COMCOL NEWSLETTER NO 16 DECEMBER 2011 COMCOLnetwork.icom.museum/fileadmin/user_upload/mini...method...

COMCOL NEWSLETTER NO 16 DECEMBER 2011

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COMCOLInternational Committee for Collectingwww.comcol-icom.org

COMCOL is the International Committee of ICOM with the mission to deepen discussions and shareknowledge of the practice, theory and ethics of collecting and collections development. COMCOL is aplatform for professional exchange of views and experiences around collecting in the broadest sense.The mandate includes collecting and de-accessioning policies, contemporary collecting, restitution ofcultural property and respectful practices that affect the role of collections now and in the future, fromall types of museums and from all parts of the world. COMCOL’s aims are to increase cooperation andcollaboration across international boundaries, to foster innovation in museums and to encourage andsupport museum professionals in their work with collections development.

COMCOL Newsletter is a forum for developing the work of COMCOL and we welcome contributionsfrom museum professionals and scholars all over the world: short essays on projects, reflections,conference/seminar reports, specific questions, notices about useful reading material, invitations tocooperate, new research or other matters. Views and opinions published in the newsletter are theviews of the contributors. Contributions for the next issue are welcomed by 15 March 2012 to theeditors, and contact us also if you wish to discuss a theme for publication.

COMCOL Newsletter (formerly Collectingnet Newsletter) is published four times a year and isavailable at COMCOL’s website http://www.comcol-icom.org, and at ICOM’s websitehttp://icom.museum/who-we-are/the-committees/international-committees/international-committee/international-committee-for-collecting.html

EditorsEva Fägerborg, Samdok, Nordiska museet, Stockholm, [email protected] Marshall, Royal Irish Academy, Dublin, [email protected] Coombes, Powerhouse Museum, Sydney, [email protected]

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Contents of this issue

Images from COMCOLAnnual Conference 2011

Statement from the ChairLéontine Meijer-van Mensch

Abstracts from COMCOLAnnual Conference 2011Pina Cardia and Arjen Kok; Jonas Kochand Dennis Herrmann; Anna Fredholm;

Paula dos Santos and Antônio Carlos Pinto Vieira;Markus Walz;Viola König; Zoltan FejősChristine Fredriksen;

Abstracts, continued… Aleksandra Janus and Dorota Kawęcka;Annemarie de Wildt; Elisabeth Tietmeyer

Post-Conference ReflectionsSvante Paulisch

Documentation and nostalgia in the former GDRTiina Paavola

Reports from COMCOL Working GroupsArjen Kok: Contemporary CollectingPeter van Mensch: Resources


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Images from COMCOL Annual Conference 2011

A few images from the COMCOL day2 November and the excursionto Eisenhüttenstadt 3 November.Photo Eva Fägerborg.

SSSom PPhoto

PPhoto


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Statement from the Chair

Thank you Berlin!With our first annual meeting, we were in what isfor me, the most layered and reflexive city inEurope. I had a dream that this first annualmeeting of COMCOL situated in Berlin would bean inspiring one; that we, driven by the love forcontent would tackle, deconstruct and builddiscourses. That established professionals wouldmeet young professionals and students and thatwe all would learn from each other. Knowing thatit is vital in our sector to build a network, I hopedthat during our conference already establishedmuseum colleagues would take up the role ofmentor and help their younger colleagues. In thistime of budget cuts, a genuinely feltresponsibility towards a new generation ofmuseum professionals is crucial and even anethical necessity. We had a dream and this dreamcame true.

I hoped that there would be a genuine atmosphereof interest, even when contradictory views mightbe expressed, and that our annual meeting wouldserve as a contact zone, an annual meeting asheterotopia. I believe we succeeded in that.

I have a dream that COMCOL will always be indialogue with others. That COMCOL wants todefine itself through exchange with others andlearn from other perspectives. That is why I amparticularly happy that our annual meeting onParticipative Strategies was a heterogeneous oneand that our conference was a conference fromand with three International Committees,COMCOL, CAMOC and ICOM-Europe; threecommittees that were so generously welcomed byICOM-Germany and the Berliner museumcontext. Here I would like to thank especially theStaatliche Museen and most of all the DahlemMuseums and particularly the Museum forEuropean Cultures for hosting us.

Because of this dream I am so grateful that withour next annual meeting in South Africa we willcontinue with this tradition and that we will havejoined sessions with ICMAH. Here it is the IzikoMuseums that have so generously invited us tocome to Cape Town.

We are now making our website more accessiblefor Spanish and French speaking colleagues andour call for papers will I hope be posted soon. Onthe first of December a small delegation ofCOMCOL met in Stockholm with ElisabetOlofsson, director of Samp (seehttp://www.samp.org/ ). She shared very usefulinformation concerning organization, contactsand possibilities for travel grants for Africancolleagues. I hope that our joint meeting in SouthAfrica will be a meeting where museumcolleagues especially from the whole Africancontinent will be able to participate. I am alreadylooking forward to that dialogue. I have a dreamthat although COMCOL’s origin is veryEuropean, we will develop more and more into agenuine International Committee.

