Leikki is dedicated to childhood, toys and play, which offers interesting, nostalgic and touching cultural experiences for all ages. Those who visit Leikki can meet their inner child through various events and services. We want to defend play for all ages and all the playful culture that exists in society. Leikki aims to reach a wide range of children and young people. In addition, we do a lot of work involving communities and visitors, and our goal is to reach a variety of visitors, including leisure visitors. Museo Leikki aims to collect memory information and artefacts and to present and serve a very diverse audience. One part of achieving diversity is to take actions for the rights, inclusion and well-being of people belonging to sexual and gender minorities. In the summer of 2023, we were an official partner of the Pride-Helsinki event and organized a different program in it, such as rainbow family meetings, queer guidance and participated in the Pride parade. This summer, we are Pride-Helsinki's partner again and we participate with an even wider program and, in addition to guided tours, we have several workshops, a rainbow event aimed at families with children, and a Drag Show. In the summer of 2023, Museo Leikki organized a Rainbow Childhood collection, the purpose of which is to increase memory about rainbow childhood, which has been scarcely collected. In the collection, rainbow people were asked about their memories of childhood, youth, games and toys. Among the respondents, there were a wide variety of both cis and transgender people, and different sexual orientations are also well represented. Our new special exhibition, from Tokyo to Tapiola, Japanese popular culture hobby in Finland also supports the rainbow theme, because many of the hobbyists are members of the rainbow community. In terms of public work, the rainbow work will be even stronger when, starting in the fall, we will offer middle school-age school groups a Queer visit, where they will get to know Leikki permanent exhibition through the diversity of gender and sexuality. The guidance leads to deep and sensitive topics, which are discussed together during the guidance vacation. In the workshop, a card game called Belonging is played in small groups, which leads to questions of identity and tolerance. The visit strengthens interaction skills and self-knowledge and promotes tolerance.
In this presentation, I will delve into the curatorial strategies and educational methodologies employed in the example of the exhibition "Bread and Circuses, Paintings by Tone Kralj 1941-1945". This exhibition showcased the work of Tone Kralj who used his creativity as a form of resistance during World War II and had a prominent role at creating collective awareness of resistance which remained a symbol of fight with the help of art. The exhibition served as a powerful example of how museums can challenge audiences, provoke thought, and inspire new understandings of the past and its relevance to the present. This ART exhibition was presented in an HISTORICAL museum and offered a different aspect in presenting WWII history, which can often polarize our visitors. We decided to accompany the artworks with other museum objects, which we used to interpret the artworks at one hand, and on the other to show the realistic circumstances that these artworks portrayed. At the same time, we explored the socio-political environment that shaped and was shaped by this art from different perspectives. We collaborated with colleagues from the fields of art history, history, and conservation and restoration work. By doing so, we approached topic to broader audiences, since we showed how we can understand art and what does art from this time explain to us. We also presented in detail the whole research process which intrigued our visitors. Respectfully, we discussed the traumatic memories and art as a medium to discuss the enduring impacts of war on individual and collective memory. We highlighted themes of human rights and minorities since the exhibitions itself stressed in detail the situation of Slovenians living in the Italian territory at the time. We also encouraged visitors to explore hidden and lesser-known aspects of WWII history through the lens of resistance art by focusing on the personal stories and resistance efforts depicted in the artworks. Specifically in one painting of this artist that was presented for the first time. In this case we promoted new perspectives on the role of art in documenting and resisting oppression and we encouraged visitors to observe the artwork closely and to find their own interpretations. By doing so, the museum presented itself not only as a place of preserving and presenting history but also as a place of fostering critical discourse and alternative interpretations of our collective heritage.
The WWI was a military, political, economic and human catastrophe which destroyed millions of lives and fundamentally altered the human history. It tore up the map of Europe and toppled ancient empires. It left chaos, revolutions, civil wars, ethnic and religious cleansing, and bitterness. Hundreds of thousands of men had been killed, many more bore the physical and psychological scars. Despite its impact, WWI is a quite neglected subject in Greece although between 1915 and 1918 Thessaloniki served as the main base for an army up to 600,000 strong with soldiers from Britain, France, Greece, Italy, Russia and Serbia. Therefore, Thessaloniki served as the administrative center of a separate Provisional Government.There are two large Alied military cemeteries in Thessaloniki, few people really know them and understand why these commemorative spaces exist.
