Funding agency European Commission Project coordinator University of Augsburg | Reference 522666 | |
Keywords Heritage interpretation, Europeanisation of museums, Change of Perspective, Multilayered Meanings of museum objects Project type Multiannual cooperation projects Participants National Historical Museum, Bulgaria
Université Paris-Est Créteil, France
Atelier Brückner, Germany
Università degli Studi Roma Tre, Italy
Museu Nacional de Arqueologia, Portugal
National Museum of Contemporary History, Slovenia
monochrom Kunstverein, Austria | ||
EuroVision – Museums Exhibiting Europe (EMEE): One Object - Many Visions - EuroVisions
Contents
- Aims
- Project structure
- Outcomes
- Project consortium and EMEE network
- EMEE evaluation 1
- Selected EMEE publications 2
- References
The interdisciplinary and international EU Culture project ‘EuroVision – Museums Exhibiting Europe’ (2012-2016) – initiated and coordinated by the Chair of History Didactics of the University of Augsburg – was implemented by eight project partners from seven European countries. The main objective of the project was to develop, test and evaluate an innovative concept of museum mediation, called ‘Change of Perspective’ (COP). COP aims to support an increasing awareness and understanding of the regional and national cultural heritage on site in a European perspective through a multi-layered re-interpretation of museum objects as well as innovative and participatory approaches to traditional and new groups of museum visitors.
Aims
The primary goal of the EMEE project was to develop an innovative concept for museums, which was achieved with the concept of Change of Perspective and put to the test using ‘laboratories’ (i.e. the EuroVision Lab.s).
The core concept developed and explored by the EMEE project in order to foster a multicultural and transregional understanding of the local, regional, and national cultural heritage at a given location corresponded to a triple Change of Perspective (COP). It is based on three tenets:
a) It asks to re-interpret existing museum collections in a multi-perspective, transregional and even cross-cultural way (COP 1).
b) It takes into account that museums in multicultural societies have a social responsibility and purpose and that they are supposed to entrust their visitors with a role that involves active participation (COP 2).
c) It strengthens the interdisciplinary and international (or interregional) cooperation of the museums in order to encourage a comparative perspective that goes beyond regional and national views (COP 3).
For visitors, the COP functions as a ‘school of perception,’ i.e. it encourages them to engage with the objects. It illustrates that the visitors themselves are actively involved in constructing the ‘meaning’ of the object. They are supposed not only to detect the multi-layered regional, national, European or global meanings of an object, but also to add their own ‘meaning’ depending on their social or cultural background. Therefore, the tagline of EMEE is: One Object – Many Visions – EuroVisions.
Project structure
Project EMEE No. 522666 is one of the 14 projects proposed for funding in Strand 1.1 (Budget 2012) "Multiannual cooperation projects". The project runs for four years (from 1 November 2012 to 31 October 2016) and has budget of 3.825.000 EUR. It was initiated and coordinated by the Chair of History Didactics of the University of Augsburg (Prof. Dr. Susanne Popp).
Over the course of four phases the EMEE project aimed to apply the ideas of its underlying theoretical concept of Change of Perspective to a practical context.
During the first stage of the project, the theoretical foundations of the concept of Change of Perspective were developed. This included taking into account best practice examples of different partner countries (Mapping Process) while creating five EMEE-Toolkits that provide a broad range of possibilities for the practical implementation of the COP’s three dimensions to support the EMEE work of national, regional and local history museums. With their theoretically sound basis, Toolkits were designed to support the museums in capturing the European dimension of their existing collections and – in line with EMEE’s motto One Object – Many Visions – EuroVision – to creatively link them to the existing regional and national ‘meanings’ of the local cultural heritage.
During the second phase of the project the partners tested the theoretical foundation by involving in field research by using an experimental approach. To begin with, they developed their own ideas for a threefold COP that could be applied to selected artifacts that represent types of objects which are frequently found in history museums. As a result, 33 so-called Exemplary COP-Units were developed that aimed to illustrate how museums can apply the COP.
