Krisztina Sedlmayr, ethnographer, head of communications at the Museum of Ethnography
MúzeumCafé 16.
“Research and interpretation of contemporary social phenomena is as much the task of ethnography as the examination of the past,” Krisztina Sedlmayr asserts without concealing that seven years after the launch of the MaDok (Documenting the Present) project there is still resistance in professional circles concerning researching the present. According to Ms. Sedlmayr curators should reckon with the reviving culture of objects and the increasing value of the personal past, since visitors seek the individual connection at exhibitions. This is true even when an exhibition confronts the visitor with his or her own prejudices. We talked about grandmother’s button box, the difficulties of displaying traditional Hungarian culture, the changing duties of a museum and the museum development programme. “A museum basically communicates via its exhibitions. We don’t always choose a theme that hits right in the middle of people’s interest, but it’s worth approaching issues raised at an exhibition from this aspect, because it helps visitors. I’ll give you an example. Next year the Ethnographic Museum is holding an exhibition of carpets. Fifteen years ago it would have been purely a display of cultural history. Today we are planning an exhibition where female work and self-expression is represented as part of social history. “The MaDok programme reflects an incredibly important new tendency. Visitors like these exhibitions very much, yet I must admit that it is not an easy story concerning professionals. “There is some kind of resistance. Co-operation between museums is not easy, but we must get it straight that the aim of MaDok is the research of the present and not the recent past, and that difference is essential. Heading communications is an entirely new task.”