This presentation discusses an educational program based on visits in Lembet Road Allied Military Cemetery, known locally as Zeitenlik. The main aim of this program is to make the cemetery a discussion hub about complex and sensitive topics such as wars, casualties, religion and ethnic differences, multiple identities, nationalism, colonization etc.
The innovative part of the program is firstly the very nature of the visits. This is not a typical visit to a museum but excursions to cemetery. The open space gives the students a sense of freedom and are more prone to new knowledge and new experience and freer to pose “difficult” questions or opinions. By using personal stories of soldiers as a tool, we can arise many historical, social, religious issues. Additionally, through photographs and their stories of those who lie in the cemetery, the participants will no longer simply see rows of headstones but instead the individual life now commemorated in stone.
The program is also an attempt to overcome prejudice about cemeteries being prohibited or even scaring places to be. Through, documents, narration and audio-visual technology, participants will gain an understanding of why there are soldiers of foreign nations buried in a large cemetery within the heart of Thessaloniki. Students are provided with tables with information and stories which are picked up in a way to trigger conversations about multiple difficult issues.
The WWI changed the world. Only by understanding it and its consequences, can we make sense of the world around us today. This program it’s a great pace for young people to start engaging.
Throughout history, various contested histories have existed within nations and societies, often hidden and misinterpreted due to their complexity. However, These histories are important collective memories for people and influence contemporary social development and identity formation. Museums, bearing the responsibility of social education, have begun to reflect on contested histories, restoring and passing on historical truth through research, collections, exhibitions, and education.
National Museum of Taiwan History (NMTH) has long used theatrical guided tours to discuss various contested histories in its permanent exhibitions, such as colonization, wars, martial law, and social movements. NMTH combines both historical education and drama education to lead audiences to understand these historical issues that have been long silenced and obscured by colonial and authoritarian rule. This study takes NMTH theatrical guided tours as a case study to explore how NMTH interprets contested histories through drama, and understanding audiences' learning states through questionnaires and interviews.
The research finds that NMTH takes Taiwanese rural citizens as the narrative subject and alternates between First-person Interpretation and Third-person Interpretation to allow audiences to empathize with the dilemma of those involved, and understand why histories are contested. The flexible design of interactive drama strategies enables actor-teachers to make impromptu adjustments based on audiences’ state, attracting active participation from audiences in the drama performance and scaffolding them to understand history during the performance. Using theatrical guided tour as a method for promoting contested histories education in museums shows at least two folds: (1) Through interdisciplinary interpretation and education, museums create more methods to discuss contested histories with audiences; (2) Interactive drama strategies allow audiences to actively construct their own historical interpretations, and enrich the museum experiences.
Last year, in 2023, it was the 50th anniversary of the military coup in Chile; a very dark time for the country's history. Thousands of Chileans went missing during the Pinochet dictatorship and thousands were sent in exile in different countries in Europe. London was the host of approximately 2,500 Chilean exiles (including businessmen, professors, and students) that had to escape the right-wing military coup.
At the Museum of London, we had recorded a collection of around 30 oral histories of Chilean exiles that arrived in the city in the 70s and 80s. It is interesting to note that the exiles did not choose London as a host city but they were sent there as part of humanitarian negotiations. So we decided to try and track down the original Chilean exiles who shared their testimonies with the museum, other Chileans that arrived at the same time London as well as second generation Chileans. We wanted to re-interpret these oral histories through their own memories and lived experience following an inter-generational approach, as no one knows better the stories shared in these testimonies than them and their decedents. We wanted to find out how they were welcomed or not in the city, how they managed to adjust and how they were treated by Londoners at that time.
We recruited 30 volunteers and engaged them for 3 months. We shared with them the oral history recordings and for 3 months we were meeting weekly discussing the recorded testimonies, their own experience and they helped us understand the stories revealed from the oral histories. The outcome of this engagement and outreach project was, through a series of workshops, to help them write their own interpretations and captions for this collection and store them in our collection database. These interpretations sit alongside the curatorial voice in our collection management systems. This way, we feel we brought these oral histories to life through the community's lived experience and personal memories.
Add to Calendar
LiveOn
