Connecting Collecting - Sveriges Museer

More documents

Recommendations

Info

The Pool for Society and PoliticsPublic institutions in changeBy Eva Thunér Ohlsson and Kristina Stolt»Originally this was called thePublic Pool, and from the beginningour task was to study institutionsexercising public authority. Today oursphere is much wider, encompassingthe political and public sides of people’slives. The studies comprise phenomenain society that are reflected in the actionsof the state, regions, and municipalities,but we also take an interest in groupsand individuals who seek to affect publiclife.Decisions in parliament, countycouncils, and local councils create regulationsfor the life and actions of citizens,but market forces, opinion moulders,trendsetters, and non-profit groups arealso important actors. How this happens,with what methods, and what the consequencesare for the citizens is the focusof the pool’s interest. In these contextsthe citizens have many different roles –voters, elected representatives, professionals,the unemployed, early retirementpensioners, club members, schoolpupils, company leaders, employees, taxpayers,etc. – which must also be madeclear in our work.Some of the current social issues thathave been discussed in recent years andconsidered in the museums’ studies arethe restructuring of the public sector,the changed role and organization of thenational defence, integration policies,Sweden’s membership of the EU, and themulti-religious Sweden.Museums big and smallThe pool at present has eighteen members,most of which come from majorinstitutions with national or countyresponsibility, but some museums arereally small, with only one or two employees.The medical history group, which isone of the small museums, always has aHealth care, school, defence, police, and public administrationare some of the areas that interest the Pool for Society andPolitics. It is concerned with the significance of the institutionsfor society as a whole and for the individual, and with our wayof looking at society and each other.meeting of its own in connection withthe pool meeting. Here they ventilatetheir specific issues, which are oftenrelated to the fact that these museumsmostly were established on private initiativeand the collections are often ownedby associations run with grants from acounty council or a municipality. Themedical history group has been decimatedsince museums have been putin mothballs – a clear example showingthat changes in society and politicalpriorities are a part of everyday realityfor the pool members.MeetingsThe pool meets twice a year. Apart fromthe formal meeting we always have alecturer on a topic of current concern tothe pool. Practical questions of copyrightand ethical issues about the publicationof collected material, for example, fromminors, have been discussed. These areproblems that we all have in common.Reports about ongoing and plannedprojects in the museums are e-mailedto the members before the meeting andthen appended to the minutes for thearchive. We gain time in that the participantscan read the texts before themeeting and can bring up questions andthoughts about the projects.Working methodsThe pool also aims to develop the members’professional role. To do so, thisspring we conducted a field study inmini-format for half a day in the newentrance to the Södra Älvsborg Hospitalin Borås. We did both participantobservation and short interviews tosee how visitors acted and to hear whatthey thought of the entrance. Had theintentions of the hospital managementbeen fulfilled? The head of premises atthe hospital had prepared us by informingabout the work on the programme,the architectural competition, and theconstruction of the entrance. In all itssimplicity, this gave us cause to reflect onthe working methods and formulation ofquestions.Another of our intentions is tocarry out small-scale studies in differentplaces at the same time, for example,the new citizenship ceremonies that haveemerged in many municipalities. At themeetings we can then discuss methods,the selection of artefacts, the use ofpictures, and such matters based on theexperience we have gained.Active participationThe members’ active participation iscrucial for the implementation of ournew policy statement from 2006. Eachmuseum conducts studies within itsown sphere of responsibility. Thesetasks often compete with other museumwork. It is important to get the museummanagement’s support but also toground the Samdok work in the museums’steering documents and politicalleadership, both so that we can be giventhe time and resources for our work andso that we can take part in pool meet-18 • Samtid & museer no 2/07
