exhibition memory

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PEDRO PEREIRA LEITE

Lisbon in real Time

Exhibition Memory /

Memory of an Exhibition

Informal Museology Studies

Spring 2013


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Ficha Tcnica:


Papers on Qualitative ResearchIssue 1 - Spring 2013

DirectoryPedro Pereira LeiteISSN 0000-0000

Editor: Pedro Pereira LeitePublisher: Marca d gua: Publicaes e Projetos

Redaction: Casa Muss-amb-ikeIlha de Moambique,3098 Moambique

Lisbon: Passeio dos Fencios, Lt. 4.33.01.B 5 Esq.1990-302 Lisbon -Portugal


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Informal Museology

Summary

Exhibition Memory / Memory of an Exhibition Museologia Informal: Prticas e Saberes Whath Is Informal Museology ?


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Exhibition Memory / Memory of an Exhibition

Pedro Pereira Leite1

What are and how are memories witten? Since

classical antiquity that an understading of the

phenomon of memory has been searched for. How

do memories, images of another time, constitute

themselves as representations? How do we make

objects of the past became present? Writing about

the memories of an exhibition becomes a challenge

of creating a representation.

Operating a narrative that adds being. We assume

that we narrate a process of something missing by evoking what

became present in it.

At the beginning of 2012, feeling cold due to the winter freezing weather, Irang the bell. I enter the lobby decorated with ashlars, climb up the woodenstairs to the first floor and enter the room. I am welcomed by the aroma ofwarm coffee made by Graa Teixeira. Sitting in a circle in the living room, inloose talk there were Cristina Bruno , Katia Filipini , Marcelo Cunha , Mario

and Ana Moutinho . Shortly after, Gabriela Cavaco , Isabel Victor and PedroCardoso joined the group2.

We started to talk about a project to develop an exhibition on BaixaPombalina, on its past, but especiallyon its present. We all adhered to theidea very quickly, thrilled with thebrief presentation projected on thewall.

From that day on, the team wascomposing itself. More faces wereadhering, with different abilities andskills. Some from the area oftechnology, others in the area ofdesign, others specialized in different contents. As it goes with all projects,some contributed more, others were helping as they could. Potential sitesfor the exhibition were visited. The Palace of Independence, the Millennium

1Researcher on Museology. Published in Baixa in Real Tim, (2013), Lisbon,

Universidade Lusfona, pp 65-672 The team on Museology School at Lusofona University. Some work in Brasil at SoPaulo University and Baia University.

Fig 2 1st. meeting on Feb 2012

Fig 1- Context and

Setting of Memory


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Gallery, on Augusta Street. A visit to Brazil brought up the possibility oftaking the exhibit to Rio de Janeiro and Salvador, in Bahia. The exhibitionhad become a pretext for different dialogues.

At different moments, proposals to look at Baixa Pombalina were advanced.

In one of our meetings we had a small workshop with Cristina Bruno on thepurpose of the trip as a catalyst factor for a museological process, in whichthe illustrious museologist presented the methodologies used for theproposed organization of the CityMuseum of So Paulo3. The experienceof traveling as a methodology ofconstructing narratives constitutes aninspiring element for our research onwhat we've been naming "The poeticsof intersubjectivity"4 and is

characterized by looking at the space,at its relational dynamics in pursuit ofits essential elements. Interrogating thespace and time, with the restlessness that seeks the essence in the process.

There is an old creator myth in Indian culture that speaks of a hidden river,the Saraswati River that formerly ran open andthat time was in charge of hiding it. A river flowthat even hidden persists in influencing thepresent. Observing Baixa Pombalina at thepresent time is to look at a number of futurepossibilities. Possibilities conditioned byinstalled dynamics. That was the challenge weassumed to work on Baixa Pombalina. Askingourselves what this Baixa is today. Seekingbeyond narratives and meta-narratives towardsfinding out how that space is perceived andlived by its inhabitants. Inhabitant meaningthose that make use of the territory.

