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- Convenors:
-
Charlotte Engman
(Umeå University)
Olga Zabalueva (Umeå university)
Pille Pruulmann-Vengerfeldt (Malmö University)
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- Format:
- Panel+Workshop
Short Abstract:
This panel and workshop focus on how museums and archives "unwrite" democracy by confronting hidden narratives, dismantling imposed identities, challenging polarization and hegemonic discourses. What new democratic voices and futures might emerge from the change of museal and archival practices?
Long Abstract:
This panel and workshop call on scholars to investigate how museums and archives can engage in "unwriting" democracy by revealing hidden narratives and questioning dominant discourses. Traditionally, these institutions are seen as vital to democracy, enhancing knowledge access and fostering inclusion. However, rising polarization, nationalism, and critiques of democracy in Europe present new challenges for museums and archives regarding their role in promoting openness, pluralism, and civic engagement.
How can these institutions, as cultural memory spaces, navigate the complexities of addressing controversial and morally charged topics? What does it mean for them to actively unlearn entrenched narratives, and how might this influence democratic engagement? Can “unwriting” the musealization process contribute to building more equitable and democratic societies?
Participants are encouraged to consider the broader role of museums and archives in the current landscape, particularly in relation to activism, post-neutrality, and sustainability. How might these institutions reimagine their community engagement and shift their practices to become agents of both unlearning and rewriting democracy? By exploring these questions, we aim to open a dialogue on how museums and archives can evolve in response to the political, social, and cultural challenges facing democratic societies today, and what possibilities might arise from this transformation.
In the workshop, we invite participants to experiment with monster writing and love letters as ways to collaborate around unwriting hidden narratives and challenging dominant discourses. These two workshop activities will provide concrete methods for participants to take home and experiment with their own collectives.
Accepted contributions:
Session 1Contribution short abstract:
The presentation introduces a "Flower Monster" - a provocative, purposefully messy and incomplete creative workshop toolkit for local cultural institutions like museums, archives and libraries to practice writing/making democracy part of their core mission.
Contribution long abstract:
The presentation introduces a "Flower Monster" - a provocative creative workshop toolkit that deliberately moves away from organisational input-output flowcharts or block models of cultural policy and allows for an argument that democracy is a work in progress that can often become monstrous.
Local cultural institutions are subjected to cultural policies that highlight the role of democratisation of culture and cultural democracy. The democratization of culture is based on two interconnected rationales. First, there is a desire to expand cultural engagement, viewing culture as a common good or intangible welfare. Cultural democracy supports diversity in cultural expressions and promotes active participation, where local institutions like museums, libraries, or archives facilitate multiple perspectives and voices. Second, within a belief that culture has the capacity to transform, enlighten, or even civilise the population, democratisation is about widening access to elite and high culture. But in this context of slightly conflicting mandates, is there a limit to cultural activities that are worthy of doing? Can activities that support multiple perspectives be harmful to democracy?
The Flower Monster workshop allows the participants to creatively explore the skeins of influence, and take a closer look at democracy-supporting practices but also question - what democracy is for our institution. The provocation is purposefully messy, incomplete and open, inviting challenges and questioning thus providing space for discussion even of the foundational ideals of local cultural institutions. The presentation introduces the monster visual and accompanying toolkit with foundational provocations to enable institutions to practice writing/making democracy.
Contribution short abstract:
The paper examines the integration of amateur photography in building democratic, diverse, and participatory museum narratives. Drawing on curatorial research and Polish case studies, it highlights the potential and challenges of using domestic photography in inclusive museum practices.
Contribution long abstract:
Since its invention, photography has promised to be a democratic medium—initially gifted to humanity by the French government, present in "every" home since the late 19th century thanks to Kodak amateur cameras, and in every pocket today via digital cameras in mobile phones. Photography also promised both to capture the truth and to preserve memory, empowering individuals as chroniclers and archivists while transforming the world into a documented space.