Finally, to return to Berlin: It is difficult to reflectso soon on the outcomes of the conference.I have the feeling that we just started. Thecontinuation of thoughts and ideas is very crucialfor the content development of COMCOL. Theworking group for Contemporary Collecting,with its new chair Arjen Kok will I thinkcontinue with this process. I have a dream thatthis joint annual conference will write ICOMhistory. Of course, this will be because of itscontent and yes, of course because of its cateringand excellent organisation. And yes also becauseBerlin was especially interesting in the evenings.But most of all I had a dream that we allparticipated in making this joined meeting into ameeting of friends. Because friendship andmuseology, is as museology and love and thoseare so closely connected with each other.I believe we succeeded in that. I hope that in theyear 2012 we as COMCOL and also asprofessionals and individuals continue to bedreamers...

Léontine Meijer-van Mensch

Chair of [email protected]


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Abstracts from COMCOL Annual Conference 2 November 2011

Incorporating lay stakeholders in expert cultural value assessment

Pina Cardia and Arjen Kok

The Cultural Heritage Agency of theNetherlands (RCE) is in the process ofdeveloping a new method for the assessment ofcultural value of tangible cultural heritage. Oneof the greatest challenges is to enable andsupport the involvement of source communitiesand the public at large as stakeholders in culturalheritage. This requires a rigorous change in thedominant concept of cultural heritageinfluencing museum experts. In this presentationwe review the RCE project and analyze thedifficulties that an expert-driven organizationsuch as the RCE has with the consequences ofpublic involvement and lay values and valuation.

Contemporary heritage practice in theNetherlands is still dominated by the nineteenthcentury positivist values of the experts who leadthe sector. All previous assessment methods,such as the Dutch Deltaplan criteria, that weredeveloped twenty years ago, but also the morerecent Australian method Significance 2.0, arebased on expert knowledge and are expertcentred. They all have a strong emphasis on theinformational and material aspects of heritagewith little attention paid to such values asexperience and agency. The main objective ofthe RCE project is to produce a method thatstructures and standardises this expert generatedvalue assessment, with the purpose of puttingcultural value at the centre of all decisions aboutcollections and cultural heritage.

However, the project has shown that theassessment of cultural value cannot be limited toscholarly practice alone but has to encompassthe social process in which heritage is recreatedin its contemporary significance as well. Themethod has to capture both expert and publicvalues. This requires a radical change in the

concept and structure of the method and aboveall in the concept of cultural value and thetheoretical framework that is used by the projectteam.

Popular demand brought Van Gogh's Skull of aSkeleton with Burning Cigarette (1886) back ondisplay this summer at the Van Gogh Museum, aftercurators had decided to leave the painting out oftheir selection of highlights. Public favorites have tobe included in future exhibition proposals, saysdirector Axel Ruger. Van Gogh Museum, Amsterdam(Vincent van Gogh Stichting).

Pina Cardia is a cultural heritage researcher andArjen Kok is senior researcher at the CulturalHeritage Agency of the [email protected];[email protected]


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Changes, Challenges and Chances. Theoretical and practical reasons for on- and offlineparticipation in museums

Dennis Herrmann and Jonas Koch

Three major changes→ The process of nation-building is completed in large partsof the world

→ Globalization

→ Knowledge-based society and emerge of the internet

„Hand-in-hand with the understanding that those whosehistory and culture is being represented have a right to be

part of the construction of that representation has come thedevelopment of the idea that effective communication can

sometimes only work as a two-way process.“(Eileen Hooper-Greenhill, 1994)

Jonas Koch & Dennis Herrmann

Fundamental societal changes due to ongoingprocesses of democratization and globalizationare challenging museums. They are alsochallenged by the digital revolution that isnotably promoted by the internet and its furtherdevelopment to Web 2.0. For the museumthese developments are accompanied by thepossibility of a radical accessibility for all(potential) visitors. How do museums copewith these central challenges and greaterrequirements of society? And how do theyimplement these new opportunities? What isthe role of the museum in today’s world andwhat could it be?

At the University of Oldenburg, we researchedforms of participation in museums concerningaspects of online- and offline involvement.Jonas Koch focussed on (new) forms ofparticipation in museums. Dennis Herrmannconcentrated on participatory approaches ofmuseums on the social web. They combinedboth approaches for a new theory ofparticipation in museum.

The examples of the Museum of BrokenRelationships (Zagreb), Museum Neukölln(Berlin), District Six Museum (Cape Town), ablog of the Australian Museum (Sydney), and

the Facebook site of the Computerspiele-museum (Berlin) demonstrate howopportunities of participation are already used.The research questioned representation inmuseums as well as the social relevance andsocial function(s) of the institution.Furthermore structural changes were analyzedand evaluated.

The analyses showed that different shades ofopenness range between forms of transparencyand participation. These shades of opennessare associated with changes in the everydaywork of the museum’s staff as well as thetransformation of the institution itself.

Additionally, changing forms of appropriationof museums, (as forums, as spaces of dialoguerather than monologue and as spaces wherecultural heritage is negotiated rather thanspoon-fed) could be observed.

Dennis Herrmann and Jonas Koch both havean MA in “Museum and Exhibition” at theUniversity of Oldenburg, [email protected];[email protected]


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Afghanistan through the eyes and voice of a soldier

Anna Fredholm

I´m going to talk about a documenting projectwhere we followed a Swedish soldier toAfghanistan in 2010. When making plans forthe project we investigated how we could usenew social media techniques in order todevelop our participative strategies. Wealready knew that we wanted to interview“our” soldier to find out more about his innerfeelings and thoughts, values and wishesconnected to the mission. But to realize ourpurpose of documenting a mission inAfghanistan through the eyes and voice of onesoldier we had to find a way for him to sharehis experiences in a more independent way.

