Many museums are on site: The site is embodied in the museum – this is where it happened! These museums raise interesting questions to public history and uses of the past. How do you include the materiality of site and add new objects? How do you deal with the testimonies and memories imbedded in these sites? How is the cross field between the spatial and the narrative about the past handled? How is the spatial used in the museum's mediation regarding architecture, aesthetics and communication?

We have invited curators from different museums on site in Europe and Denmark and researchers from the faculty research program Uses of the Past working with museums to give papers and discuss. Many of the papers deal with difficult pasts and present issues about mobility and migration.

Program

10:00-10.15: Coffee/tea and welcome by Jan Ifversen, director of Uses of the Past Aarhus University

10:15-10:45: Jean-Francois Manicom, curator at the International Slavery Museum Liverpool: "Curating the Unspeakable: The Case of Slavery"

10:45-11:15: Mette Bjerrum Jensen, director of Tirpitz Blåvand: “The adventurous exhibition as the key to understand landscape and history. Giving tourists a sense of place on the west coast of Denmark”

11:15-11:30: Break 

11:30-12:00: Ingeborg Svennevig, director of Museums of Cultural History Holstebro: ”The site specific museum – using the past in community development”

12:00-13:00: Lunch

13:00-13:30: Simone Eick, director of the German Emigration Center Bremerhaven: “A theme museum at a historical site and its role in the present migration debate”

13:30-14:00: Mette Thunø, associate professor at China Studies Aarhus University: “Making sense of mobility and belonging in Asian and European on-site museums of emigration"

14:00-14:15: Break

14:15-14.45: Per Dahl, associate professor at Comparative Literature Aarhus University: “Author’s House – A Frozen Structure?”

14:45-15:15: Ton Otto, professor at Anthropology Aarhus University and head of the Ethnographic Collections at Moesgaard Museum: “Curating a new ethnographic museum”

15:15-16:00: Discussion and wrapping up

Practical information

The seminar takes place at Aarhus University, Nobelparken building 1451-225.

The seminar is free of charge and includes lunch and light refreshments morning and afternoon. For practical reasons, you need to register here no later than January 7 2018.

If you have any questions regarding the seminar please contact coordinator of Uses of the Past Anne Brædder (anne.braedder@cas.au.dk)