Despite this potential, the democratic promise of photography has remained unfulfilled in many respects. The camera has been an instrument of emancipation and oppression. Institutions devoted to collecting and preserving objects and stories, like museums and public archives, have prioritized narratives constructed by professional photographers or artists, often overlooking grassroots perspectives.
This shift has positioned domestic photography as a valuable resource in creating inclusive museum narratives. By incorporating amateur photography into exhibitions, museums can address gaps in their collections, presenting the experiences of underrepresented groups through their own visual perspectives. Such practices not only enrich collections but also foster deeper emotional engagement with audiences.
This paper examines the integration of amateur photography in building democratic, diverse, and participatory museum narratives. It draws on the author’s research into curatorial practices and explores case studies from Polish institutions, highlighting the potential and challenges of utilizing domestic photography as a means of democratizing museum spaces.
Contribution short abstract:
This paper examines an ongoing project at the National Museum of Scotland focused on the participatory reactivation of the Jean Jenkins' Ethiopian sound archive. Through this case study, it reflects on the evolving role of museums in shaping more inclusive and democratic futures.
Contribution long abstract:
Between the 1960s and 1970s, ethnomusicologist Jean Jenkins documented Ethiopia’s musical heritage. While some of her sound recordings were published, the majority of them have remained largely inaccessible to custodial communities and the public for over 50 years. Today, these recordings are the focus of a reactivation project at the National Museum of Scotland. The project seeks to amplify Ethiopian voices through participatory initiatives, engaging both local Ethiopian communities and the diaspora in the UK.
This paper explores the project's objectives and challenges, using it as a case study to examine how museums and archives can act as agents of unlearning imperialism. By challenging entrenched colonial perspectives and engaging the Ethiopian diaspora in the reinterpretation of cultural heritage, the project invites critical reflection on how these institutions can 'unwrite' dominant historical discourses and reshape narratives about Africa.
Although Jenkins’ collection was not a direct product of colonialism, its location within a Western institution evokes dynamics similar to colonial archives, raising questions about the neutrality of archives. This project challenges these assumptions, emphasizing the importance of participatory approaches in the study and dissemination of African sound archives. By reinterpreting these recordings as creative resources rather than merely documentary ones, the project demonstrates their potential to foster cultural resilience and contribute to decolonizing heritage knowledge, while also opening a dialogue on the evolving role of museums and archives in shaping more inclusive and democratic futures.
Contribution short abstract:
This paper addresses how public rage enacted in, and directed at, museums can be turned into constructive dialogues facilitating democratically sustainable dissensus rather than increased polarization.
Contribution long abstract:
In recent years, museums have faced increasing challenges from the rise of polarization around cultural values. Right wing extremism and populism, including hostility toward LGBTQIA+, gender and diversity perspectives, and iconoclast climate and anti-racist movements are but a few examples of forces currently using the museum as an arena for political rallying in the public sphere. Meanwhile, museum educators often become positioned as the public faces of the museum, tasked with the difficult quest to promote and preserve democratic values in the meeting with often-upset visitors.
Drawing on an interview study with 32 Swedish museum educators, this paper discusses experiences with hate occurring in meetings between educators and audiences. It explores how polarization emerges in educational settings and aims to provide a nuanced understanding of how educators navigate and address highly politicized topics. An ambition for the paper is to discuss how museums can move from safe spaces to “brave spaces” (Arao & Clemens 2013), facilitating dissensus rather than censoring themselves or silencing uncomfortable discussions.
Contribution short abstract:
The 50th anniversary of Chile's 1973 coup is marked by fading memory and polarized views. To address this, the National Historical Museum created an exhibition that, designed as a historical laboratory, used art, objects, and voices foster critical analysis and democratic awareness.
Contribution long abstract:
Two elements characterise the commemoration of the 50th anniversary of the coup d'état in Chile (1973): the decline of living memory and the polarisation of the past. Currently, in Chile, 36% of the population does not believe in the importance of democracy, and the veil of traumatic silence has hindered the generational transfer of memory. At the same time, 36.4% of Chileans believe that the military's action in 1973 was necessary, and the figures of distrust in the democratic system grow year by year, especially among the younger generations.
