slope of commercialisation extremely subjective and contextualised. It is very will begin, a slope of low academic quality, of easy difficult to know the public’s interpretation ofthe interpretation and superficial entertainment. This heritage and to design an exhibition that will achieve fear must be converted into the understanding and the respective museum experience16. appreciation of the desire of a significant number of A possible model to be adapted is IPOP: Ideas– People– people to like museums and to find them both useful Objects– Physical.17 These are relevant markers to and entertaining13. be considered when designing an exhibition. The This appreciation is, undoubtedly, still valid for ideas refer to the knowledge represented in the museums from many countries of the world, information and proposed interpretations. The including Romania. people refer to other people’s lives, as captured in stories, biographies, movies, photographs etc. A well-designed exhibition creates an experience The objects are the artefacts, as exhibited in the of immersion for the visitors, by engaging their displays, as well as elements of aesthetical and senses, stimulating their intellect and liberating their descriptive nature. The physical aspects are related imagination14. to movement, touch, signals etc. By using these

12 Anghel (2006) 13 Hooper-Greenhill (1994), p. 113 14 Beghetto (2014), p. 1 15 Zbuchea (2014) 16 Beghetto (2014), p. 1 17 Beghetto (2014), p. 2

59 markers, the curators can structure the experiences context and its related limitations. with a view to attracting and engaging the visitors. In this context, the heritage interpretation, made by Most of the time, there is a fault line between the means of an exhibition, should be focused on the way an exhibition was planned and the way it is visitor: their current knowledge, their interests, the perceived. In this context, it is difficult to obtain possible current public debates etc. We draw the a certain reaction from the public18. A method to attention on the fact that the marketing approach diminish this difference is the cooperation with an – i.e. considering the public’s needs and specificity interdisciplinary team that would not only ensure – must not be considered solely when designing a more complex and interesting result for more an exhibition. There are many services and public segments of public, but would also reduce the programmes related to an exhibition and they must subjective elements and the limits specific to each take the same perspective into consideration. and every research field. While visiting a museum, the visitors interact both When designing an exhibition, the curator should with the heritage and with the group they came cooperate with an entire team of professionals, with, in order to understand the heritage better. In among whom there should be a marketer or at the process of heritage interpretation by the visitor least a communication specialist. An exhibition may three main types of interactions were identified21. be associated with a marketing strategy. This could First of all, the visitors feel the need to share help in defining the target public more clearly and, something with the others, even to be the group’s depending on the latter, in adopting the most suitable centre of attention, to make an impression on the approach: a strategy focused on a well-defined target other members of the group. Starting from the text public, a differentiated strategy that presents several proposed by the museum (the labels), the visitors, approaches customised on a reduced number of in their turn, interpret the heritage by filtering the public segments or an undifferentiated strategy, respective information or even reproducing it. The addressing the public in a unifying manner. The second type of reaction is drawing the attention on selection of the most efficient alternative depends a certain aspect, on their own story. The third type on the characteristics of the exhibition and on the of reaction is the animation of the collection, the assumed objectives, on the resources available to representation of an exhibition stance by using their the museum/curator, as well as on the specificity of own bodies. This way, an exhibition is subjectively the visitors, of other stakeholders and of the museum interpreted by a visitor, according both to their market. own person, and to the members of the group they are visiting the museum with. At first, the visitors When designing a museum exhibition, we recommend tend to identify the heritage and then the process that the following principles be considered19: of creating significations is triggered. This may be justification, scientific foundation of the theme, correlated with two important ideas, relevant for the determining the target public, association of multiple better design of an exhibition. Firstly, the information significations, interdisciplinarity, interactivity, conveyed in a formal manner is highly relevant to incitement to debate, offering additional services, the visitors. Secondly, the visitors acknowledge the ensuring an agreeable leisure. Obviously, a great part museum’s authority and wish to achieve personal of these principles are visitor-centred. They take into development by absorbing and individually account the fact that the museum of the present is a interpreting the information offered by the museum. dynamic, visitor-oriented museum, it is a participatory Oftentimes we can also notice a specialisation of 20 museum . As a matter of fact, a large part of the the role of each person in the group (a visitor reads public expects the contemporary museum to be the labels, another interprets the images, while interactive, exciting, offering numerous services for another interacts with the equipment available the personal comfort, stimulating for the mind and within the exhibition). We should also consider the senses, offering entertainment – within the specific fact that some visitors manipulate and transform