Our starting point was to explore the territory.

On a February morning we arrived at Baixa, asif we were travelers and we lived in it fortwenty-four hours. We tried to observe the different rhythms, itsinhabitants, how they made use of the space, the different meeting places,the places that attract people, and the spaces of communication among

3Bruno, Cristina (2004). Asexpedies no cenrio museal(The Expedition on Musicological

Scenario) in So Paulo Expedition 450 years, So Paulo, So Paulo City Museum, pp 36-47.4

See Leite, Pedro Pereira (2012). Olhares Biogrficos: a potica daIntersubjetividade em Museologia, (Biographical Glances: The Potic ofintersubjectivity on Museology), Lisboa/Ilha de Moambique, Maca Dgua

Fig 3 Lisbon at Morning

Fig 4- Lisbon at Night


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them. We tried to look at the stills. We particularly attempted to listen tothe meanings of these powerful hidden voices in the stones and blackenedfaces of the people who speak of past experiences as present actions.Curiously, in late September, already atthe final stage of collecting andsystematizing work, we went down to thesubterranean river that runs in Baixa. TheRoman Galleries of Prata Street are agood example of our Baixa. A geology inmovement, which provides us with thefoundation of a city, periodicallydevastated by natural cataclysms, whichmankind insists on confronting, rebuildingbeauty successively out of ruins. A city

that is renewed every day, observed inplural forms and lived differently.

The methodology of the trip allowed us to gather elements to be integratedin the planned work. Proposals in which the construction of narrativesshould be shared as well as express different ways of looking at the space.It is true that "our journey" is still anincipient proposal of the potential thatthe methodology suggests as achallenge to urban spaces museology. A

challenge that seeks to overcome theview of the city as a static object. Thecity as living space incorporates forcesthat face one another. Natural andsocial forces. But cities are also

representative scenarios of themselves.Depending on the point of view, therepresentation proposals are different. Then the challenge is to watch thecity from its inside. Hear its echoes and incorporate them as museumnarrative as a plurality of views that could give us a city "tomography".

Out of this innovating potential that the applied methodology revealed, westress at this point the analysis of the poetic dimension of urban space andthe sound cartographies. They are two elements produced within researchand allow extending the proposed museum narrative in urban spaces.

From Cartography thru the Space Poetics

In the case of the poetic dimension of space as a tool for investigation, it isuseful to understand the "spirit of the place". Its utopian dimension (beyondthe site) is a starting point for the construction of structural concepts ofproposed narratives made from the users of the spaces. Confronting the

Fig 5- Old River underground the city

Fig 6 The Tugus river


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user of the spaces with hisher experience in that space, be it by the wayheshe moves in it, by hisher life stories, or by the memory of hisherexperience, allows us to intuitively grasp the transformation processes ofthe space. The poetic presents an exegetical dimension (from exegesis ortranscendence) which releases meanings contained in the forms, throughverbalization and ritualization (commuting and celebrations). At the sametime it introduces a theoretical orinclusive dimension, (immanence,as a quest for the essence of allthings) because it produces acontextualized speech in a spaceand time, where traditionally oneseeks to capture the phenomena:the setting. Well, this contextual

speech successively recreates thesocial experience, making thenarratives as the development ofthemselves.

Poetics as a communicative act allows producing plural meanings and canbe translated into a sensitiveexperience. A journey of the sensesthrough space in search of processualmoments. Poetics as an urban

experience is an experience ofintersubjectivity where the varioussubjects move in time and spacearound socially significant objects, ofcommon heritage, to jointly reconstructthe elements that are common to them,creating new meanings and newprocesses.