Photo Daniel Jansson/Armémuseum.

The solution was to create a blog connected tothe museum’s website where the soldier couldtell his story using his own words and pictures.

www.fredssoldater.se became a uniquedocument in time consisting of more than 40separate reports from Afghanistan. To inspireothers to use the new social media techniquesand to invite public participation in the work atthe museum I wish to demonstrate this blog.

We also asked the soldier to help us findobjects which, according to him, illustrated histime in Afghanistan. The acquired objects arenow published at www.digitaltmuseum.se.This is a website with open access for all usersto make searches within our entire collection,but also to share their private knowledge withus at the museum. This is a very importantproject because there are still many objects inthe large collection, which appear to be ratheranonymous for us today. I will demonstratethis website in order to explain how we use thenew social media techniques as valuable toolsfor public involvement in the work ofcontextualising the items in our collection.

Anna Fredholm is curator at the ArmyMuseum in Stockholm, [email protected]

Participative collecting at the Museu da Maré: an organic relationship

Paula dos Santos and Antônio Carlos Pinto Vieira

Museu da Maré, located in Rio de Janeiro, isthe first Brazilian museum to be created in afavela (slum). The museum opened in 2006and since then it has become a reference forwork with the memories of favela inhabitants.It aims to value the experience of localresidents as integral part of the city;experiences that have been historicallyneglected by the official history.

For the museum, unlocking memories andcreative powers of the favela is a political actto create a more inclusive and culturally

diverse city. With this purpose, the museuminvests first and foremost in an organicrelationship with the local community, whichpermeates different aspects of the museumwork including collecting and documentationpractices. The museum maintains an extensivephotographic archive and collects objects andstories.

In this presentation, we will explore how therelationship with the community is extended tothe collections policy of the museum. As anexample, the museum accepts every donation


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by local inhabitants. Objects are donated,borrowed, collected in the streets or bought byan informal and active community of practicemade-up of professionals, museum staff,neighbours and friends of the museum. Objectsof almost mythological significancedemocratically coexist with anonymousobjects.

Museu da Maré. Photo Paula dos Santos.

The museum also started a new approach, inwhich donors participate in the documentationprocedures of their own objects. Sometimes,objects are also taken back home without anyproblem. Some of these practices might seemstrange at first, however they generate asymbiosis with the community and produce aunique collection that is dynamic – and ofgreat quality in providing a different accountof the city and serving as a means forinhabitants to collectively negotiate theirmemories. Organisations such as the Ministryof Culture have recognised this innovativeapproach, granting the museum importantprizes in the field of culture.

Paula dos Santos is lecturer at the ReinwardtAcademy in Amsterdam. In Brazil, she worksas advisor and specialist in the field ofmuseums and [email protected]

Antônio Carlos Pinto Vieira (not present at theconference) is President of the Centre forStudies and Solidarity Actions of Maré(CEASM) and of the Brazilian Association ofMuseums (IBRAM). He is co-founder of theMuseu da Maré.

Selection of cultural assets between research and plebiscite – three museological pointsdealing with “collecting 2.0”

Markus Walz

While it might be easy to integrate thepostulated involvement of the sourcecommunity into the mission statement and thecollection policy of museums, these documentsfrequently avoid a commitment to comparativesocio-anthropological or historic research. Butit is questionable how far the concreteacquisition or the rejection of an offer isprocessed in a participative manner.

Museological theory developed a universalmodel of “significance assessment”, that mightbe adopted to the different types of museumswith their specific academic or scientifictendencies, in our case to the historic, thesocial or cultural anthropological point ofview. This model follows the traditionalopinion that museum work is academic: Itaccepts the high regard of society as one


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dimension, as well as subjective impressions,(the “emotional value” of the asset), but noassessment is seen to be successful without anacademic rationale; in particular the concernsof the “secondary criteria” cannot besubstituted by “the wisdom of the crowd”.The first point: current practice requires asignificance assessment (instead of “freechoice”), and does not allow for a change overto “user generated collections”.

At least in Germany, the majority of theinstitutions called museums operate on thelevel of a hobby. By analysing these museumswe know that they are less originalrepresentations of culture than reflections ofolder academic positions. The second point:Selective decisions of non-professionals mightlead either to very authentic representations or

to quite useless mirrors of non-actualrepresentations.

The model of significance assessment includesseveral criteria, which depend on theirparticular time; therefore, the durability ofassessment decisions is limited – down to thepoint of lost significance. The third point:Ageing collections depend on an academicrationale for their validation as an academicsource or a historic document – even if amuseum completely shifts to “collecting 2.0”.

