European Museums Research Articles

Bison bonasus bonasus as a museum exhibit in the 18th – early 20th centuries

The paper discusses the Białowieża bison (Bison bonasus bonasus) as a museum exhibit in the 18th – early 20th centuries, basing on the analysis of archival documents, mainly from St. Petersburg. One of the last remnants of extinct megafauna once roaming through Europe, by the Early Modern time it had been eliminated in the most part of its previous range. In the 16th–18th century, it had the status of a natural curiosity and an exclusively royal game. In the 18th century, the carcasses of the European bison from the imperial menageries went into the cabinets of curiosities where they became the objects of study for naturalists. By the late 18th century, the last population of the European lowland bison had survived in Białowieża Primeval Forest, which became a part of the Russian Empire with the Third partition of Poland. The attention of the Imperial family, which preserved the system of protection of the European bison and the forest where they lived, ensured the survival of the species till WWI. The development of zoology and zoological collections provided a new status to the Białowieża bison – the status of a valuable gift of the Russian Tsar to a scientific community. To receive such a precious gift, a scientific community had to use its diplomatic and bureaucratic channels, to recruit a naturalist willing to travel to Białowieża, to organize a hunt, to process the skin and bones, and finally, to deliver this massive package to a museum. Nevertheless, throughout the second half of the 19th century, most requests made by European and Russian naturalists were granted and the majority of zoological museums received the European bison from Białowieża, either in form of a stuffed animal, a skeleton, or at least a skull. The transformation of the 17–18th century Kunstkammern into research zoological institutions and the development of taxidermy went in parallel with the transformation of the European bison as a museum exhibit. Stuffed animals became anatomically accurate; new expositions included habitat groups, and some institutions amassed extensive collections for comparative study. The presence of the European bison almost in every major European museum made them well known for wider public. In 1919, the last Białowieża bison was killed in the wild, but the popularity of this species helped the restitution of the animal. Nowadays, the “old” specimens are of interest not only from a historical point of view, but also as a source of samples for genetic research.

Notes on the genera Paederidus Mulsant & Rey, 1878, Paederus Fabricius, 1775 and Uncopaederus Korge, 1969 from the Palearctic Region (Coleoptera: Staphylinidae: Paederinae)

The genera Paederidus Mulsant & Rey, 1878, Paederus Fabricius, 1775 and Uncopaederus Korge, 1969 comprise 117 species in the Palearctic Region. In the present study, new and additional distribution data for 16 species of the genera Paederidus , Paederus and Uncopaederus are reported from different countries of the Palearctic Region. The material examined was collected between 1884 and 2017; and contained types and additional specimens in European museums and Alaşehir Zoological Museum. Among them, six species are the first country records: Albania (1), Bosnia Herzegovina (2), Israel (1), Kazakhstan (1), Macedonia (1), Montenegro (2), Morocco (1). In addition, Uncopaederus signiventris (Smetana, 1962) is illustrated. Two synonymies are proposed: Paederus littoralis Gravenhorst, 1802 = Paederus pelikani Reitter, 1884 syn. n., = Paederus littoralis ilsae Bernhauer, 1932 syn. n.

Notes on the genus Astenus Dejean, 1833 from the Palearctic Region (Coleoptera: Staphylinidae: Paederinae)

The genus Astenus Dejean, 1833 (Coleoptera: Staphylinidae: Paederinae) contains more than 200 species in the Palearctic Region. In this paper, new and additional distributional data concerning 20 species of the genus Astenus in the Palearctic Region are presented. The studied material has been collected between 1928-2016 and also contained the types and additional specimens from some European museums. Among them nine species are first country records: Armenia (1), Azerbaijan (1), Bulgaria (2), Bosnia Herzegovina (1), France (1), Iraq (2), Israel (1), Syria (2), Kazakhstan (2), Turkey (1) and Turkmenistan (4). Besides, the original specimens of Astenus rufopacus Reitter, 1909 have been studied, the lectotype designated, the species redescribed and illustrated.