In response, the Museo Histórico Nacional organised the exhibition 50 years later, Coup in Memory (50 años después. Golpe en la memoria) combines the voice of more than one hundred interviews, patrimonial objects, contemporary art and unpublished archives. The exhibition was designed as a historical laboratory to analyse the costs of the loss of a democratic system and is guided by a choral soundscape that combines the questions of young people with the memory of those who lived through that time.
Through this exhibition, this paper analyses the role of archives, art, objects and testimonies as didactic material for critical analysis and historical awareness and their relationship with democratic appreciation. From the experience of its curators, the paper recounts the methodological process to encourage the participation and donation of hitherto marginalised histories from the Museum.
Contribution short abstract:
A bunker next to Volkskundemuseum in Vienna is starting point for discussing the museum's reflections and reusage of handed down narratives and practices and their (non)effects. How to work with an almost imperceptible past? How to unwrite former uses to develop an open, democracy-fostering space?
Contribution long abstract:
In the park behind the Volkskundemuseum in Vienna is a bunker located – built and used during the Second World War. Soon after the war, the museum claimed (beside others) the building. Since the 1980s the bunker was utilised as museum's depot, the war and violence contexts disappeared behind prettifying décor and thoughtless wording.
This contribution presents two concepts of the Volkskundemuseum on dealing with urban, national and institutional pasts and developing future strategies: The first is a comprehensive institutional reappraisal on the utilisations of the bunker, which is going to lead to the greatest possible accessibility on site and online. The aim is to unwrite common narratives about museum and collective memories of wars. The other project is about recoding and demonstratively opening up the bunker in times of democratic and illiberal threats into a public space where exchange and workshops take place and are very welcome.
Contribution short abstract:
This presentation explores how participatory practices at the Estonian National Museum enable encounters with cultural heritage. By focusing on user engagement, digital heritage, and co-creation with stakeholders, we examine how museums reimagine heritage use.
Contribution long abstract:
This presentation explores how participatory practices at the Estonian National Museum enable diverse encounters with heritage. By focusing on user engagement, digital heritage, and co-creation with stakeholders, we examine how museums can challenge authority, foster engagement, and reimagine the uses of cultural heritage in society.
The presentation explores case studies which demonstrate evolving conceptualisations of how to open up a museum in the context of exhibition: (1) Over the past decade, the ENM’s participatory collecting, particularly the DIY exhibition hall has provided a space where non-professional curators—enthusiasts, students, and community members—have been invited to express themselves, contributing to knowledge production and collection reinterpretation. This bottom-up approach transfers decision-making and creative power to participants. (2) The paper looks into the ongoing collaborations with artists and other stakeholders experimenting with the new uses of digital heritage collections. The project demonstrates how technology transforms static collections into dynamic resources for society when paired with human agency. Within this context, the idea of a "quantum archive" emerges as a metaphor: much like quantum systems existing in multiple states until observed, digital collections exist in fluid, multi-layered states, as a kind of potential, reshaped and co-determined by users' perspectives and interactions. Ongoing experiment pushes archival boundaries, asking, how heritage can be rewritten and reimagined.
By facilitating participatory practices around heritage, the ENM demonstrates how museums can become spaces where unwriting occurs through lived experiences and collaborative creativity. This challenges hierarchical models of cultural production, offering frameworks for societal impact that transcend traditional understandings of heritage.
Contribution short abstract:
This presentation explores how a grant program offered by a U.S. federal cultural institution enables self-representation by communities through cultural documentation projects. A key question here is how does the program unwrite normalized collection practices and democratize the national record?