Exploring urban sonorities

In the case of sound cartographies of spaces5, it is a proposal of processknowledge about the identities of spaces. As the search for poetic images, itresults from the investigation and recognition of spaces through experience.The proposal is to capture the urban action in process through its sounds.Here, we took the time of the city sound as a field for recognition of urbanexperiences. A commuting trip between urban and rural spaces is enoughfor one to realize the differences in sound, visual and smell densities. Cities

5 Inspired on the works of Carlos Fortuna in Music, Urban Live and Deafness

published in Rua Larga, Coimbra, june 2012. Carlos Fortuna work in CoimbraUniversity in Portugal and proposals some analytical approaches on urbansociology.

Fig 7- My Guide

Fig 8 - The Tram- hear the urban sound


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domesticated time. Time has come to be linear, marked by mechanicalsounds that shape its pace. The silence interrupted by the bell from Catholicchurches steeples, or by the call for prayer from the mosques are elementsof domestication. But the cities and contemporary metropolis haveintensified mechanical sounds, involving the city rhythm in a noisy concertwhich we strive to control all the time. Whetherthrough the use of "headphones", either throughforgetfulness, urban sound is an experience of spacerecognition. Through the relationship between silenceand the importance attributed by the brain we canguide ourselves and recognize the differencesbetween the spaces. For example, the mechanicalnoise of cars is also a marker of territory, as thesilences of contemporary museums symbolize

changing territories.

Observing the sound of real life as a recognition exercise, as an experienceof an intersubjectivity proposal is thinking about how individuals getconnected between themselves and with the earth. Restoring the

connectors as building tools of ecology knowledge. It is useful to draw theintention of urban planners to the fact that the sound is not integrated intothe territory planning while sonorities are territorial trademarks of resiliencefrom which one can recreate the urban landscapes of the future.

Those are two contributions to the development of future investigations thatmark the my memory of this exhibition.

Fig 9 to build a play list

of urban sounds as

experience oh

knowledge


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Museologia Informal: Prticas e Saberes

Rede de empreendedorismo e inovao social criado em

Moambique com um olhar global. um espao virtual para

apoiar a criao dum mundo radicalmente mais justo e

mais feliz atravs duma prtica museolgica informal

O que a museologia informal?

A museologia informal uma reflexo e uma prtica com o objetivode ligar capacidades inovadoras na sociedade. Apoia-se na potica daintersubjetividade e procura prticas sociais emancipatrias para aconstruo dum mundo mais feliz. Muss-amb-ike espao de saberes ememrias uma comunidade global de gentes de diferentes origense profisses, com diversos olhares e diversas culturas que trabalhamsem fronteiras e com as novas fronteiras para enfrentar os novosdesafios sociais, culturais e ambientais a partir da teoria critica

Consideramos que os problemas do mundo atual no so a falta deideias mas sim a construo do acesso aos saberes e aosconhecimentos, aos recursos necessrios para agir e conscincia

dos impactos da ao.

Por isso acreditamos que necessrio criar espao locais comaacesso ao conhecimento, a recursos e a ligao s experienciasemancipatrias e a sua divulgao

Estamos a trabalhar para criar lugares para gente que cria mudanas.Esta a nossa ambio e estamos comprometidos a criar stios querenam vontades associativas, capacidade de ao e inovao, umaoficina dotada de servios. Estamos a criar um espao deexperimentao e inovao social participada

Temos objetivo de trabalhar com as ferramentas necessrias paracrias e desenvolver novas iniciativas. Lugares para ter acesso experiencia, conhecimento, ajuda financeira. Gerar encontros e trocasde experincias


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Cinco princpios da museologia informal

1. Co-criao: Em Muss-amb-ike todos somos criadores de novasrealidades em colaborao com a comunidade. As nossas aes socriativas e utilizamos os processos de comunicao participada e a potica

como ferramenta de trabalho. Estamos presentes e em dilogo como osoutros. Para isso construmos e incentivamos a organizao de comunidadesde aprendizagem onde somos todos mestres e alunos.

