Historical and Methodological Layers
The Archaeology of Exhibition Space
Boxes, chests of drawers, made beds, furniture, a mirror, household textiles, clothes, baskets and utensils on one side, a couple in national costume with a priest, a church interior with a coffered ceiling and a carved bench, the Lord’s Table and a pulpit on the other. All these are in the Museum of Ethnography’s permanent exhibition The Traditional Culture of the Hungarians. The arrangement, the dramatic composition and the contextualising use of photographs provide a good basis for description and interpretive analysis, presuming this is complemented with exploration of the connections between the museum space surrounding the installation and the new commentary relating to the installation. Then the archaeology of the exhibition space becomes manifest.
Are visitors interested in how old a permanent exhibition is? Is it important to draw their attention to the fact that the setting was not always a museum? Can a museum really reflect the fact that permanence is not an exclusive element of an institute’s operation, that its way of thinking has changed over the past 20-30 years, in terms of the collection, the exhibition and the role of museums and scholarship? Is a more than 20-year-old exhibition suitable for focussing on ideas beyond analysis of the work?
The Traditional Culture of the Hungarians opened in 1991. The now 25-year-old display was first revitalised in 1997, then in 2011–2012 the graphic work was modernised. On the other hand, the objects and the configuration have not changed since 1991. A well-thought-out choice of objects in the exhibition devoted to the culture of Hungarian peasantry in the late 19th and early 20th century can be seen. It can be characterised by linear though fragmented storytelling, which strives to present ethnography instead of revealing social and cultural connections. Thus the exhibited objects mostly play an illustrative role. The installation which has become dated defines and rules the space, rendering reception difficult. Thus the question is justified whether it is important to make visitors aware that the space was originally not an exhibition room, part of a museum.
The room presenting since 1991 a wedding in Kalotaszeg can be characterised by quite a peculiar spatial, visual and cultural merging. It can be sensed that the curators and designers did not employ the facilities of the space when interpreting the exhibition into the space but rather concealed it. Can an old, outdated yet still existing exhibition be adequate to become the focus of museum historical and scholarly ideas beyond its primary themes? Patiently unfolding them is the most exciting activity of museum thinking. The archaeology of knowledge.