l Migrating Heritage: Experiences of Cultural Networks and Cultural Dialogue in Europe

Migrating heritage: experiences of cultural networks and cultural dialogue in Europe

Perla Innocenti, 2014. Ashgate Publishing Limited ISBN 978-1-4724-2281-1, £63, 332PP, Hardback

Emily Mark-FitzGerald

‘Migrating Heritage: Experiences of Cultural Networks and Cultural Dialogue in Europe’ is one of the published outputs of the European Commission-funded project MeLa –European Museums in an Age of Migrations (2011-2015). MeLa is designed as ‘an interdisciplinary programme aimed at analysing the role of museums in the contemporary multi-cultural context, characterized by an augmented migration of people and ideas, and identifying innovative practices and strategies in order to foster their evolution’ (http://www.mela-project.eu). More precisely, the project has posited the concept of migration ‘as a paradigm of the contemporary global and multicultural world. The main objective of the MeLa project is to define innovative museum practices that reflect the challenges of the contemporary processes of globalisation, mobility and migration’

The project has involved the participation of nine European partners – unfortunately (and perhaps surprisingly) none of them Irish – and six research fields: (1) Museums and Identity in History and Contemporaneity; (2) Cultural Memory, Migrating Modernity and Museum Practices; (3) Network of Museums, Libraries and Public Cultural Institutions; (4) Cultural and Artistic Research; (5) Exhibition Design, Technology of Representation and Experimental Actions; and (6) Envisioning 21st Century Museums. The length and extent of the full MeLa project has generated many published proceedings and research outcomes, most of which is freely available from its website. As a consequence, some readers may be disinclined to purchase this edited volume, which is very similar in nature and content, and has been generated from the third research field.

undoubtedly the MeLa project has been a major milestone in the study of contemporary museology and cultural heritage, and its research outcomes offer kaleidoscopic perspectives into current European conceptualisations of migration and cultural politics. The intersection of migration and the GLAM sector (galleries, libraries, archives and museums) has attracted significant attention over the past decade, framed by numerous policy initiatives, conferences and symposia at a European level in the domains of cultural heritage, diversity and policy – managed and promoted by uNESCO, Council of Europe, the International Organisation on Migration, and innumerable national and transnational cultural networks. Indeed the metaphor of the ‘network’ functions as a core concept for the collection, which proposes that the ‘network’ offers both a theoretical model better suited to the cross-territorial nature of migration and its heritage, as well as a functional mechanism

that allows for institutional and community collaborations supporting exhibitions, digital projects, and other cultural initiatives.

The book itself constitutes the published proceedings of the MeLa conference ‘Migrating Heritage: networks and collaborations across European museums, libraries and public cultural institutions’, held in Glasgow in December 2012. As its introduction notes, the concept of ‘migrating heritage… encompasses not only the migration and mobility of post-colonial artefacts, but also migration of people, technologies and disciplines, crossing boundaries and joining forces in cultural networks and partnerships to address new emerging challenges of social inclusion, cultural dialogue, new models of cultural identity, citizenship and national belonging’ Furthermore the editor posits that European cultural institutions are increasingly turning away from presenting forms of nationalism, towards a fluid engagement with ‘unbound identities’ unrestricted to singular territories or categories of heritage.

Despite some initial problematizing of the concept, the notion of a ‘common European culture’ or public sphere persists as a framing device throughout the Introduction, if not the volume which follows, which often reverts to nation-specific examples and experiences. As the editor observes, ‘this seems to be an Eu top-down policy agenda, whose priorities seems to lack effective feedback mechanisms into civil society.’ This is undoubtedly true, yet the Introduction’s exhortation to move ‘beyond Eu rhetoric’ is unevenly achieved. The shadow of European policy-speak looms large over the text of the Introduction (‘triangulating and enriching the first volume’s initial findings’), and the general reader may soon be flummoxed by the proliferation of ‘transnationalisms’, ‘hybridisations’, ‘transversalities’, ‘translocalisms’, and other metaphors of indeterminancy.

Arranged as a sequence of twenty-four short contributions, the volume offers a diversity of case studies of museum, library and heritage initiatives. Given the brevity of each essay, they are more often useful as signposts to additional reading and projects, than as substantial engagements with the topic at hand. As with collections of this kind, the contributions vary significantly in quality and presentation –some merely two to three pages long, others brief summations of concluded exhibitions or projects.

The most compelling of these contributions include Alexander Badenoch’s elegantly written reflection on the iconicity of a photograph of an itinerant salesman of Singer sewing machine in Finland, relating it to his own experience managing the ‘Inventing Europe’ project, a collaboration between an academic network and cultural heritage institutions, which examined the relationship between technology and European identities. Sharon MacDonald’s reflection on the limits of ‘migrating heritage’ usefully problematizes the concept via a brief discussion of Islamic heritage in European museums, pointing to how the aesthetic has, in some cases, negatively functioned as anaesthetic. Andrew Dewdney and Victoria Walsh’s contribution on ‘Postcritical Museology’ offers an excellent summation of their conceptually and methodologically sophisticated research project ‘Tate Encounters: Britishness and Visual Cultures’, which addressed ‘the

formation and impact of uk cultural diversity policy, narratives of Britishness and curatorial practices at Tate Britain, and the expanded field of contemporary visual culture generated through new media’. A series of essays by Francesca Lanz, Guido Vaglio, Frauke Miera and Lorraine Bluche also bring together discussions of European city museums in Italy and Germany, and their approaches to exhibiting and collecting diverse urban histories.

Of particular interest to an Irish audience may be the description of the process behind ‘On Their Own – Britain’s Child Migrants’, a travelling exhibition on child migration from the 1860s – 1960s organized by the Australian National Maritime Museum and the Merseyside Maritime Museum in Liverpool. Developed in a politically sensitive climate, it offers insight into the challenge of representing institutional abuse and a range of perspectives on a contested history that is still part of living memory. As with all of MeLa’s publications to date, this collection is testament to the innovative and sophisticated approaches of European museums on the subject of migration and globalisation, at varying scales and localities. As an introduction to the application of network theory to museum practice, it provides useful starting points easily transferable beyond the subject of migration. Although suffering somewhat from a recourse to European policy determinism and jargon in its initial framing, and not as consistently developed as MeLa’s other engagements with the project’s themes, its wide range of contributions ensure a lively (if variable) degree of interest and content.

Dr Emily Mark-FitzGerald is a Lecturer at the School of Art History & Cultural Policy in University College Dublin.