Markus Walz is professor at the University ofApplied Sciences in Leipzig, [email protected]

One history – many perspectives; exhibiting cultures from Africa, Asia, America andOceania in the future Humboldt Forum – examples from North America

Viola König

The Humboldt-Forum, one of the mostambitious cultural building projects inGermany, will be dedicated to the cultures ofthe world. Due to its eminent historicalsignificance and distinctive urban architecture,the Palace Square (Schlossplatz) is anoutstanding location within the Germancapital. Thus the Humboldt-Forum on thePalace Square will not only be assigned aparticularly sophisticated function, but also atask of international importance. The forumwill complement the Museum Island, whereEuropean cultures and their roots in the NearEast are exhibited. With respect to the mannerin which cultures are presented, however, theHumboldt-Forum will differ fundamentallyfrom the Museum Island. It aims to open newhorizons to introduce the specific features ofnon-European cultures, as well as convey themutual interaction between these cultures andEurope.

One of the concept’s basic principles for theHumboldt-Forum is the continuous and

simultaneous change of narrative perspectives:questions and answers in a dialogue with theobjects, within the context of changes in theregions, times, and themes represented by theexhibits. Various voices will be heard, andamong these, contemporary indigenouspeoples, members of the so called “sourcecommunities”, will play a prominent role. Inallowing for diverse, even contradictory,positions the Humboldt-Forum distinguishesitself from traditional museums andinstitutions. The change of narrativeperspective is thus a distinctive, unique featureof the Humboldt-Forum. The paper discussesthe concept with some examples from NativeNorth America.

Viola König is Director of the EthnologicalMuseum, National Museums in Berlin,Prussian Cultural Heritage [email protected]


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Sharing objects, co-curating knowledge and reframing the museum space

Zoltán Fejős

Mobile exhibition van of Etnomobil 2.0 in front ofthe Hungarian National Museum.Photo Zsófia Frazon 2011.

Hungarian museums involved in differentprojects of contemporary collecting anddocumenting have been energetically trying to

activate museum visitors or the broader circleof potential patrons to participate in amassingnew valuable material about contemporary life.From the well known strategy of “Bring us oneobject!” to different collaborative effortsbetween museum experts and visitors,programmes have already followed in themapping of meaningful areas of thecontemporary culture. The paper will presentand analyse three examples of participativestrategies applied recently by the Museum ofEthnography in Budapest, including thebroader interpretative context.

Zoltán Fejős is General Director of theMuseum of Ethnography in Budapest andinitiator of MADOK, a contemporarycollecting and researching museum network inHungary. [email protected]

Participative strategies and the maritime cultural heritage

Christine Fredriksen

This is a presentation of participative strategiesin documenting the present at the Regionalmuseum of Bohuslän, Sweden. I will presentthe importance of the planning and design ofprojects, based on regional themes, indocumenting and collecting at the museum.For certain aspects of the work at a regionalMuseum of cultural history, greaterparticipation would ideally be needed fromassociations and from the population of thestudied communities.

One of the three main areas profiled in theaims of the museum is the maritime culturalheritage. In several projects with a maritimeorientation, the museum needs the involvementof local participants and volunteers, in order tobe able to work with development ofknowledge and with the preservation of thecultural heritage. Many associations andindividuals in the communities of Bohuslän areengaged in the maritime cultural heritage and it

is of great value to involve these people in thework of the museum. I will present examplesof projects within the maritime sphere ofcultural heritage work, in which communitymembers have participated as ‘externalexperts’.

Maritime cultural heritage – the islands of Kosterin the archipelago of Bohuslän.Photo Christine Fredriksen 2010.


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The choice of the design, the parties involvedand cooperation with the public influences theaccomplishment of the documentation project.This also affects the future use of the projectoutcomes, for instance in exhibitions at themuseum. The question is whether cooperationwith the public is relevant in all contexts. Arethere projects in which this participation is aprerequisite for the accomplishment of theproject? Is participative co-operation a useful

method in aiming to increase the socialdimensions of the work of the museum?

Christine Fredriksen is curator at BohuslänsMuseum in Uddevalla, a part of the regionalassociation of museums in West Sweden. Sheis head of the Samdok pool for Domestic Lifeand Leisure. [email protected]

What to take and how to share? Challenges regarding establishing a Theatre Museum in2011

Aleksandra Janus and Dorota Kawęcka

The paper discusses the challenge that twoyoung museologists faced recently whencommissioned by the Theatre Institute inPoland to write a report for a soon-to-be-established Theatre Museum in Warsaw. Thisnew cultural organization will result from amerger of a former Theatre Museum based atthe Grand Theatre-National Opera and theTheatre Institute.

The collection owned by Grand Theatregathers objects dating from as long ago as the18th century. The future merger with TheatreInstitute – an organization appointed by theMinistry of Culture and National Heritage,responsible for documenting theatre life inPoland and running an archive – will pose afew difficulties regarding collectionsmanagement. The main challenge results fromdifferent approaches towards collecting withTheatre Institute’s main interest in the presentand the Theatre’s focus on the past, whichwould demand reworking of the existingcollections policies.

Another issue to consider would be thedilemma between continuing the “institutionalcollection development” and introducing amore participative strategy. It would requirethe future museum to first decide on thestakeholders’ role in their organization. Thislinks with a more general problem of publicperception of theatre as being elitist, implying

such a museum to be similarly exclusive andaccessible only to passionate theatre-goers. Incase of potential involvement of stakeholders,the question arises if contributing to managinga supposedly elitist collection would be ofinterest to a wider public. Would emphasizingthe multifaceted profile of its collection –which also represents social history, history ofdesign, history of music, history of literatureand national history – help to anticipate suchattitude?