Palavras-chave: Criatividade, Colaborao, Comunicao Assertiva, Co-criao, Comunidade de aprendizagem.

2. Integridade: Na nossa vida somos coerentes entre o que pensamos,dizemos e fazemos. A nossa comunidade interage com os outros e fomentaos processos participativos

Palavras-chave: Transparncia, Coerncia, Integridade

3. Aceitao incondicional do outro: Muss-amb-ike uma comunidadeaberta, inclusiva que se enriquece com as diferenas dos seus membros.Quem se identifica com estes princpios Benvinda. O nosso potencialreside no reconhecimento da diversidade dos saberes e dos olhares.Reconhecer a diversidade implica trabalhar o conflito como um processocriativo e reconhecer a dignidades e a liberdade de todos.

Palavras-chave: Dignidade, Incluso, Diversidade

4. Sustentabilidade: Estamos na busca dum novo paradigma onde ascomunidades se possam organizar na busca de um modo de se relacionarcom a natureza sem dependncia do carbono, com base numa organizaosocial que resolva os seus conflitos pelo dilogo e que desenvolva processosprodutivos que garanta a distribuio dos recursos alimentares com base nadisponibilidade da natureza e no uso adequado nas capacidades e saberesdisponveis. Entendemos o mundo como uma realidade complexa. Cadauma das nossas aes integra dimenses sociais, espirituais econmicas,

polticas e ambientais. As suas diferentes dimenses afetam o ser e acomunidade.

Palavras-chave: Pensamento holstico, integralidade, complexidade,sustentabilidade

5. Flexibilidade: No temos uma viso do futuro esttico ou definida.Acreditamos que atravs da prtica e do confronto do saber com o seuresultado que se constri a realidade do dia-a-dia. Por isso a nossacapacidade de mudana e transformao fluida. O nosso crescimento orgnico e no imposto.

Palavras-chave: crescimento orgnico, flexibilidade.


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A Prtica da Museologia Informal

A prtica de museologia informal apoia-se na potica daIntersubjetividade, desenvolve aes colaborativas,

Os sete princpios da prtica da museologia informal.

1. Partir do Conhecimento da Vida:

a. No mundo de hoje h mutia informao. fcil procurarinformao e conhecimento. Mas na verdade temos poucoconhecimento do mundo e da vida.

2. Procurar o Conhecimento Pertinente:

a. Procurar um conhecimento que no mutila o objeto.

necessrio contextualizar. Procurar o todo dentro do uno. Olhar paraas relaes.

3. Compreender o Indivduo

a. Identidade Humana: preciso compreender o indivduo, osocial e o natural. A unidade tridimensional da condio humana.

4. Compreender o Social

a. A compreenso humana: Desenvolver a capacidade decomunicar atravs do dilogo

5. O conhecimento incerto

a. A Incerteza: a ao gera incerteza. necessria uma ecologiada ao. Dar pequenos passos e pensar em alternativas

6. Os fenmenos so complexos

a. Condio planetria: Os fenmenos so complexos einterligados em mltiplas escalas e tempos (transcalaridade etranstemporalidade)

7. Aco como limite da tica

a. Antropo-tica: O ser humano tridimensional. simultaneamento ser biolgico, ser individual e ser social. Cada umdesse desenvolver as suas responsabilidades individuais e sociais.


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What Is Informal Museology ?

No matter how elementary thelevel of attention that is paid to

contemporary Museology inPortugal, its multifacetedcharacter should nevertheless beacknowledged. It is a site whereconcepts, attitudes and aimscross, translating not onlymuseologys general guidelines,but the role and the place that thedifferent actors in the mostdiverse processes seek to occupy

in society, in the affirmation of theshared right to a full citizenship.

The different forms of museologythat has developed throughout thecountry, in particular post April 25,vouchsafes the statement that, inparallel with State museums,there came to light hundreds ofmuseological processes by

initiative of the cultural andecological associative movements,in addition to those of thereinvigorated autonomous power.

