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- Convenors:
-
Maija Mäki
(University of Turku)
Helena Ruotsala (University of Turku)
Tuomas Hovi (University of Turku)
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- Chair:
-
Tuomas Hovi
(University of Turku)
- Format:
- Panel
- Stream:
- HERITAGE
- Location:
- Room H-202
- Sessions:
- Wednesday 15 June, -
Time zone: Europe/London
Short Abstract:
In this panel we discuss the transition and heritagization of the places that contains difficult memories and experiences. Hospitals, sanatoriums and prisons have been under reconstruction and recreation processes in recent years. We ask whose voices are heard in those processes.
Long Abstract:
There are many institutional structures that have been changed and re-created to heritage sites in the recent years. Many of these structures include massive and complex built environments that are now being changed to offer multiple services to customers. These services might include hotels, restaurants, escape rooms or wellness services. Former hospitals, sanatoriums and prisons are examples of places that have been under intense reconstruction and recreation processes. Heritagisation creates reusage for the places, but also new meanings, interpretations and practices. Heritagisation also affects the way locals, former employees and inhabitants experience these changes. These heritage sites are sensitive and affective places that usually also contain difficult and even dark memories and experiences. Although this difficult part of history can be problematic in many ways, both cultural institutions and tourism industry use this dark heritage to draw tourists and customers.
In this panel we are interested in the transition of these places. What happens to the places that are under re-creation process? How do local communities go through these changes? How do possible customers find these places and how are they being marketed? Whose voices are heard in the processes and on whose terms these decisions are made? How are these places recreated, reused or restored?
The panel is produced by the members of the multidisciplinary project "Paimio Sanatorium: Social, Historical and Cultural Perspectives". This project focuses on the experiences and memories connected to the former tuberculosis sanatorium designed by famous Finnish architect Alvar Aalto, located in Paimio, Southwest Finland.
Accepted papers:
Session 1 Wednesday 15 June, 2022, -Paper short abstract:
What do old photographs tell us about everyday life in an isolated tuberculosis sanatorium? Who do the photos belong to? Are they only available to museum professionals and researchers, or are former patients, employees and their children entitled to the images, as well as residents and tourists?
Paper long abstract:
Paimio Sanatorium in Paimio, Southwest Finland, is a tuberculosis sanatorium designed by Alvar and Aino Aalto. Completed in 1933 and used as a hospital until 2015, the building is known internationally for its architecture, but everyday life inside its walls have remained relatively unknown. The research project "Paimio sanatorium: social, historical and cultural perspectives" by the departments of Ethnology, Folkloristics and Museology of the University of Turku examines the daily life of the sanatorium from different perspectives and at different times.
In this presentation, we explore the patients' agency in a tuberculosis sanatorium in the 1940s and 1960s through visual and oral history material based on Kokko´s master thesis and research process concerning the whole research project. We ask what the patients' agency was like in an institution like the sanatorium, which is described as totalitarian, and how agency is expressed in the different type of materials. The Paimio Sanatorium photo collection owned by Turku Lazaret Museum was selected as the main research material on the initiative of members of a local homestead association. Closed reminiscence events will be held where the local activists come together to look at the photos and share their memories.
The collection of sanatorium photos has raised ethical questions, for instance about the privacy of former patients. The question of ownership of photos, which can be seen as cultural heritage, has come up strongly ─ who has the right to use the images that shed unique light on the isolated everyday life of the sanatorium.
Paper short abstract:
This paper analyzes the role of personal memories of repression in the museum exhibition “Ingrians – The Forgotten Finns”. It explores the potentials and challenges related to heritagization of difficult memories and discusses the role of personal experiences in contemporary strategies of memory, heritage, and history making more generally.