Moreover, during this stage of the project the EMEE Young Scenographers Contest with its motto One Object – Many Visions – EuroVision opened up new ideas for an experimental approach to museum objects in the light of a Change of Perspective tightly integrating transnational/ European and local/ regional/ national layers of the meaning of the cultural heritage.
During the following stage, the actual implementation of some of these 33 Exemplary COP-Units in the EuroVision Lab.s took place to test and prove the viability of the COP concept in a practical setting during the so-called EuroVision Lab.s.
The project concluded with a documentation and evaluation of the project results.
Outcomes
When looking at the results of the project in detail, the highly positive response to the seven experimental EuroVision Lab.s is particularly satisfying. Some 93,700 visitors saw the exhibitions that took place in seven partner countries and/ or participated in one of the accompanying workshops and events. Moreover, the EMEE partners placed emphasis on different areas in the Lab. activities, depending on the museum type and/ or area of expertise. This was reflected in the programme of the EuroVision Lab.s, which was astonishingly wide-ranging and diverse. The project’s ambition to represent all three levels of the Change of Perspective in the Lab.s was successfully implemented by almost all participants. Furthermore, during the partners’ Lab. activities it was possible to implement yet another major goal of the EMEE project, which focused on international exchange. The exhibition that showed the best submissions of the EMEE Young Scenographers Contest, which aimed to interpret selected Exemplary COP-Units and had the tagline One Object – Many Visions – EuroVision, travelled about 7,500 km across seven European countries and was presented and discussed as part of the Lab. activities.
Besides the Lab. activities and the presentation of the results of the EMEE Young Scenographers Contest the EMEE consortium developed a wide range of outputs from a mapping process at the beginning of the project to recommendations for policy makers and stakeholders dealing with Cultural Heritage in Europe. EMEE Toolkits, EMEE Workshops, the EMEE Study module and the EMEE Films guarantee that the basic EMEE concept of the ‘Change of Perspectives’, its potential to further enhance the development of museums and its suggestions for a transregional/European presentation of museum objects will be put into practice in the future.
From October 2012 to October 2016 the EMEE-project developed the following main outcomes in particular:
- Five EMEE-Toolkits as guidelines and handbooks on how to put the Change of Perspective (COP) into practice
- 33 EMEE-Exemplary Units with concrete ideas on how to implement the Change of Perspective (COP) using specific objects and groups of objects that are relevant in museums
- Seven EuroVision Lab.s under the tagline ‘One Object, Many Visions, EuroVisions’, testing and evaluating the Change of Perspective (COP) including a touring exhibition featuring the results of the EMEE Young Scenographers Contest.
- An EMEE-Study Module for the use of the ideas established during the project in university training
- Seven EMEE-Workshops for vocational and further training
- Nine EMEE-Documentary Films and an e-book for vocational and further training and dissemination purposes
- Two evaluation reports on the EMEE-Lab.s activities and the usability of the COP-concept
- Fifty EMEE publications including a final brochure summarizing the project results
- A trans-national and interdisciplinary network of cultural operators, stakeholders and policy-makers consisting of 144 members so far, all working together to promote the implementation of the EMEE concept into museum practice.
Project consortium and EMEE network
The EMEE project’s ‘EuroVision’ of the development of history museums was shared and explored by a team of eight partners from seven European countries. With regard to the scientific and/ or professional expertise of this project team, the EMEE project was based on the highest possible level of internationality and interdisciplinarity since it was the intention to maximize the exchange of perspectives and to ensure maximum scope for different types of museums.
The project consortium consisted of eight organizations: three national museums, three universities and two NGOs. It is led by the University of Augsburg in Germany and has seven partners:
The consultants of the EMEE project were: Prof. h.c. Dr. Hans-Martin Hinz, President of the International Council of Museums (ICOM) (2012-2016), Prof. Dr. Stefan Krankenhagen and Dr. Wolfgang Thiel.