There are tens of thousands ofpeople who, in various ways -more or less elaborated ortheorised - find in museology theprivileged expression means on

issues concerning so manyheritages historical,architectural, linguistic,archaeological or anthropological -within the context of thevalorisation and identification oflocal specificities andcompetences.

These are no doubt museological

processes, permanent orintermittent, creative or model

reproducing, conservativeorparticipative in the developmentof the communities that havegiven them life.

Meager in its essential, it is amuseology devoid of financialresources or sophisticatedknowledge, often also featuringout-of-date ideologies andparadigms.

But it is also a museology thatexpresses the cultures of our time,the culture of the mix, the

expression of a society intransformation.

Such museums and museologicalprocesses are, in ourunderstanding, the deepexpression of Portugalscontemporary museology.

And, in this sense, this museology

of daily life turns out to be anessential component of changeitself.

It is, thus, neither rupture nor amarginal phenomenon, but insteadit is the fruit and seed of a moredemocratic society, of a more freeassociativism, of a municipalismthat are more aware of a new

development model that favoursdecentralisation and theconsequent valorisation of localresources both human andnatural.

Not being a marginal or a rupturemuseology does not mean it isstructured around and founded onthe image of a traditional and

urban museology. Instead, thisNEW MUSEOLOGY that results


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from the new conditions of themuseological discourse - andtherefore is part of themuseological knowledgeaccumulated for generations hasdemonstrated in its diverse formsa more clear conscience of theidea of participation and sparks amore evident social implication.

We speak then of an informalmuseology that fits into the widerconcept of SOCIAL MUSEOLOGY,which translates a considerablepart of the museological

structures effort to adequate itselfto the conditionalisms ofcontemporary society.

This adaptation effort, which bythe way extends over many othercountries, was synthesised byUNESCOs General Director,Frederic Mayor, at the opening ofICOMs 15th General Conference in

the following way: the moregeneral phenomenon of thecultural conscience development be it the emancipation of theinterest of the public at large forculture as the result of thewidening of leisure time, be it thegrowing cultural awareness as areaction to the inherent threats of

the acceleration of socialtransformations finds, on thelevel of the institution, awelcoming largely favoured bymuseums.

This evolution is evidently bothqualitative and quantitative. Thedistant institution, aristocratic,Olympian, obsessed with object

appropriation for taxonomicalpurposes has increasingly given

way and some are distressed bythis to an organisation open tothe environment, conscious of itsorganic relationship with its ownsocial context. The museologicalrevolution of our times manifested in the emergence ofcommunity museums, sans mursmuseums, ecomuseums, itinerantmuseums or museums exploringthe apparently infinite possibilitiesof modern communication findsits roots in this new organic andphilosophical awareness.

This process was already heraldedin the Santiago Declaration (1972UNESCO/ICOM), where it was alsoconsidered: that the museum is aninstitution at the service of thesociety of which it is an integralpart and an institution thatfeatures within itself the elementsthat enable participation in the

conscience building of thecommunities it serves; that themuseum can contribute in leadingthose communities to act,situating its activity within thehistorical framework that helps toclarify present day problems

That this new conception does notimply in the extinction of present

day museums nor that werenounce to specialised museums,but, instead, this new conceptionwill allow museums to developandevolve in a more rational andlogical manner, in order to betterserve society.

Such concerns, which wererenewed in the certainly most

important document oncontemporary museology, which is


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the 1992 Caracas Declaration,makes us sure that we shouldconsider informal museology orsocial museology as a fundamentalelement to think museology andthe new paths taken by museologyin Portugal.

We cannot any longer be satisfiedwith the eventual modernisation oftraditional museums, intendedmostly through the creation of apathetic shop featuring nearlynothing to sell, or a megaexhibition of rare objects with

budgets that insult the mostelementary good sense andseriousness.

