ICOM International Council of Museums - Museo Estancia Jesuitica ...

Abstract
410
Museo e Historia:
Del Objeto a los Discursos y prácticas.
Luis Alegría y Gloria Paz Núñez – Chile
Our proposal is to talk about the museum as a space of patrimonial construction, as in
it objects acquire a special value. Such value is the result of the process of becoming
patrimony, that is, the moment in which they are given a symbolic value that transforms
them in a legitimate testimony of the past . Patrimony (heritage) is considered as “the
group of values, credence and goods”, socially and historically renowned (re-signified),
a fact that allows the construction of a new reality.
The Museum is a cultural institution that takes part of a major social space that is called
the patrimonial field, that is, a space structured as a system of relations in competition
and conflict between groups. In this space, the museum is a central institution, as an
agent that produces patrimony and, therefore, it is not considered as a neutral space.
A basic element of the objects that constitute a museum collection is the
documentation they possess, that allows different readings on such objects. Besides, it
transforms them: on one hand, in documents of society as they carry information about
its history, and on the other hand in monuments, as its re-invention at the interior of the
museum obeys to a discourse that commemorates this past.
Museology not only corresponds to museum science but, in a wider sense, to a science
of all which is museable, that is to say, patrimony. But a study of museums and
patrimony corresponds to a study of society in general, since the symbolic dimension
that they represent also constitutes part of that reality. Documentation is a basic
element, not only because of the information about the objects itself, but also because
of the interventions that have been done over them, giving account of patrimonial
discourses and practices in a major frame of society development.
The aim of our research at the Museo Histórico Nacional is framed upon updating a
history of the museum and its collections, presenting the museum as a space of
cultural production and, as such, identifying its contribution to the construction our
country´s cultural patrimony.
Abstract
We are propose to talk about museum as a space of patrimonial construction, as in it
objects acquires a special value. Such value is conformed within the process of
becoming patrimony, moment in which they are endowed of a symbolic value that
transform them in legitim testimony of the past . As patrimony (heritage) it must be
considered “the conjunct of values, credence and goods” social and historically
renowned (re-signified) that aloud (permit) constructing a new reality.
Museum is a cultural institution that forms part of a mayor social space that is
denominated patrimonial field, this is a space structured a system of relations in
competition and conflict between groups. In this space, the museum is a central
institution, as an agent that produces patrimony and therefore not as a neutral space.