Paper short abstract:

Focusing on the art museum exhibition, I show how heritage can be compiled in collaboration with the artist and museums audience in the context of today’s social dissent and urban development in Maribor, Slovenia.

Paper long abstract:

Many of Maribor’s urban problems and issues that occurred in the 1980s are still present. Interesting alternative creative practices that developed than in different areas of the arts were all highly important for the further development of the city and different artistic practices. The difficulties that the autonomous non-governmental cultural production faces today are no less acute than in the past. The importance of the non-profit and alternative creative production for the city’s cultural and urban development is purposefully ignored.

The emphasis of the exhibition Us, You, Them. Fragments of the 1980s Alternative Practices in Maribor (Maribor Art Gallery) was on the creative production and its role in the collaboration of individuals and groups with similar interests in increasing the urban heartbeat of the city. On the case of the exhibition I reflect on the meaning of an art museum as a collaborative place-making between the artists, artefacts owners and audience. Can different exhibited legacies from private collections, ideas and practices be negotiated into a local cultural heritage through museum’s public, people of Maribor and media? Can the exhibition and its programme participate in the encouragement to make people rethink the vision and future of the city and the region?