Shared Inuit Culture: European Museums and Arctic Communities

Since the 1980s, museum professionals have increasingly committed to sharing collections with the descendants of people and communities from whom the collected artifacts originated. As late as the 1970s, Indigenous people were not considered stakeholders in the collection and exhibition of their own cultural artifacts. Recently, however, exemplary cases of collection sharing have occurred in North American and European museums. Museums have become “contact zones” as issues of decolonization have come to the fore. This article discusses the sharing of material culture and “double” position of anthropological museums, rooted in their own (colonial) history but in possession of another’s culture. Ownership issues, access, and ethics are important for local communities but not always easy for museums to negotiate. This article describes thirteen examples of collaborative partnerships between museums, for the most part large, urban, European, postcolonial institutions, and Arctic Indigenous communities. I argue that open communication, collection research, and an increasing level of co-curation are prerequisites for changes in museum practice, and these changes will benefit both the institutions and the communities involved.

Das archäologische Museum „Berestje“. Die Geschichte der Musealisierung der archäologischen Stätte und die aktuelle Museumsentwicklung

The Berestye Archaeological Museum, a branch of the Brest Museum of Regional Studies (Brest, Republic of Belarus‘), is the only museum in Europe where an archaeological site with perfectly preserved 13th-century wooden buildings of an East Slavic town are exhibited. The discovery of the medieval town of Berestye was the result of large-scale excavations carried out in 1969–1981 and in 1988 under the guidance of Professor Piotr Lysenko. The characteristics of the wet cultural layer made it possible to preserve more than 220 wooden buildings and more than 43,000 objects of organic and inorganic origin. The long-term process of preserving wooden constructions was the first experience in the conservation and museumisation of such objects in the field.

Gazetteer of oil and gas museums in Europe

Gazetteer of oil and gas museums in Europe

Gazetteer of oil and gas museums in Europe

Gazetteer of oil and gas museums in Europe

Europeanization in Regional Museums?

European museums have undergone major changes in recent decades, mirroring many of the social and cultural processes taking place in Europe. Two of the main issues that have shaped the public discourse concerning cultural heritage are that of democratization and civil participation, both of which have not only mobilized policies but also redefined musealized heritage. At the same time, a ‘new museology’ approach, where heritage is understood as a dynamic construct, shared and interpreted by communities rather than monopolized by external authorities, has inspired many museums to rethink their visions and programs. While heritage democratization processes may be found both in the Lund and Tarnów museums, there are considerable differences between the two of them. The article examines these with the use of several concepts from core civilizational ideas such as: utility, progress, dignity, democratic governance and inclusion. In both cases, heritage is used to support the present political legacy: in the Swedish case, the emphasis is openly put on diversity and civil empowerment, whereas in Tarnów the narrative of past glory overwhelms other aspects of the past. Nevertheless, it is the European concept of the ‘person’ which stands behind both of them, however vague and complex its conceptualization may be.

The Borders of Europe A Roundtable Discussion

In response to the theme, The Borders of Europe, guest editors Sjoukje van der Meulen and Nathalie Zonnenberg invited four players in the cultural field to discuss the borders of Europe and the role of art and culture within the European project since 1992. All four participants in the discussion organize cultural projects that center on or are related to Europe. In 2016 Yoeri Albrecht organized the first edition of the biannual Forum on European Culture in De Balie with DutchCulture. The forum offers thinkers and artists a platform to imagine the idea of Europe. In 2017, with Gijs Frieling and twenty artists, Valentijn Byvanck co-curated a joint artwork at Marres, The Painted Bird: Dreams and Nightmares of Europe. It involved painting 750 square meters of the historic building’s surface area, and was accompanied by a soundtrack. Hedwig Fijen is director of the European Biennial of Contemporary Art, Manifesta, which she founded in 1996; an exhibition that explores the changing DNA of the European climate, together with the underlying geopolitical and sociopolitical agenda, from the perspective of art and culture. Every two years the roving biennial takes place in a different location in Europe: from Rotterdam in 1996 to Zurich in 2016. Manifesta opens in Palermo in June 2018. Finally, Steven ten Thije is the project leader of the platform The Uses of Art – The Legacy of 1848 and 1989 (2013–2018), initiated by L’Internationale, a confederation of six European museums for modern and contemporary art. L’Internationale proposes a space for art within a non-hierarchical and decentralized internationalism, based on the values of difference and horizontal exchange among a constellation of cultural agents. With exhibitions, symposia, publications, education programs, and staff exchanges, L’Internationale seeks to foster a substantive, long-term partnership in the museum world.

