Twelfth International Conference on The Inclusive Museum

Abstract

The object of the study is a private ethnographic collection, gathered over the past years by Stanisław Iwańczak, a retired farmer and a construction worker, in the village of Niedzica, in the southern Polish region of Spisz, exposed in a former farm building. The collection consists of agricultural tools and crafts, furniture, housewares, costumes, utensils, religious pictures, photographs, books, letters, decorations. In the creation of the collection were also involved the children of Mr. Iwańczak, who emigrated in the 1990s to the United States. The conducted ethnographic research shows that the collection plays an important role for an ancestral identity, but also a wider one - local and regional. The reconstructed traditional interior hosts periodical family celebrations, especially during the visits of Mr. Iwańczak’s children every year, but also photo shoots and music of local folklore groups are conducted, as well as school classes about the culture of the region are organized. This self-made museum, with collected objects de memoire, seems to be a kind of mental and cultural asylum for the members of the family living abroad, as well as for the local community. The collection is an anchor protecting against losing relationships with the tradition of the region. It represents the heritage of absence, at the same time playing the role of a transmission belt linking generations, enabling trans valuation of this heritage in the modernized environment.