Since the turn toward new museology in the 1980 oral history and life stories have become increasingly used in museums worldwide. It is now generally acknowledged that there are numerous advantages in applying biographical methodology in exhibiting the past as
„they give vivacity and colour to an exhibition.
they allow people to ...
(Show more)Since the turn toward new museology in the 1980 oral history and life stories have become increasingly used in museums worldwide. It is now generally acknowledged that there are numerous advantages in applying biographical methodology in exhibiting the past as
„they give vivacity and colour to an exhibition.
they allow people to identify more easily with historical characters or imagine what it was like to live in the past.
they offer a multitude of perspectives and interpretations, thus challenging dominant, often national narratives about past events and demonstrating how complex history can be.“
Baltic museums’ belated turn toward new museology took place after the post-communist transition in the 2000s which coincided with the biographical boom as well as with ‘memory wars’ over the meaning of the 20th century past. As a result of these entangled processes biographical methodology’s potential to enhance empathetic and critical dialogue with the past and eventually facilitate the re-democatizing memory culture in the respective societies was recognized and applied to in the museums. This paper analyses the recent use of oral histories and life stories in exhibiting the difficult 20th century past in Estonian and Latvian museums focusing on
• The core exhibition ‘Encounters of the Estonian National Museum, opened in 2016
• The core exhibition ‘Freedom Has No Limits’ of the Estonian Museum of Occupations and Freedom Vabamu, opened in 2018
• An exhibition project ‘Latvia’s Century’ of more than 60 Latvian museums, opened in 2018 in the Latvian National History Museum.
The analysis focuses on the aims and modes of applying biographical perspectives in these exhibitions in representing the difficult past as well as on the relationships of biographical and material representations. The paper also raises a critical question about the outcomes of what may be called a biographical turn in museology and history education in the museums. A biographical exhibition with its fragmented dialogues, multiple perspectives and voices, hybridity and blurring of messages constitutes a challenge for the visitor as well as for museum educators. Curiously, a dominantly biographical exhibition (as in cases of ENM and Vabamu) that replaces historical time almost entirely with subjective biographical time may also fail in its attempt to ‘demonstrate how complex history can be’ (see Hajek above). Can there be too much oral history and life stories in the museum?
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