Heritage Construction
HeritageCares: A Singaporean Case Study in Socially Engaged Practice
Paper Presentation in a Themed Session Ruchi Mittal
Launched in 2016, HeritageCares is a social initiative by the National Heritage Board (NHB), Singapore, which reaches out to the less privileged through programmes at museums and heritage sites by catering to their unique needs. HeritageCares programmes are designed to encourage social interaction and bonding through heritage. They also enhance social skills, create a sense of wellbeing, support active ageing, and encourage continual contribution to society through heritage volunteerism. This paper explores the approaches taken by HeritageCares for increased accessibility and social inclusion to heritage offerings. It also suggests that HeritageCares has established a model that could contribute to a broadening of cultural practice in Singapore and other countries with emerging cultural industries.
Marking the Multivalent Nature of Heritage in Museum Exhibitions: Dialogical Approaches and Inclusive Collaborations
Paper Presentation in a Themed Session Stephanie Machabee
Informed by James Clifford’s conceptualization of museums as “contact zones,” this paper argues that heritage objects, which bear witness to a complex web of histories, encounters, and dissenting meanings, should be understood in a similar light. Using the Curator’s Choice Case I co-designed at the Yale Peabody Museum in 2015–2016 as my case study, I contend that a dialogical approach to heritage, where meanings are negotiated within a shared space of social and cultural interaction, better reflects the constructed, situated nature of heritage. This exhibit, which focused on heritage at risk in Syria, contextualized ancient Syrian objects by viewing them through multiple lenses of interpretation. These included archaeologists who studied the objects, students who viewed them as symbols of relationships between academic bodies and local communities, and Syrians living in the USA who used the exhibit as a medium through which to speak of their experiences of the Syrian war. To more clearly mark the multivalent nature of heritage, I argue that museums need to be increasingly inclusive in their collaboration with stakeholders. Using Lynch and Alberti’s concept of “discensus,” I conclude that even if interpretations disagree, these contested perspectives invite visitors into further dialogue. In this way, objects become dynamic think pieces, rather than static, linear communicators of knowledge, thus better engaging visitors of what is at stake in the preservation of such objects.
Beyond Structural Preservation: The Case of Restoring the Sarai Building as a Museum
Paper Presentation in a Themed Session Rozhen Kamal Mohammed-Amin, Alan Faraydoon Ali
Despite wide attention to preservation and adaptive re-use in developed countries, such practice in developing regions and countries like Kurdistan Region and Iraq, where many locally and internationally significant monuments are located, are very limited and in poor quality. The restored historic Sarai building, located in the historic city center of Sulaimani in Kurdistan Region of Iraq serves as an example that effective historic preservation and management need to see and plan beyond structural restoration and consider the need of the twenty-first century visitors for “edutainment”, inclusiveness, and interactivity. Since its expensive structural restoration to host a museum, the building has become a ghost house in the vibrant old city center. In this paper, we first discuss traditional and contemporary approaches for historic building preservation and revitalization. We then present and discuss a number of historic building restoration and management case studies from different countries and context that can inform restoration of other significant historic buildings like Sarai building into effective museums and cultural centers in developing countries. We also discuss the challenges facing restoring Sarai building into a museum. In doing so, we highlight historic building restoration process and challenges in similar context to those of developing regions and countries like Kurdistan Region and Iraq. Finally, by synthesizing the findings from the literature and the cases studies with the context of Sarai building we make some key recommendations for overcoming and moving beyond those challenges to transform the locally and internationally important buildings like Sarai into vibrant museums.
Plotting Heritage? : The MAS as Museum in the Urban Space
Paper Presentation in a Themed Session Sofie De Ruysser
The museum in the twenty-first century is no longer the sole owner of a ‘heritage plot’. It does not write the storylines by itself anymore, nor is it the only finding place for heritage. The museum is one node in a network of heritage plots, even more so in the urban space. The MAS is a museum located in the superdiverse city of Antwerp. It cherishes about 500,000 objects coming from around the world. The museum aims to be a ground-breaking museum on connectedness. It can choose from an array of ways to achieve that. This paper addresses three of these, each illustrated by a case. Firstly, the museum has a playing field beyond its exhibition halls. Both in activities it develops and hosts, as in the (side-)effects of participation, the MAS increases ‘heritage experiences’. The exhibition and program of ‘Antwerp à la Carte’ is a demonstration of this approach. Secondly, the growing attention for intangible heritage enlarges the layers of objects’ meaning. Elementary are the connoisseurs with different backgrounds and types of expertise. The exhibition of ‘Holy Places’ engaged with religious communities in Antwerp, which instigated more than one process of growing awareness. Thirdly, the participatory attitude and strategies open up the museum work to new audiences. Both the ‘Corner Shop’ as ‘Holy Places’ already demonstrate the impact of collaboration with volunteers, communities and experience experts. ‘Instinct’ is a further example: it is the first fully co-creative exhibition by MAS in Young Hands, the museum’s team of young volunteers.