Contribution long abstract:
In 2022, the American Folklife Center at the Library of Congress launched a grant program to fund individuals and organizations conducting cultural documentation projects in their own communities. In addition to financial support the program provided technical assistance, project guidance, and—most importantly—a sustained relationship with staff at a major cultural institution. Part of a much initiative at the Library intended to engage users and communities who have not historically seen themselves in the institution, the Community Collections Grant set out to support archival preservation of "contemporary cultural expressions and traditions that may otherwise be absent from the national record." Toward this end the Library of Congress and the American Folklife Center sought to enable self-representation and democratization of the national record. The significant ethnographic collections held at the American Folklife Center comprise cultural documentation of a wide range of diverse communities, but few collections emerge from the community perspective. Instead, these collections have mostly been written into the archival record by ethnographers coming from outside the communities. This presentation will consider how the grant may have contributed to rewiring collection building at a national cultural institution by centering community perspectives. In what ways does enabling self-representation serve to unwrite or unravel entrenched dominant epistemologies that have historically underwritten archival records? Through description of elements of the program and specific examples of funded projects the presentation will invite critical reflection on challenges and opportunities of such an undertaking.
Contribution short abstract:
The presentation explores how the underrepresentation of Roma in Lithuanian archives and museums reflects broader societal marginalization, advocating for inclusive, multivocal historical narratives to promote historical and social justice for the community.
Contribution long abstract:
State archives are often regarded as containers of national memory, preserving material evidence of the past. Yet, the selective inclusion or exclusion of materials raises critical questions: does archival preservation validate existence, while absence signifies erasure of the people and events of the past? This presentation examines these questions through insights gained from a two-year interdisciplinary research project on archival photographs of historic Roma communities in the Baltic states. The research sought to document and analyze visual records of Roma in Lithuania prior to World War II. Despite Roma co-existing in Lithuania for over 500 years and contributing to its multicultural landscape, the archival representation of Roma in Lithuanian state institutions proved to be disproportionately limited.
This limited representation reflects broader marginalization of Roma in social and political life. Although archival practices claim neutrality, I tend to see these processes of cataloging, curating, and publicizing materials as political acts. Many Roma-related photographs have been catalogued under racialized terms like "Gypsy/Gypsies," perpetuating stereotypes and neglect. Is this simplification a naive routine or institutional negligence that reinforces exclusion of Roma histories in the public discourse?
The presentation advocates for reimagining the role of the researcher in uncovering unwritten pasts and empowering Roma communities to reinstate their position within the Lithuanian memory institutions. By fostering multivocal and inclusive narratives through collaboration among researchers, communities, and memory institutions, it can be a key to strengthen democratic values and advance historical justice.
Contribution short abstract:
This paper examines the intrinsic link between LGBTQ+ rights and democratic values, arguing that LGBTQ+ inclusion is foundational to democracy, not merely its outcome. Drawing on museum practices, it explores how queer narratives challenge heteronormative norms and counter anti-democratic movements.
Contribution long abstract:
LGBTQ+ rights and democratic values are deeply interconnected. The treatment of LGBTQ+ individuals reflects the strength and health of a democracy. As highlighted by the Human Dignity Trust's 2015 report, established democracies are often marked by progress in LGBTQ+ rights, while the erosion of democratic systems tends to deteriorate these rights. This paper argues that LGBTQ+ rights are not merely an outcome of democracy but are foundational to its liberal form. It calls for a shift in perspective: rather than framing LGBTQ+ rights as a product of democratic values, we should understand them as integral to the very definition of democracy. This reframing puts LGBTQ+ rights at the core of democracy itself.
The German Museums Association highlights the role of museums as “Democracy Makers” (Willkomm 2024). Contemporary museums are showing a growing dedication to presenting queer narratives. While these queer-focused exhibitions are essential for improving representation, their impact depends on the institution’s genuine commitment to queer inclusion (Middleton 2017).
In societies where heterosexual and cisgender identities are assumed as the norm, museums that overlook or exclude queer narratives reinforce a heteronormative, cis-centric perspective (Ingraham 2006, 307). As a result, museums that fail to embrace true diversity in their narratives risk becoming amplifiers for right-wing anti-democratic movements.
My case studies will explore both the benefits and the risks of placing queer inclusion at the heart of democratic values: How do these values challenge dominant narratives? Can museums serve as platforms for fostering perceptions of democracy and diversity?