The inherent relationship of national theatrewith nationalistic discourse would inevitablypose a major problem: would the futureTheatre Museum, established by the Ministry,preserving collections of great historicalsignificance, be willing to share its authority toallow alternative voices? In the paper we willaddress these issues and argue whyparticipative strategies might be a condition ofsustainability of this new museum.

Aleksandra Janus and Dorota Kawęcka, bothMA at Interfaculty Individual Studies in theHumanities at Jagiellonian University,Krakó[email protected];[email protected]


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Behind the counter – the neighbourhood shop of the Amsterdam Museum

Annemarie de Wildt

The Neighbourhood shop project of theAmsterdam Museum (March-August 2011)was our first large-scale experiment withworking outside the museum. We occupiedtwo spaces in quarters of Amsterdam with amigrant-labour population, one in an emptyshop in Amsterdam North, the other in aTurkish coffeehouse in the Eastern part of thecity.

The aims of the projects were multiple:examining a seemingly ordinarily aspect ofdaily life in the city – shopping and shopkeeping – and by doing so exploring theeconomic and social aspects of neighbourhoodshops; getting in touch with people whonormally do not visit museums and adding tothe collection (in)tangible heritage related toshops.

Our neighbourhood locations were run by‘volunteers’ from the museum staff, so peoplewho normally do not get into close contactwith the public also had to talk to visitors andeven write down their stories. In a sense theshopkeepers were the experts, the AmsterdamMuseum wanted to document their businessesand compare them with shopkeepers in thepast.

In my presentation I will, using examples fromthis experiment outside the museum, talk aboutwhat we learned from the neighbourhood shopexperience, in what ways it enriched ourcollections and our thinking about therelevance of the museum for the city (and viceversa). Of course I will also talk about theobstacles we encountered.

Annemarie de Wildt is curator at theAmsterdam Museum (former AmsterdamHistorical Museum)[email protected]

Halal bucher Abderrahman El Bahja in Amsterdam.Photo Annemarie de Wildt.

The ‘Doner-Connection’ – collecting the present

Elisabeth Tietmeyer

With about 275,000 objects the ethnographicMuseum of European Cultures houses one ofthe largest collections of everyday culture andpopular art in Europe spanning the period fromthe 18th century to the present.

One of the major aspects of the museum’sprofile is the emphasis given to culturalcontacts, particularly within one’s own society.But the everlasting point of discussion in

Germany is the question: who belongs tosociety and who does not? Migrants and theirdescendants have always influenced the cultureof the majority, and have in their turn beeninfluenced. They are part of society, which isitself characterised by cultural diversity. TheMuseum of European Cultures sees it as one ofits tasks to draw attention to this diversity, inorder to achieve respect for people of differingcultures. This task can only be carried out with


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the cooperation of the protagonists. Theinclusive approach has been one of the basicprinciples of the museum ever since itsfounding – especially concerning its activitiesand collection policy. This will be exemplifiedby several exhibition projects of the museum.

One example for collecting the present isprovided by the project Doner, Delivery andDesign, where the curators, amongst otherissues, focused on a typical facet of global‘food culture’.

"Doner equipment" in the MEC collection, 2002.©Museum Europäischer Kulturen.

Fast food predominantly produced, traded,advertised and sold by entrepreneurs withimmigrant backgrounds, here exemplified bythe doner kebab sandwich, a snack food thatenjoys great popularity in Germany, wasinvented by a Turkish immigrant in Berlin, andis now rapidly conquering the whole ofEurope. Items documenting the production,sale and promotion of doner kebabs werecollected along with photographs, documents,stories, books and films. This all-embracingcollection not only represents a typical fastfood consumed by many people from the lastquarter of the 20th century, but moreimportantly also documents the successfulintegration of an element of a largely foreignculture in Germany through the commitment ofbi-cultural entrepreneurs.

But having such examples of good practice inmind two questions arise: How do visitorsreact seeing everyday objects in showcases?Where are the limits of participativecollecting?

Elisabeth Tietmeyer is senior curator anddeputy director at the Museum of EuropeanCultures – National Museums in Berlin,Prussian Cultural Heritage [email protected]

Photo Ute Franz- Scarciglia.

Post-Conference Reflections

Svante Paulisch

“The present” as a field of researchAn excellent first annual COMCOL-conference lies behind us. Warm-hearted hostsdeserve our gratitude. We have returned home,enriched by ideas and experiences, able toreflect and exchange our thoughts via thenewsletter. It has been pointed out severaltimes during the conference already, thatwithout doubt, COMCOL builds on thetradition and experience of the Swedish

museum network for contemporary collecting,called Samdok. And in fact the idea forCOMCOL was born on its 30th anniversarymeeting. On our thrilling closing to ourconference, the excursion to Eisenhüttenstadt(an industrial city, designed at the drawingboard in the 1950s), Andreas Ludwigunderscored that his museum was, due topolitical interests, already condemned from thebeginning to be a historical museum, if not


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even a monument to the buried everydayculture of the former GDR, while his ownexpectations and wishes, to serve as a generaldocumentation centre for the present, could notbe fulfilled. So the same question arose, asalready formulated during the meeting of theCOMCOL working group “contemporarycollecting”, how to define “the present” as afield of research.

