“A Sense of Place” museum educational project
Cross-border bilingual cooperation
MúzeumCafé 35.
Besides its three permanent exhibitions, which opened in the early 1980s, Szentgotthárd’s Pável Ágoston Museum operating under the Vas County Museums Directorate also has an area for small temporary exhibitions. For years we have missed having a communal area where museum educational sessions could be held. We have had good contacts with colleagues working in Slovenian museums in the territory of historic County Vas, and we quickly accepted and responded to the invitation of those in Murska Sobota. We had been making plans to present the cross-border folk culture of Hungarians and Slovenes, and we applied for EU funds to help with implementation. We have developed a bilingual museum educational programme within the project known as A Sense of Place, whereby participants learn about two cultures, including four ethnographically small regional groups. Children involved in the project work together with members of older generations. According to Metka Fujs of the Pomurski muzej Murska Sobota, the leading partner in the project, today museums “aim to provide a comprehensive experience to gain the sense of a region, including its natural, social and cultural surroundings, which we ourselves shape and which in turn have shaped us.” She also summarized the project’s goals in A Sense of Place – Children, the Bearers of the Dialogue between Cultures. “With cooperation between museums, experts along the border hope to contribute to understanding the region’s national and cultural identity, as well as ensure its sustainable development as that of a multi-ethnic and multicultural area, and to establish a constant, inter-cultural dialogue.” The project has involved the organisation of events during school holidays for the children.