18 Lehn, Heath & Knoblauch (2001) 19 Zbuchea (2014) 20 Simon (2010) 21 Christidou (2013)

60 the significations associated with an exhibition/an scientifically valuable pieces; these are valued firstly exhibit in order to get some kind of reaction from for their scientific characteristics, as relatively de- the group they are visiting that exhibition with, or in contextualised objects, in a more traditional vision. other social contexts22. Due to this approach, some visitors might have difficulties in perceiving these heritage objects as An exhibition carries out the interpretation of the something else, different from the special objects museum heritage mainly for educational purposes, on a pedestal that they are, likely interesting, surely but other aspects may be observed, of a social nature, having an intrinsic value, but existing in a universe for instance. The educational valences determine the that never crosses the visitors’ lives. impact of an exhibition. This impact grows if the display of the heritage is associated with other elements, A marketing approach in designing an exhibition pertaining both to distance learning and to face to face requires that the latter should focus not only on the education, such as workshops, conferences, museum visitors, but also on other stakeholders when defining theatre, drawing, documentaries etc23. All these the theme, the content, and even when selecting allow the interpretation and the better and more the heritage to be exhibited. By focusing on the complex understanding of the heritage and themes, stakeholders, the heritage may come to life, it may respectively, by means of engaging the public, of be endowed with social values and may enter the generating experiences and exchange of experiences personal universe of the visitors and communities, for the visitors. Therefore, it is recommended that it may make them relate directly and subjectively to an exhibition be dynamic, interactive and connected the museum heritage and to the theme proposed by to a series of public programmes, interesting for the an exhibition. visitors and other categories of public. The set-up of an exhibition depending on the Not all the public categories are attracted to a certain stakeholders is quite a difficult process, but this exhibition out of educational reasons. The visitors approach may result in a growth of the exhibition’s use the museums in many ways24. For instance, some impact, it may facilitate the accomplishment of the visitors aim at validating their socio-political opinions respective exhibition’s mission. By stakeholder we and noticing to what extent the contemporary society mean any person or organisation that influences perceives the respective realities; legitimation may or is influenced by the activity of the museum. Any be a purpose. The museum itself may have other exhibition has several stakeholders27, but not all of goals; it may aim at making its space a space for them have the same „weight”, i.e. the relationship public debates25. between them and the museum is not as close in all the cases. Some stakeholders may influence Depending on the theme, the visitors also relate the activity of the museum to a greater extent, as emotionally to an exhibition – and this is an element compared to others. Some are more interested in that influences the way of interpreting the exhibited an exhibition/theme than others. Among the most heritage. The motivations, the manner of relating relevant stakeholders – in relation to an exhibition to an exhibition, the interpretation of the exhibited – we mention: the visitors, the local communities, heritage also depend on the ethnical and social profile NGOs, and amateurs/researchers interested in the of the visitors, who make connections between their theme of the respective exhibition. Each of these previous knowledge and the experiences and themes segments of public may relate in a personal manner of the exhibition they visit26. to the suggested exhibition, in many cases through an exigent eye-glass. Each of these stakeholders has The traditional approach is associated with the different perspectives when analysing the exhibition: focus on collections, such as the option to display curiosity, passion, prior knowledge in the field, social/ the rarest and most spectacular pieces, the most political interests etc.

