The consumption of communism: Changing representations of Statue Park Museum and Budapest

Abstract

Abstract Statue Park Museum created on the outskirts of Budapest is a symbol of the changing times in Eastern and Central Europe. It exemplifies how cultural meaning can alter in response to ideological representations and memory of the communist era, ‘silent revolution’ and the new reality of post-communist ‘freedom’. The Park is an intriguing site of decommissioned public statuary that theoretically can be interpreted as an overlap of modernist and postmodernist discourses of the public sphere. It encourages identification by a range of publics and viewer gazes offering ambiguity and irony. There is a redefinition of space as commercial interest offering particular ‘privatist’ discourses severed from reference to the past, echoing changes in the political economy of Hungary. Much ambivalence has been created by post-communist agendas, the reconstruction of history and related notions of heritage. This is considered in light of the rebranding of Budapest in relation to national and civic identity, underpinned by neo-liberal discourse.