What could COMCOL learn from Samdok?Here we can learn from the Swedes, asSamdok dealt with this very question during itscreation process, too. While creating a conceptin the 1970s, the protagonists of Samdokbecame aware of what the documentation of“the present” should include. They saw it as anobligation to future generations to preserve“the present”:

"Our society has an urge – which we havecome to regard as a duty – to document itself,its conditions and its development for thebenefit of future generations. This task isexacting particularly in times of quick change.If documentation is neglected, we run the riskof depriving coming generations of theirhistory." (Rosander 1980:14).

So, what does the term "present" in connectionwith contemporary collecting involve? Presenttime is always in the flow and includes thepresent, the past and the future, likewise. Wenow live in the present, but we did it two yearsago, like we will do in two years time as well.The individual present of a person thereforeincludes all of his life. Since contemporarycollecting is always contextual, theresearcher’s interest may as well include anevent that lies before or after a person’slifespan. The Swedish present-day-research,could therefore be comprehended as some sortof biographical research, a “history of personallife” in analogy to the “history of things” andsometimes even as a meeting point of the two,because present-day-research, of course,always includes the material culture as well.This may lead to the presumption, that present-day-research is part of the "histoire totale"(Annales school, Philippe Ariès). (Paulisch2008).

Beware of exoticism!Sten Rentzhog (Rentzhog 2002) pointed outthe following issues, which might as well be

relevant or taken under consideration duringour further discussions regarding “the present“as a field of research within COMCOL:

1. Documentation can simply become aconfirmation of what others already see,with a striking predominance of "politicalcorrectness". That includes the tendency tocollect data that already exists elsewhere,outside of museums.2. Samdok risks losing the idea of splitting upresponsibly and duty.3. How to compare results of investigations ofdifferent points in time, if they do not have thesame starting point?4. How should the investigation represent ourtime if one examines more and more specialforms of our culture? (Rentzhog 2002, mytranslation).

Remembering the flood of projects presentedat our conference, which dealt withimmigrants, we should be aware of Rentzhog’sfourth issue in particular. Even if thearguments of easier funding for those kinds ofprojects are matchless, and research in thismatter is very important for our society, theyshould not occupy more than a small fractionin the overall project “contemporarycollecting”. Otherwise we may run the risk ofbeing blinded by exoticism.

Rentzhog defines the museum staff as victimsof a present "now-fixing". But in his opinion,the role of museums is to break this fixation byteaching the visitors to reflect on themselves ina long-range perspective. Rentzhogrecommends a farsighted perspective to beincluded in the present-day-studies and loosenup on the immediate "now" to serve as astarting point, so Samdok gets the opportunityto in fact contribute essentials within theongoing public debate about society. AsRentzhog reminds us, the goal of collectionand documentation is to be designed to work inthe long run, because the material collectedtoday will be used primarily in the futureexhibitions, teaching and research,representing our present in the future. Thetasks of contemporary collecting are so tospeak readily identifiable on the basis of threetime perspectives:

yesterday: bridge the gap between the existingcollections and the present.


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today: provide a historical perspective of thepresent.tomorrow: provide knowledge about our time.

Rentzhog misses the commitment tocontemporary collecting throughout the entiremuseum sector. He encourages us to discussthe objectives of contemporary collecting evenmore. (Renzhog 2002).

“The present” in a historic perspectiveA similar idea, to reflect our present in ahistoric perspective, can be found in thehistorian Maths Isacson’s remarks. In hisopinion, the “present” could be documented byus, but analysis and interpretation could onlytake place by using a historic perspective,which has been included in most Swedishpresent-day-studies already, usually in theform of background information. An example,given by Isacson, designates interviews witholder generations, where they are usuallyreferring to the present, as well as to the nearand distant past. "At that time" is used in theirnarratives about their own lives, helping tounderstand and explain what happens and howto deal with the "now". Comparison is an aid inthe ongoing interpretation and confirmation ofour own existence in the "now". Field researchusually follows several time levels, Isacsonsays, which are woven together and not alwayspossible to be distinguished properly.

For him, history takes place in the present, butnot as pure, easily identifiable historicaldocuments, but as subliminal processes that arewoven into people’s language andinterpretations. As with a clear boundary, hefears, we would ignore the fact that historyalso constitutes a part of our future, that we arecultural beings and that our civilization isshaped and changed by the daily actions andopinions of human beings (Isacson 1998). Asimple, but maybe key-question arises: “Howwould we like our daily life to be seen in thetime to come?”

A unique opportunityThe fate of Eisenhüttenstadt is in some wayssimilar to that of the industry-settlementaround the factory "Ohs Bruk" in Småland,

Sweden, which was the subject of one of thefirst Samdok-studies 1978-1980. It also showsparallels with the contemporaneous Germanvillage- and community-studies in Kiebingenby Utz Jeggle in 1977 and its followinginvestigations. In a 10-year-rhythm residentswere visited and interviewed. Each time therewere different questions of interest which thefield-researchers focussed on, according to thecurrent scientific debate (Paulisch 2008). Thismight even be a possible orientation andstarting point to develop a strategy formuseums such as in Eisenhüttenstadt, maybein cooperation with the Viadrina University inFrankfurt (Oder), to level up to a regionalcentre for contemporary collecting.

