Paper short abstract:

To protect the vernacular, built heritage, large amounts of toxins has been used within the open-air museums. Today, some of these buildings are not useable, due to the toxic remains. I will here investigate how this effects the authenticity and value of the objects and strategies for caretaking.

Paper long abstract:

Museum preservation has gone through severe changes. Vernacular buildings have been moved, transformed and repaired, by handling wood in traditional a traditional manner. From following tradition, seemingly without reflection, the concept of material authenticity has been favored within the open-air museums. This has led to an professional antiquarian practice of patchwork-conservation on one hand, and of fighting the natural processes on the other. Here, the museums have used pesticides and biocides to preserve the materiality to a degree that we today do not dare to use some of the buildings.

In the process of taking care of the elements of culture, the museums declared war against the processes of nature, fighting bacteria, fungi, insects, and other harmful organisms with toxins. These practices can both be understood as a warfare and as a form of caretaking: Or a form of war-care. In this presentation, I will discuss different strategies of how to handle this toxic heritage in the open-air museums in the past, present and future and present how the intangible cultural heritage can show some new perspectives for caretaking within the heritage management. One part of the discussion is on how the indigenous, local culture can be reestablished within the open-air museums through making new cultural objects (or copies) rather than preserving the old, “authentic” ones. The material for this presentation comes from the interaction between two research projects: “Toxic Heritage” and “Gift i bygningsvernet” and my daily work with protecting the buildings collection and the craftmanship at Norsk Folkemuseum.