22 Lehn, Heath & Knoblauch (2001) 23 Hooper-Greenhill (1994), p. 143 24 Smith (2014) 25 Uchill (2012) 26 Smith (2014)

61 The museum experience is the result of both the more comprehensive than the first one, again, the public’s characteristics and interests and of the public may not perceive the conveyed messages very manner of interaction with the exhibits. The visitor easily. may build a personal relationship with the objects, thus introducing elements like emotions, personal The interpretation of the collections is a dynamic memories and prior knowledge28 into the evaluation process of communication between the museum of the exhibition. In this context, the response to the and the public, through which the museum makes messages of the museum is subjective. Furthermore, its collections and the results of its research activity other categories of public – besides the visitors – react known, in an attractive manner. The presentation and subjectively relate to an exhibition, as regards of the collections and the information are made both its theme and the exhibits and the manner of in a manner wherein the public may see and read, presentation of the heritage. may have experiences and try experiments, may understand the value and signification of the The objects of the museum’s collections have a collections, as well as of the themes associated multitude of significations, both for the visitors and with the objects of the collections. It all begins for other various categories of stakeholders29. Each with an interdisciplinary analysis of the heritage, object is decoded differently by different persons, but a lot of elements are taken into consideration: its associated experiences are different from person the interests of the target public and of the to person. In this context, a question arises: What stakeholders’ communities, the problems of the is the value and authentic signification of the various communities, the discussions relevant for the heritage? A multitude of factors are considered: the contemporary society. This approach corresponds characteristics, the signification, the image and the best to the expectations of today’s public. stories behind the object influence both the way an object is used in the exhibition by the curator, and The benefits of interpretation are multiple, as regards the way the public decodes its message. the exhibition. The exhibition is more interesting for more categories of public. It allows the use of Depending on the way the various categories of external, intangible resources – some categories of public (re)interpret the heritage included in an stakeholders may contribute to the enrichment of exhibition, and on their characteristics, the visitors the exhibition’s significations and depths with their may be drawn to interact with the museum. The own minds’ and souls’ resources. This approach latter is nowadays a museum with and about people allows the social interaction and integration of some and contemporary communities, more than it is a segments of the public. temple of heritage preservation. In order to be understood by the public, the For a proper presentation of the heritage within interpretation must consider several aspects. A an exhibition, the museum has three choices first step is defining and knowing the target public, of distinct strategic approaches: systematic/ in order to interpret the heritage and design the chronological presentation, thematic presentation exhibition depending on the respective public. and interpretation of collections. The first approach, probably the easiest to implement and to manage Although an exhibition involves a presentation, it logistically and conceptually, is the traditional one, may contain several messages, several „voices”. It which is rather scientifically focused, sometimes easy is recommended that several layers of decoding to perceive logically, but not necessarily attractive be proposed. The selection of the interpreted to the public. The second strategic approach is story/subjects should be in accordance with the more and more frequently used by the Romanian stakeholders of the exhibition. Depending on the museums. It involves the interdisciplinary analysis visitors, the appropriate forms of presentation of a subject, split onto several major directions of are chosen. The mental and emotional challenges interest. Although this is an interesting approach, designed for the visitors make them become decision

27 Association des musées du Pays-Bas (2010), 27-29; Kotler et al. (2008), p. 60; Zbuchea (2010) 28 Froggett & Trustram (2014) 29 Heumann Gurian (1999) 62 factors in the museum experience, i.e. interact with to the great attractiveness of these exhibitions, the the exhibition and the heritage, start a dialogue museums – as well as other types of organisations, with the museum or with various stakeholders. In including commercial ones – offer „show-exhibitions” this way, an exhibition may also become a forum for to the public33. Within this kind of exhibitions, debates, too. the spectacular and entertaining elements prevail and sometimes diminish the scientific, social The visitors tend to personally relate to the objects and philosophical aspects of an exhibition quite displayed in an exhibition, as aforementioned30. In significantly. The ingredients that grant the success this context, the process of selecting the exhibited of such an exhibition are: spectacular décor, the heritage should consider the objects’ capacity to creation of a fascinating and engaging atmosphere, evoke pieces of knowledge and emotions among the dramatisations. These elements offer (the illusion public, to allow the public to make connections with of?) an intelligent entertainment around a theme the heritage. Thus, the exhibition is brought to life, that stirs up the public’s attention and imagination. it is more interesting and generates more profound effects. A risk related to the desire to design exhibitions focused on entertainment and agreeable leisure It seems that the museum visitor increasingly wants to is the reduction of the scientific component of interact with an exhibition31. The young generations the respective exhibition; designing a „safe/ in particular, familiar with the online interaction, institutionalised” discourse, abounding in may have a higher appetite for being active within stereotypes34, which should not hurt the sensibilities exhibitions. In the context of the changes within of some categories of public, should not raise the contemporary society, we might speak about a controversies, should not overburden the visitors, change in the paradigm of museum visiting, which thus generating the reluctance to visit the respective would take into consideration a dynamic, engaged exhibition among some segments of the public. In society, in a general manner. this context, there may be an overuse of problematic There is an increased focus on the public’s reproductions and dramatisations, to the detriment participation in all the phases of designing an of authenticity. Compromises are reached between exhibition, with the purpose to ensure a special science and entertainment, between researchers museum experience for the visitors32. The specialised and marketing and communication specialists. literature is analysing more models of public-museum The exaggeration of such an approach leads to interaction, with a highlight on the fact that, in this problems in the manner of reception of such an way, the museum presents a multicultural, pluralist exhibition. The public will not perceive reality discourse and a greater diversity, in accordance with the requirements of the contemporary society and anymore, but a cosmeticised imaginary world, they with the debates that animate it. will not be able to relate themselves to the themes in a critical manner, and we cannot speak about a The entertainment and the spectacular are real understanding of the subject approached by the important aspects correlated with the contemporary respective exhibition. The number of visitors is in exhibitions. Some curators are afraid to introduce direct proportion to the quality of understanding the these elements into exhibitions, although they are themes approached and to the deep impact that the important points in the visitors’ evaluation. For visit has upon the public. some visitors they may be more important than the educational or social aspects of an exhibition. Due