From the beginning of the project, one of the most important tasks of the EMEE partners was to build up an EMEE network that would continue to last long after the end of the project. The EMEE network consists of museums and institutions related to the museum field that share an interest in the EMEE concepts of a multi-layered re-interpretation of museum objects and are keen to continue to catch up or exchange views on this topic, or intend to implement the ideas of EMEE into similar projects. During the duration of the project, a total of 144 museums and institutions became partners of the network – as members of the ‘working groups’ or as ‘associated partners’.
EMEE evaluation [1]
Taken as a whole, the evaluation of the EMEE concept focused on two main target groups, namely museums professionals and experienced opinion leaders working in museums or in the field of museum education. The evaluation aimed not only to explore the thoughts of these target groups on the EMEE concept of the Change of Perspective, but also to obtain feedback on whether, in their opinion, the workshops and Toolkits developed during the EMEE project have the potential to help remedy the identified shortcomings in the museum field.
The evaluation process was carried out between June 2015 and May 2016 and consisted of a semi-structured interview with 51 participants, containing closed-ended and open-ended questions that ranged from personal details to in-depth statements on the activities implemented in the EuroVision Lab.s and workshops and, in more general terms, on the impact of the EMEE Change of Perspective on the respondents’ professional lives. Later on, the results of the evaluation process were presented to and discussed in a focus group during the 24th ICOM General Conference, which took place in Milan in July 2016 and aimed to gather suggestions and recommendations that experts had to offer in light of the evaluation.
In summary, the evaluation report states: ‘Both the results of the evaluation process and of the focus group are very positive. All participants expressed a deep interest in the main issues raised by the EMEE project.' The survey and the conversation with the focus group showed that central problems that the EMEE project aimed to identify and solve using the concept of COP are also considered to be crucial to future museum development by professionals working in the museum field.
Selected EMEE publications [2]
Schumann, J., Popp, S., Mayer-Simmet, O., Schilling, S. and Wolf, D. (2016), The EU Project ‘Museums Exhibiting Europe’ (EMEE): Ideas, Results, Outlooks, Vienna: edition mono/monochrom, available online: http://www.museums-exhibiting-europe.de/downloads/, Accessed 11 August 2016.
Schilling, S., Angelini, C., Friesinger, G. and Popp, S. (eds) (2016), European Perspectives on Museum Objects. Selected Examples on the Change of Perspective, Vienna: edition mono/monochrom, available online: http://www.museums-exhibiting-europe.de/download/8300/, Accessed 11 August 2016.
Fuhrmann, A.-L., Schumann, J., Popp, S., Schilling, S. and Mayer-Simmet, O. (2016), Making Europe Visible. Re-Interpretation von Museumsobjekten und -themen. Ein Handbuch [German translation of Toolkit 1], available online: http://www.museums-exhibiting-europe.de/download/8279/, Accessed 11 August 2016.
Širok, K., Purg, U. and Kogoj, K. (2014), Workshop 2 – Museums as Social Arena. Development of the Social Arena Concept for Museums, published within the EMEE project: EuroVision – Museums Exhibiting Europe, available online: http://www.museums-exhibiting-europe.de/download/8355/, Accessed 11 August 2016.
Angelini, C. (2016), Bridging the Gap. Activation, Participation and Role Modification (EMEE Toolkit series, vol. 3), Vienna: edition mono/monochrom, available online: http://www.museums-exhibiting-europe.de/download/8293/, Accessed 11 August 2016.
Brückner, U. R. and Greci, L. (2016), Synaesthetic Translation of Perspectives. Scenography – a Sketchbook (EMEE Toolkit series, vol. 4), Vienna: edition mono/monochrom, available online: http://www.museums-exhibiting-europe.de/download/8296/, Accessed 11 August 2016.
Kronberger, A., Kelley, H., Fabry, D., Friesinger, G. and Halm, K. (2016), Social Web and Interaction. Social Media Technologies for European National and Regional Museums (EMEE Toolkit series, vol. 5), Vienna: edition mono/monochrom, available online: http://www.museums-exhibiting-europe.de/download/8298/, Accessed 11 August 2016.