Programına davet ettiği için Gül Bulut’a içtenlikle teşekkür ederim. Gül Bulut’un müzede yaratıcı drama çalışmalarını @muzededrama Instagram sayfasından takip edebilirsiniz. Yayın tarihi: 6 Mayıs 2023 Yayın tarihi: 19 Mayıs 2023 Yayın tarihi: 26 Mayıs 2023
Programına davet ettiği için Gül Bulut’a içtenlikle teşekkür ederim.
Gül Bulut’un müzede yaratıcı drama çalışmalarını @muzededrama Instagram sayfasından takip edebilirsiniz.
CAMOC / ICOM Annual Conference, Frankfurt am Main 4 June 2018
(in English)
For a very long time, migration was often represented in museums by displaying suitcases, which can be considered as a romantic representation of migrants: “They pack their little lives” in a suitcase and leave for a foreign country. In many museum displays, suitcases stand for the good old days but also for poverty and for the hope for a better life. Furthermore, instead of presenting migrant groups with a variety of themes, such as their struggles, achievements, and goals, museums preferred to link migration to national history, emphasizing the concept of multiculturalism.
The Federal German Migrant Women Association was founded in 2005 in Frankfurt and then expanded to more than 20 German cities. Women, coming from different geographies in Turkey, present diverse ethnical and religious identities in the association. They participate or organize demonstrations, hand out information flyers, and cooperate with local and international institutions for their common interests as they are basically part of the worker, migrant, and feminist movements. Based on their socio-political activities in the city, in 2014, migrant women were invited to the Library of Generations. It is an artistic reminiscence project to be housed in Frankfurt Historical Museum until 2105. The principle intention in the participatory museum project is to archive the history of migrant women in the perspective of documenting their struggles through the years, achievements in the present day, and goals for the future.
Archival materials in the reminiscence box—produced in a series of workshops—are basically instruments for women to tell their own stories, and it includes a short story book, choir recording, 10 years anniversary book, a short-documentary, etc. Nevertheless, posters, flyers, press releases, campaigning materials, and especially their periodical publications “Woman” represent migrant women’s memory in Germany. Additionally, the project includes two participatory exhibitions: Firstly, “ABC of Migrant Women Association: A Female Dictionary” (Cologne, 2015; Frankfurt, 2016; İstanbul, 2016; Berlin, 2017), an A to Z list of visual and textual interrogation of socially constructed words, objects, emotions, and even colors; secondly, “World from Female Perspective!” (Berlin, 2017), exposing the colorful, fighter, and collaborator environment of migrant women through photo albums, and various artistic installations. In this manner, this paper aims to discuss participatory curatorial practices in the project and archival materials representing female memory coming from Turkey and currently based in Germany.
With CAMOC friends at Roman Theater of Lisbon Museum.
Abstract:
Establishing Communities for Sustainability of Archival Materials
Knowledge production can only be achievable via archival materials. Today, as Jussi Parikka conceptualizes, “everybody is a mini archivist.” Our computers, smartphones, e-mail accounts, social media platforms, and also web browsers keep records of our daily activities. By claiming “we are what we collect, we collect what we are”, Elisabeth Kaplan (2000) interrogates the role of archivist in terms of shaping history. As archival record does only happen when individuals and organizations create and use them. In this sense, archiving is neither politically nor culturally neutral. As Randall C. Jimerson (2006) expresses, “[t]he role of the archivist is crucial and powerful.” The essential idea of archiving is intensely engaged with discussions held around memory and history. As a mechanism of repository, archive, is based upon a simultaneous inclusion and exclusion: What to be remembered, and what to be forgotten? From the perspective of Foucauldian discourse analysis, archive determines both the spoken and unspoken. Today, archives started to claim social justice by putting their focus on documenting and protecting the rights to citizens. Hence, the classical approach to archives, as gatekeepers for preserving rare documents, is replaced by collective working within the concept of ‘Living Archive.’ Susan Pell (2015) conceptualizes living archives as learning centers challenging the official narratives. They are often organized as ‘community archives’ concentrating on particular social causes, politic, socio-cultural, ethnical, religious and sexual identities. Indeed, a community transforms an archive into a living space by applying ‘collective history-making.’ Community archives provide free access to information for all, and ask for their involvement in various levels: Material donations, fundraising, staffing, cataloguing, publications, translation, curating exhibitions, film screenings, and public events, etc. In this framework, this study seeks to answer the following question: “How can city museums learn from community archives regarding sustainable public engagement?” The workshop aims to open a floor for discussing how to target various groups regarding diversity in archival materials. Consequently, it is intended to examine the differentiation between decolonizing a museum and diversity in a museum coming along with the question of a city museum for the city, or about the city?
