ISS 25 (1995).pdf - The International Council of Museums

communities in Quebec: the case of the Musee d'art
de Saint-Laurent' stresses the problem of francophon
population in Quebec , Ethnic communities in Montreal
have little interest for museums and museums have no
time nor resources to reach the potential public , On
the example of Ville Saint-Laurent and Musee d ' art
de Saint-Laurent , he explains the new approach , The
feasibility study for a more suitable museum
building provoked the idea to transform the museum
into a laboratory to discover Quebec culture and
identity and to establish closer links with the
social environment,
Hildegard Vieregg, from Germany, in her paper
'The Life Itself Provides the Topics' tries to
elaborate the problem of presenting the contemporary
history in the museums. She starts from the basic
definitions on museums and states that a museum
visitor is between museum and community. In a
theoretical introduction she widely elaborates the
ideas of Wilhelm von Humboldt insisting that the
life itself provides the themes, It means that a
scope of the real life has to be reflected in
museums. Analysing the historic dimension and the
scopes of the real life', she pleads for a
democratic museum aiming at the political education
and developing of democracy. On the examples of the
Museum of German History in Berlin, concerning the
reunification of Germany in 1989 with the slogan
'Against forgetting, for democracy', the Museum and
KZ-memorial place in Dachau with the idea of 'not
only remember but engage ourselves not to be
repeated', and the Holocaust-Museum and 'Museum of
Tolerance', she asks to encourage the active
participation. In order to be explaining visitors
not-easy-objects choices she asks to be concerned
with at least two principles to be applied in
exhibitions: the principle of 'stations' as a
synoptical starting point and the principle of
'outside-inside' in making connections between
museum and outside world. Her approach may be narrow
approach oriented but it opens important questions.
Grazyna Zaucha, from the Choma museum in
Zambia, in her paper 'Communities and Museums in
Africa' starts with the idea that Africa was largely
built by foreigners . The indigenous cultures have
been different and oriented towards skills more than
towards objects. Museums were imported from Europe
and used as important political instruments,
Contrasts between Francophone, Anglophone and Luso­
Africa population are obvious, while those between
rich and poor are increased. The education for
working in museums is done abroad. Museums without
any connections among them, collections which ignore
science, arts and many other sorts of material,
small number of museums are identified as facts
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