Paper long abstract:
This paper analyzes the role of personal memories of repression in the museum exhibition “Ingrians – The Forgotten Finns” held at the national museum of Finland in 2020 from the perspective of heritage making. Ingrians or Ingrian Finns are a Finnish-speaking historical minority of Russia and the Soviet Union. During the 20th century, Ingrian Finns experienced multiple forced and voluntary migrations, including mass deportations and voluntary transitions within the Soviet Union as well as migrations abroad. As an exhibition explicitly aiming at raising awareness amidst the Finnish audience about Ingrian Finns and their status as part of the Finnish people, the museum exhibition focused especially on the history of Stalinist repressions, and its consequences by making use of historical information, material heritage, and most importantly, by remediating personal narratives of people of different ages with Ingrian identities. Visually, the exhibition space was dominated by photographs that presented landscapes in Siberia and portraits of individuals whose personal experiences were included in the setting. Interestingly, personal experiences of the exhibition’s creators Lea and Santeri Pakkanen were also included. In fact, they operated as the exhibition’s meta-narrative. By critically engaging with the exhibition as a project in which personal memories were relegated to the sphere of national and public memory in Finland, this paper explores the potentials and challenges related to these kinds of heritagization processes and discusses the role of personal experiences in contemporary strategies of memory, heritage, and history making more generally.
Paper short abstract:
Ireland has been confronted with the most horrendous historical institutions and legacies of those organisations, including the Magdalene Laundries & the Mother and Baby Homes. This paper will give some thoughts on how such sites become represented as 'Irish Heritage'.
Paper long abstract:
A converted site in Ireland that recognized the need to engage with the lived experience was the Tenement Museum Dublin. In September 2015 Dublin City Council, working with the National Folklore Foundation, began the Urban Memories and Tenement Experiences oral history project. Memories of people who lived in tenements on Henrietta Street and across Dublin were recorded. The interviews gathered guided the design of conservation works in the former tenement and continue to be central to the museum exhibition which opened in August 2017.
Currently, the Irish government has been forced to confront some of the most difficult and horrendous historical institutions and legacies of those organisations. This would include the Magdalene Laundries and the Mother and Baby Homes. The absence of understanding around the impact of the ethnographic interview in the official investigations has exposed the lack of respect held for the oral narrative of the lived experience. The witness accounts became more peripheral as opposed to a core focus in the official reports. This paper will reflect on the accomplishments of the Tenement Museum and propose guidance to future projects. As state officials continue to re-use and reimagine further built environments and heritage landscapes a deeper understanding oral narratives must be employed.
Paper short abstract:
After the end of WW II largely destroyed Munich was re-constructed. With the 1972 summer Olympics urban pattern was re-figured with thoughts of modernity. Re-writing the city’s biography by deconstruction nowadays comes along with deleting and not reflecting the past.
Paper long abstract:
In the 1960s the city has experienced a formative phase. Against national monumentalism Architect Guenter Behnisch realised a democratic stadium among a landscape scaled by human standard. Designer Otl Aicher let the colours of the rainbow re-present Munich, Germany and the 1972 games. While his concept was antifascist former national socialists were re-installed in office. The atmosphere was vibrant when eleven sportsmen from Israel and a Bavarian police officer got assassinated in the Olympic village.
Until today Munich is affected by modern planning and signature buildings of the 1960s in everyday life – the subway with a differentiated colour-approach or the Olympic Park. Nevertheless, landmarks from the post war era are not valued very much at the beginning of the 21st century. During the last years the headquarter of a supermarket from times of economic miracle was re-placed as well as the familiar architecture of the public transport system from the late 1960s. However, re-building properties of this seminal period means re-writing Munich’s biography as it comes along with deleting knowledge.
In course of the 50th anniversary of the games in 2022 the keyword is “celebrating” not revealing. The important process of re-orientating as a democratic society is not on display of municipal events, and there is no main symposium or exhibition asking for the political and economic constellations. Supplemented by a memorial für the murdered people, iconic buildings like the Olympic Stadium seem to be landscaped legacy that are asked to be quiet – not releasing reflections about the modern past.