Museum education for decades
A living open-air museum: Haszmann Pál Ethnographic Museum
MúzeumCafé 15.
When the Haszmann Pál Ethnographic Museum in the Transylvanian village of Csernáton was founded the aim was not for it to become a repository of dead objects from the past. Alongside its temporary exhibitions, visitors have the opportunity to experience the wealth of living traditions. From spring to autumn every year the garden of the Damokos mansion, which houses the museum, is the scene of folk art education where wood carvers, furniture painters and other specialists, some 10-12 representatives of different crafts, teach young people. Museum education, as it is called these days, has been provided for decades in the village where pupils, Hungarians and others, gather from the Carpathian basin, other regions of Europe and even overseas. Every year 650-700 young people attend the summer school, which operates from March to October. The founder’s descendants continue the work in the museum, which opened in 1973. Pál Haszmann, director of the institution, is reviewing season’s greetings on his desk. The latest has come from Magyarnagykanizsa – the young people who are to come again this summer have sent their best wishes. As the director remarks with a smile, good wine needs no bush – the reputation of the museum and its summer school gets around. “Such a museum provides the opportunity to tempt young people such that they would feel at home, get involved in a task and experience an opportunity they are looking for, as well as learn about the values of the countryside and its built and intellectual heritage.” Thus Mr. Haszmann outlines the museum’s goal with respect to the young. The private collection of the founder, local historian and teacher Pál Haszmann Sr., makes up the core of the museum.