If COMCOL will be able to gain the samequality and possibilities as Samdok, remains tobe seen. In order to support a positive outcomein this matter, continuity is needed, which inmy opinion can only be accomplished throughregular meetings and exchange within theCOMCOL working groups. Since we learnedfrom the Swedish network for contemporarycollecting, the Samdok pools are the beatingheart of its organization. Therefore we shouldconsider if there is need to gather annuallyeven at regional levels in the long run, since ifwe have to wait another four years until thenext COLCOL meeting in Europe takes place,we might be doomed to lose connections andgive up an unique opportunity.

ReferencesMaths Isacson (1998): „Samtidshistoria“; in: Samtid &Museer, No. 2/98.

Svante Paulisch (2008): Unsere Gegenwart für dieZukunft. Das Museumsnetzwerk SAMDOK: 30 JahreGegenwartsdokumentation in Schweden.

Sten Rentzhog (2002): „Museernas mål – Samdoks mål”;in: Samtid & Museer, No. 3-4/02.

Göran Rosander (1980): Today for Tomorrow. Museumdocumentation of contemporary society in Sweden byacquisition of objects.

Svante Paulish, Ph D [email protected]


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Documentation and nostalgia in the former GDR

Tiina Paavola

On the last day of the conference COMCOLarranged a one-day tour for its members toEisenhüttenstadt – a German word for’Ironwork City’. Eisenhüttenstadt is known asa former ‘socialist model city’, located ahundred kilometres east from Berlin. Themembers of COMCOL familiarizedthemselves with the history and present daylife of the town with a local guide. The mostanticipated attraction of the tour was a visit tothe Documentation Centre of Everyday Culturein the GDR (DokumentationszentrumAlltagskultur der DDR), established in 1993.Documentation Centre is collecting and savingthe cultural artefacts designed and made foreveryday use in the former East Germany.

In the shadow of a steel millIn the 1950’s, the socialistic party of the GDRdecided to erect a steel mill, theEisenhüttenkombinat Ost, together with anadjacent residential area. The residential areawith 50,000 residents was given the nameStalinstadt. In 1961 the town was renamedEisenhüttenstadt. This ‘model city’ wasplanned to work as a machine: the mostimportant objective was trouble-freeproduction at the steel mill, and all localactivities promoted this goal. Homes of theresidents were located in large residentialneighbourhoods where everyday services wereavailable: kindergartens, schools and grocerystores. Also public transportation servedindustrial purposes by transporting factoryworkers working in three shifts to the steel milland back.

After the German reunification in 1990 thepopulation of the town collapsed. Due to theincreased competition from West German steelmakers and the collapse of the markets inEastern Europe the steel company had to layoff workers and close several blast furnaces.Privatisation of the steel mill in 1995 helpedsolve the main problems and depopulation wasbrought under control. NowadaysEisenhüttenstadt has more than 30,000residents.

Idyllic town – happy people?A walking tour in the current town centre feelslike a time travel into the 1950’s. Beautifullyrestored buildings with decorative details onthe walls and a quiet atmosphere leads thevisitor’s thoughts to small town life in the1950’s. Large courtyards and wide boulevardstell about a time when there still was a lot ofempty space in town centres and the number ofcars wasn’t a problem yet. When buildingEisenhüttenstadt the state of the art knowledgeand technological expertise was used: allapartments were equipped with water closet,running water and electricity and this wascarried out in the 1950’s when modernconveniences were by no means self-evident inEuropean households.

Eisenhüttenstadt. Photo Eva Fägerborg 2011.

Moving into a modern town must have been abig change for many citizens of the GDR: intown there were jobs, good living conditions,nurseries and schools for children. It’s ironic,


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though, that these neighbourhoods which nowseem like a small town idyll, wereachievements of the totalitarian system. It’sobvious that the idyll had downsides aboutwhich only those who lived in Eisenhüttenstadtunder the rule of a totalitarian state could tell.

The origin of the Documentation CentreAfter the German reunification in 1990 theGermans wanted to get rid of objectsreminding them of the socialist past. Rubbishcontainers all over the country were filled withEast German products: home appliances,furniture, pots and pans, tableware, textiles.Andreas Ludwig, a museum professional inBerlin, noticed how the artifacts representingeveryday culture of GDR began to disappearand he started collecting and saving them. Dr.Ludwig, director and father of theDocumentation Centre, has now worked fortwenty years accumulating and preserving thecollections of the Documentation Centre ofEveryday Culture in the GDR, a museumwhich has modest resources but is a veryinteresting place to visit.

Andreas Ludwig. Photo Eva Fägerborg 2011.

TheDocumentation Centre premises includelarge exhibition space situated in an oldkindergarten and 3500m² storage facilities. Themuseum’s collections include around 150,000objects. Storage facilities are modest, andevidently better facilities will be necessary forsaving the collections for future generations.Many artifacts are made of plastic, which isextra challenging for collection care. Anobstacle for developing collections care andmanagement is well-known to all persons

working in the museums: Local authoritiesdon’t favor further expenses. However, muchcan be done for the collections. Dr. Ludwigtold us that an extensive catalogue ofcollections was published in 2011. Accordingto COMCOL members, makingDocumentation Centre and its collectionswidely known abroad could be an excellentway to increase interest for the collections atlocal level too.