Keywords: Community Archives, Audience Development, Crowd-Cataloguing, Sustainability
“Sabancı Üniversitesi, İstanbul Politikalar Merkezi (İPM) ve Stiftung Mercator Girişimi işbirliğiyle hazırladığımız Nasıl Bir Dünya? Nasıl Bir Türkiye?’nin yeni bölümünde çeşitli özelliklerinden dolayı sistematik olarak ayrımcılığa maruz kalan grupların deprem felaketinde yaşadığı sorunlar ve çözüm önerileri üzerine konuşuyoruz.
Kadın ve Üreme Sağlığı Programı Koordinatörü Dr. Gökhan Yıldırımkaya, Kadının İnsan Hakları Yeni Çözümler Derneği Genel Koordinatörü Hilal Gençay ve İstanbul Sözleşmesi üzerine çalışan Mercator-İPM Araştırmacısı Dr. Elif Çiğdem Artan, Gülçin Karabağ’ın sorularını yanıtlıyor.”
For a very long time, migration was often represented in museums by displaying suitcases which can be considered as a romantic representation of migrants: “They pack their little lives” in a suitcase and leave for a foreign country. In many museum displays, suitcases stand for the good old days, but also for poverty and for the hope for a better life. Furthermore, instead of presenting migrant groups by a variety of themes such as their struggles, achievements, and goals, museums preferred to link migration to the national history, emphasizing the concept of multiculturalism. Thus, a picture of different people living together happily was drawn. The basic problem with this picture is that it doesn’t reflect the change in time and space. For instance, today, the terminology of “migrant” is mostly replaced with “citizen with migration origin”, which shows us the importance of rethinking how to display migration in museums. In this conceptual framework, this workshop aims to discuss the museological and curatorial experiences in the Federal German Migrant Women Association’s (GKB) Bibliothek der Generationen Project housed in the Historical Museum Frankfurt, which aims to archive the history of migrant women in the perspective of documenting their struggles through the years, achievements in the present day, and goals for the future.
GKB was founded in 2005 in Frankfurt and then expanded to more than 25 cities and promotes the idea of socialization and integration of migrant women in Germany. The women, coming from different geographies in Turkey, present diverse ethnical and religious identities. They participate or organize demonstrations, hand out pamphlets, conduct close relationships with other institutions, and cooperate to further common interests. In this manner, Bibliothek der Generationen Project aims to archive individual stories in various forms, such as short story book, chore recording, annual activity calendar, 10th year anniversary book, friendship book, paintings, and hand crafts in order to enable new migration narratives, which are beyond “a tiny suitcase full of frustrations and hope.” Archival materials, produced after following a series of workshops, are basically instruments for women to tell their own stories beyond dissatisfaction, desire, homeland, abroad, homesickness, problematic encounters with citizens of hosting countries, road trips to homeland, letters, diaries, smell of black tea, etc. The project, kicked off in June 2014, includes two participatory exhibitions as well: “ABC of Migrant Women Association: A Female Dictionary” (Cologne, 2015; Frankfurt, 2016; İstanbul, 2016; Berlin, 2017) and “World from Female Perspective!” (Berlin, 2017).
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