We think that the urge is, beforeanything else, in the opening ofthe museum to the environment inthe study of its organicrelationship with the social contextthat gives it life, facts that have

sparked the need to elaborate andclarify new relationships, notionsand concept that can handle thisprocess.

A few examples of the issuesderived from contemporarymuseological practices and thatare part of a growing specialisedbibliography: the widening of the

notion of heritage and theconsequent redefinition of themuseological object, the idea ofcommunity participation in thedefinition and management ofmuseological practise, museologyas a factor of development, theissues of interdisciplinarity, theuse of new technologies of

information and museography as

an autonomous communicationmeans.

Recalling once again the SantiagoDeclaration, where it reads That

the transformation of themuseums activities demands aprogressive change on thementality of the conservativecurators and those responsible forthe museums, as well as thestructures on whichthey dependwe should admit the need to trainnew museum professionals for thenew museological discourse

production conditions.

It is within the field of informalmuseology, that we certainly findinnovation, change and new paths.

The biggest challenge inmuseology teaching in Portugal isnot that of teaching what isfeatured in the museology

manuals, but instead that ofproviding the future museologistswith the means that will allowthem to place themselves and actwithin a context of social changethat cuts through all aspects ofcontemporary society.

The exhibition that simply displayswithout questioning, is

increasingly inscribed in a kind ofarchaeology of an archaicmuseological thinking.

In museums one does not simplyhandle objects, but instead andchiefly with ideas. We now placethe question of whether we knowwhere the role of the curatorbegins and ends, and equally,

where does the role of themuseologist begins and ends.


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This change in attitude was, by theway, referred to by Hugues deVarine in the synthesis report ofthe 16th ICOM GeneralConference: It became clear, inthe international committeemeetings, that there is a strongcurrent geared towards openingand innovation leading museumprofessionals to act in a non-traditional way and accept beinginfluenced by multiculturalconcepts. The interdisciplinarycooperation that is emerging in

the bosom of ICOM, the bridgesbuilt between the variousdisciplines and projects, andgroups such as the MINOM areindications of this opening spirit.

To recognise this is, deep down, toaccept that in the contemporaryworld there is a new interventionspace conditioned above all by the

attitude and social implication ofeach one of us.

A kind of interdisciplinarity ofattitude, a lot more complex thanthe sought for and ill-lovedinterdisciplinarity of knowledge.

If there is a new challenge inmuseology, in our understanding,it does not regard in its essential

to the features of its shape, butthe place within it that we wish tooccupy and above all thepossibility of deepening and finallyrecognising that it is the attitude

of the actors that determines themeaning of the work we do.

So much so that we cannot controlnor even condition the final effect

of our intervention, which in truthends up far removed, so oftenperverse and alienated from ourfirst intentions.

In the culture of the now thatdetermines our submissions, whichwe rarely acknowledge and reject,we forget that time introduces, ina certain way, new conditions

which escape us, transforming thepursued path, irrevocably. What isactually within reach is no morethan the possibility of choosing thebeginning of the direction we wishto imprint our action.

If it is so, we can more easilyrelativise the successes andfailures, to doubt our short term

evaluations and start afresh eachday conscious of a new history, anew museum.

We shall continue and,increasingly, speak of an informalmuseology. We shall continue tospeak, and increasingly, to speakof social museology.

By Mario Moutinho (1993)


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Papers on qualitative research

1. Memory of an Exhibition / Exhibition Memory (Spring 2013)2. African Heritage on Lisbon Museums3. Muss-amb-ike Home Land : the commitment on museological

process

4. 20 years of Urban Heritage in Mozambike Island5. Hybridism and Interculturality on Mozambike Island6. Lisbon Sarawsti: The Experience of Travling7. Salt See Heritages: A geoculture approach on maritime

strategies in Portugal

8. Traveling on Muzambik Museums9. The Mediation Strategy on Museological Poetics

exhibition memory

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