Role of industrial design in GDROpinions on East German objects variedamong COMCOL members. Some though theobjects represented typical, insipid EastGerman culture and design, for some others theartifacts raised nostalgic feelings. Several EastGerman home appliances – like vacuumcleaners and rotary beaters - were imported toFinland in the 1970’s and that’s why thoseobjects seen in a museum raised nostalgicfeeling among the Finnish representatives.Many visitors were also inspired by the brightcolors used in everyday objects made in theGDR.

Many objects produced in GDR couldprobably be popular and expensivecollectibles, if museums and researchers wereable to provide more information about theirbackground, designers etc. According to Dr.Ludwig it’s difficult to do thorough researchon East German industrially made objects.Although industrial designers of the GDR werepioneers in many ways, there is not muchinformation available on designers orproduction processes, because those thingswere not appreciated in the socialist system.Thus it is also difficult to find out when asingle object was in production and whetherthe object was very common or a uniqueartifact in its own time. Advertisements,posters of propaganda and stories told byordinary citizens must be used as sourcematerial.

Toys, sweets and the famous Mr. SandmanThe gift shop of the Documentation Centre,situated next to museum’s exhibition premises,provides a good selection of publications,postcards, toys, sweets and funny copies ofplastic and wooden toys of the 1970’s. Eventhough the museum shop is small, the productsare well selected, supporting the basic idea of


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the Documentation Centre. The cute symbolsof Eastern Europe, Mr. Sandman from theGDR and Mole, created by a Czech animatorare well represented in many products. Themerchandises of the shop were so interestingthat many of the members of the COMCOLspent almost as much time in the museum shopas in the exhibition. The products of the

museum shop were amusing, reasonably pricedand full of nostalgia: there’s nothing we couldask for more.

Tiina Paavola, CuratorTampere Museums, [email protected]

Reports from COMCOL Working Groups

COMCOL Working Group on Contemporary Collecting

At the first meeting of the COMCOL WorkingGroup on Contemporary Collecting in Berlin,Leontine Meijer announced that she preferredto concentrate on her obligations as the chair ofthe COMCOL committee and that she wouldlike to hand over the chair of the workinggroup to another member. I volunteered andsince everyone present agreed, it is mypleasure to write this short report andannouncement as the new chair of the WorkingGroup on Contemporary Collecting.

As Leontine Meijer wrote in the COMCOLNewsletter No 14 July 2011, COMCOL isdeeply rooted in the Swedish Samdok projecton documenting contemporary life. Thisworking group wants to promote the cause andissue of contemporary collecting by presentingcase studies, discussing strategies, ethicalquestions or practical problems, reviewingrelevant publications or exchanging ideas aswell as facts & figures on the topic.

I would like to invite everyone, both workinggroup members and everyone else, toparticipate and contribute to our activities. TheCOMCOL Newsletter is a perfect medium toinform about new projects and experienceswith contemporary collecting. We willcertainly use it to share information and

exchange ideas. But perhaps there are otherways we can explore, ways that can help us toanimate the discussion. Can we, as an example,use Delicious.com to collect websites withcases of or references to contemporarycollecting? At the conference in Berlin wewere invited to think about ways to improvethe website of the committee and come up withideas and suggestions. I would be veryinterested in any suggestion to give theworking group an active part in this ‘make-over’ of the website.

In Berlin we talked about the preferences andexpectations of the members of the workinggroup that were present at the time. We wouldlike to continue that conversation and discussany topic that is related to contemporarycollecting. Just to mention one example of aremarkable initiative on contemporarycollecting, I would like to refer to theAmsterdam Tattoo Museum. It has just openedand is definitely worth a visit.

Arjen KokChair of Contemporary [email protected]

COMCOL Working Group on Resources

Wednesday November 2nd 2011, COMCOL’sWorking Group on Resources met for the firsttime. The working group’s main aim is tosupport the work of COMCOL by providing

bibliographies concerning the themes of theannual conferences. In addition, the workinggroup aims to support a wider professionalaudience by providing guidelines for writing


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collection plans and examples of such plans.Finally, the working group also aims tocontribute to a wider ICOM discourse onterminology by reflecting on terms related tocollection development.First, members of the working group will

1) collect existing bibliographies (fromarticles, books, internet, etc.),2) compile a bibliography on the themes raisedduring the Berlin conference,3) collect handbooks and guidelines on writingcollection plans,4) make an inventory of collection relatedterms in dictionaries, encyclopedias andWikipedia.

On the basis of the first inventory ofbibliographies, a selective and annotatedbibliography will be complied, to be publishedon COMCOL’s website.

The bibliography on participative strategieswill be organized according the six key

concerns identified by me in my concludingremarks on Tuesday November 1st:

participationcommunityprofessionalismauthority and controlacquisitionsustainability

As general frame of reference forterminological issues François Mairesse &André Desvallées’ Dictionnaireencyclopédique de muséologie (ArmandCollin, Paris 2011), and ISO standard 5127(2001) Information and Documentation –Vocabulary will be used.

For the time being, English will be the workinglanguage. The inventory of bibliographies,handbooks, and definitions of terms will beextended to other languages, preferablyFrench, Spanish and German.

Peter van MenschChair of [email protected]

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