30 Froggett & Trustram (2014). 31 Leshchenko (2013), p. 159. 32 Duarte Cândido, Aidar & Conrado Martins (2013), p. 54-55 33 Drouguet (2005) 34 Drouguet (2005), p. 70-71

63 Conclusions

The museum is a dynamic organisation, with a The interpretation of the heritage in an complex mission, connected to the realities of the interdisciplinary and complex manner, as a technique contemporary society. Under these circumstances, of designing an exhibition, is recommended for the the exhibitions are also correlated with the visitors set-up of successful exhibitions. The interpretation and other categories of stakeholders. must focus on the visitor and other categories of stakeholders. The curators must take into account not Although museums are more attractive to the only the scientific value of the collections, but also general public than other types of cultural offers, other aspects, such as image, signification or manner their visiting seems to be an activity less attractive of contextualisation within the contemporary society. for the majority of the Romanian public. One of the These aspects may be even more relevant than the main reasons invoked for the lack of interest is the objective, intrinsic value of the heritage. inappropriate quality of the offer. In this context, it is recommended that the exhibitions be designed A person visits a particular exhibition only in depending on the target public, in order to persuade the circumstances they consider beneficial for them to come to a museum and to obtain the themselves, with a certain level of expectations. museum experience expected by the museum and The way they look upon, perceive, interact with by the visitors as well. A marketing approach may and understand the heritage depends on numerous contribute not only to the increase of the number of factors, some of them objective, others - subjective. visits to a museum, but also to the achievement of Some factors are generally valid, independently from the latter’s mission. the visit itself, while others are contextualised within the visit. In order to set up a successful exhibition, from the viewpoint of the public as well of the museum, Therefore, the curator – in charge with ensuring the there should be a cooperation not only between the success of an exhibition, with obtaining a particular various types of specialists involved in setting up the reaction from the visitors, respectively – is facing respective exhibition, but also between the museum multiple challenges. Only a small part of these and the visitors. Sometimes it is necessary to be challenges pertain to knowing the heritage. Most flexible and to make compromises – within certain of them are associated with the visitor and with limits – in order for an exhibition to be relevant for finding the right ways to appropriately valorise the the public and to determine their engagement, thus heritage. The curator must be not only a researcher contributing to the achievement of long-term results. and a protector of the heritage, but also its marketer. This is quite difficult to accomplish, because the Somehow paradoxically, the curator must focus on visitor is influenced by numerous factors, pertaining the visitor, not on the collections of the museum. not only to their socio-cultural characteristics, but also to the context wherein the visit is made.

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Alexandra Zbuchea Faculty of Management, SNSPA Bd. Expoziţiei 30A, Sector 1, 012104 Bucharest, Romania [email protected]

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