The Pool for Society and Politicsings. The resources vary greatly betweenthe museums.An example of how a small museumcan work with the policy statementcomes from the museum of medical history,museet.då.nu, in Borås:Definitions of health on notice board inmuseet.då.nu. “Health is to live here andnow! not yesterday or tomorrow!”Photo Anna C Lindqvist© Södra ÄlvsborgsSjukhus, Borås. 37From the project Voices in Nyköping. Youand Me 1+1=1. Photo Carolin Sellman,May 2007.How we define healthMuseet.då.nu opened in new premisesin the middle of the newly built entranceto the hospital in Borås in autumn 2004.In the museum one meets a big noticeboard with the question “What doeshealth mean to you?” For nearly threeyears now the visitors have given theirdefinitions of what health means. Theslips of paper are continually changedand archived by the museum.Apart from all the people who havemade things easy for themselves andanswered “Everything”, “Being healthy”,“Feeling well”, and so on, there is a categorythat is more common than others,the one where people refer to love orrelations. They stress that the perceptionof one’s own health is dependent on one’snearest and dearest also feeling well, thatone belongs to other people in a giveand-takerelationship. Work also comesin here. Having a job and being able towork is considered to be both an endand a means to good health.Many answers are connected to theconcept of joy, satisfaction, and happiness.Here the whole spectrum is represented,from quite modest wishes tobe happy, to demands to be completelywithout worries.Others write about having time forreflection, having the strength to livetoday’s stressful life, the desire for peaceand quiet. An interesting area is bodyand soul. Several people say that youcan be healthy even if the body does notwork perfectly, as long as the soul or themind feels all right. Some people emphasizethe importance of mental balance.These are some examples of thethoughts expressed when people answeredthe museum’s question aboutwhat health means. Presumably, if onelet people answer the question over alonger period of time, one could also seechanges in the character of the answersdepending on the prevailing debateabout health, and on how the social climateotherwise changes.Interviews with the people ofNyköpingSörmland Museum, which is a countymuseum located in Nyköping, is currentlyrunning the project Voices inNyköping. Here the town’s inhabitantsfrom all over the world say what theythink is important for them in theirlives. The aim is to broaden the way oflooking at what it is to be a human being,what Nyköping is and has been,urgent issues here and now, and whathistory is and means.Right now we are interviewing agreat many people in Nyköping of differentages and in different roles. We askwhat is important for them right now.We want to bring out different lives andbackgrounds and illuminate how theyall, with their differing experiences,contribute to the life of the city, its developmentand historiography. The answerswill be presented on long lengthsof cloth, hanging along familiar routeswhere people walk in Nyköping, bothindoors and outdoors.One part of the project has alreadybeen shown in the city’s shopping malls.High-school pupils from the TessinSchool, who have chosen to study Mediaand Communication, have photographedtheir coevals and written texts,and the museum has had fourteen ofthese printed on hangings.Monitoring the world around usFor the pool it is important to be observantabout tendencies in the surroundingworld. It is essential, for example,to see what is taken up in futures studiesand in publications from different actorsof interest for our field of activity. Theaim of the pool for Society and Politicsmust always be to explore processes ofchange in society, to see their effects andpatterns. pEva Thunér-Ohlsson is head antiquarian atSörmland Museum and chair of the pool forSociety and Politics, eva.thuner.ohlsson@dll.seKristina Stolt is curator at museet.då.nu inBorås, kristina.stolt@vgregion.seSamtid & museer no 2/07 • 19
Page 1 and 2: S A M D O K • S V E N S K A K U L
Page 3 and 4: Connecting Collecting X 30 years of
Page 5 and 6: Connecting Collecting X 30 years of
Page 7 and 8: The Cultural Encounters GroupFrom p
Page 9 and 10: The Pool for Domestic LifeWhat kind
Page 11 and 12: The Pool for LeisureLeisure = spare
Page 13 and 14: The Pool for Local and Regional Sph
Page 15 and 16: The Pool for Management of Natural
Page 17: The Pool for Manufacture and Servic
Page 21 and 22: The Pool for Sami Lifemuseum, Sámi
Page 23 and 24: i Photo Ramón Maldonado, Stockholm

Connecting Collecting - Sveriges Museer

You also want an ePaper? Increase the reach of your titles

Delete template?

Save as template?