Study! Study! Study! But what?
Where and how in Hungary are future museum experts trained?
MúzeumCafé 24.
The article focuses on each area of training professionals for museums. “There is no training specifically for museums in Hungary,” says aesthetician Péter György, one of the most prominent critics of policies relating to museums in Hungary. There is historical museology: in traditional higher education students of ethnography, art history and archaeology study what is necessary for their everyday work, but there are no courses which would prepare future professionals for the changed role of museums. “At present there is no professor with the relevant academic status who could accredit a new course. Given Hungary’s miserable conditions, it is impossible to tempt those who have graduated in this academic subject in western Europe or in the United States and have already started their careers at universities or in museums.” According to Gabriella Gulyás, who works for the Petőfi Literary Museum, university BA courses cannot be expected to result in specialised professional graduates since there is no general consensus about the task of museums. In western Europe universities provide BA level education and then museums run MA and other post-graduate courses. There a museum not only collects, keeps and exhibits, but also functions as an educational and training centre and as an academic workshop. Péter Fertőszögi, manager of Kogart, also thinks that education can be regenerated only following clarification of the role of museums. Education should focus on teaching museologists how to bring visitors closer to the world of science. Museologist Tamás Vásárhelyi says that the Science Communication course starting in the autumn this year has been prepared at Eötvös Loránd University’s Faculty of Natural Sciences for three years. The approach whereby communication is traditionally a field for the humanities has been much debated and Vásárhelyi argues that science communication requires knowledge of natural sciences. The course intends to help this new type of communication, both in museums and in the media. Course subjects include an introduction to scientific and technological museology, as well as handling collections. Students also study museum education, andragogy, organising exhibitions, museum PR, marketing and internet communications. According to Csilla E. Csorba, director of the Petőfi Literary Museum, there are plenty of courses, moreover it would be worth doing away with some running in parallel. The Literary Museum is in a special position since it professionally supervises dozens of literary memorial houses. In their cases it is often one person who must adequately provide professional guiding for various groups of visitors, run sessions and manage the house. Many do not even have any qualification in literature, therefore the museum has for years regularly run further training for them. The training aims to be comprehensive since the participants not only include museologists, but school teachers, museum education staff and representatives of the funding local authorities. The Literary Museum has developed its voluntary programme in line with west European patterns. Its accumulated experience is passed on to museums, other public collections and specialists working in the field of education and culture in the framework of an accredited course consisting of three modules: museum theory, including the theory of literary museology, the Petőfi Literary Museum and an IT module. The manual Handbuch der Allgemeinen Museologie (Handbook of General Museology) by Friedrich Waidacher – already in its third, 1999 edition – is regarded as the theoretical basis of the MA course. A Hungarian version of the book, translated by art historian József Mélyi, is in the pipeline. The course embraces four large modules corresponding to the handbook’s sections: meta-museology, historical museology, theoretical and applied museology (the latter laying special emphasis on museum IT). The handbook will also be available on the internet in order to remedy the absence of material on the theoretical level of general museology. A significant section of the collections in county museums is represented by ethnographic objects. At university students of ethnography can specialise in museum studies when they can learn about the legal environment of museums, collections, processing, record keeping, curating exhibitions and the collection of objects. According to Gyula Kocsis, Head of Museum Studies at Eötvös Loránd University’s Institute of Ethnography, project management, finding one’s way in the jungle of applications for tenders, the necessary line of studies to become a curator are based on students’ individual efforts, even in the Institute of Ethnography. József Mélyi also shares the deep pessimism of university scholars and the cultural profession. “There is little prospect for training to be extended. Universities do not have the opportunity, and given the crisis the museum market cannot employ more specialists.” Zsolt Vasáros’s architect’s office is today one of the most widely employed exhibition design companies. “Exhibition design is not taught anywhere, interior design university courses actually no longer exist,” he says. He reckons he has learnt exhibition design – handling space, visual effects, lighting and museum technology – by means of once bitten twice shy. There are various home and interior design schools and some run courses at a high standard. Installation design projects may be included in their curriculum, as for example at the KREA Art School. “Museums tend to call designers visual effects designers,” says Vasáros. “Yet that is more characteristic for the cinema and theatre, and students are trained for that profession.” However, he believes that this type of experience can rarely be applied to museums. In addition to museologists, perhaps restorers can be counted among the most important pillars of museums. The University of Fine Arts runs courses for restorers of art objects as well as for restorers specialising in sculpture and painting. “If you could divide museum employees into castes, object restorers would have been included in the caste of pariahs in the 70s and even 80s,” says Petronella Kovács Mravik, Head of the Hungarian National Museum’s Department of Methodology and Training in Art Object Protection. “Even some painting restorers used to refer to them as pot restorers,” she complains in her article ‘Thoughts on thirty years of training’. They have played the role of serving and maintenance staff and their work has primarily supported the research of archaeologists and ethnographers. A peculiar picture thus unfolds. Nevertheless, it is noteworthy that there have been hardly any specialists who could see through the jungle of courses. It’s also turned out that there is a demand, particularly for courses of 1-2 years, especially when the resulting diplomas can also be used in areas other than the strictly regarded museum field. Yet courses providing deep, theoretical knowledge and introducing international practice are lacking, and there are no workshops which will develop specialists who may succeed in redefining the role of museums across Hungary.