Mapping future energy demands for European museums

Abstract In this paper we present a methodology for simulating and mapping energy needs for European museums for the recent past, near future 2021–2050 and far future 2071–2100. This approach consists of four recent developments: Firstly, climates files. The availability of the hourly based, European, external future A1B climate data from the European FP7 Climate for Culture project. Secondly, classification. An energy-based classification system of museums based on the quality of the building envelope and systems, representing wide ranges of museums. The latter consisted of 16 different museums equal to all combinations of four levels of building construction and four levels of climate control. Thirdly, building performance simulation. A multi-zone building energy and indoor climate model with a proved record of simulating a wide range of buildings, including museums. Seven performance indicators were used: The mean indoor temperature; the mean indoor relative humidity; the mean heating demand; the mean cooling demand; the mean humidification demand; the mean dehumidification demand; the total energy demand. Fourthly, a mapping tool. We used a mapping tool to produce European maps for sixteen museum types and five 30-year periods: recent past, near future, far future, near future minus recent past and far future minus recent past. The most important mapping results are included and discussed in this paper.

Changes in eggshell thickness and ultrastructure in the Bearded Vulture (Gypaetus barbatus) Pyrenean population: A long-term analysis

The Spanish Bearded Vulture (Gypaetus barbatus) population has suffered from negative trends in a number of reproductive parameters that could jeopardize its long-term viability. From 1989 to 2012, 27 entire eggs and 63 eggshell fragments were collected from nests after breeding failure and/or fledging. Longer-term changes in eggshell thickness were made by examining 69 eggs collected in Spain from 1858 to 1911, and now held in European museums. Low levels of contamination with organochlorine pesticides and polychlorinated biphenyls were found in whole eggs and in conjunction with the high fertility rates observed in the field (66.7%) do not indicate a population suffering from the effects of organochlorine contamination. However, a decrease in the Ratcliffe Index and eggshell thickness were observed in eggs collected since 2001, increasingly so in samples post-2004, indicating an abrupt loss of egg quality. We found no significant relationship between organochlorine residues and eggshell in any of the variables measured. In contrast, we found a positive relationship between food availability and the Ratcliffe Index, eggshell thickness and eggshell surface area. A density-dependent explanation of reduced egg quality could arise from ecological constraints as the decrease of food resources. The impact of sudden changes in food availability due to sanitary regulations between 2006 and 2011 could be related with the loss of Bearded Vulture egg quality.

Full Access to Cultural Spaces (FACS): Mapping and evaluating museum access services using mobile eye-tracking technology

Abstract The present paper aims to present significant results stemming from the FACS (Full Access to Cultural Spaces) project, launched in 2014 by the University of Macerata and concluded in 2016. In particular, this paper reports on stages one and two of the FACS project which aimed first to explore the state of the art of universal access services across a large variety of museums in Italy and nine other EU countries. Based on the first stage, an analysis of some of the most significant data obtained from a questionnaire sent out to over 1,200 European museums will be presented, with a special focus on multilingual devices and access services for the sensory impaired. The first stage was followed by an eye-tracking study on an Italian museum, Turin’s Museo Nazionale del Cinema (National Cinema Museum), aimed at evaluating visitors’ experience, attitudes and patterns of fruition through a test with a portable eye tracker (Tobii Pro Glasses 2, 50 Hz). Based on this second stage, the fruition of information panels by museum visitors at the Museo Nazionale del Cinema will be explored, specifically focusing on reading patterns and behaviours.

Looking back ahead: a short history of collaborative work with indigenous source communities at the Weltmuseum Wien

Abstract In the last few years, collaborating with representatives of indigenous communities became an important topic for European ethnographic museums. The Weltmuseum Wien (former Museum of Ethnology Vienna, Austria) adheres to this form of sharing cultural heritage. Its Brazilian collection offers rich opportunities to back up Amazonian cultures in their struggle for cultural survival. However, to establish collaborative work in a European museum on a sustained basis is still a difficult endeavor. The article will discuss the projects which have been realized during the past five years with several groups from Amazonia, such as the Warí, Kanoé, Makushí, Shipibo and Sateré-Mawé. Projects were carried out in Austria, Brazil, and Guyana and ranged from short visit to longer periods of co-curating an exhibition. As for the Museum, results are documented in the collection, in two exhibitions and in the accompanying catalogues. It is less clear what the indigenous communities might take away from such collaborations. It will be argued that museum collaborations can help establish a new contact zone, ‘indoors’ and ‘outdoors’, in which members of heritage communities are able to break through the silence in the old contact zone and finally make their own voices heard.

Towards the resolution of long-standing issues regarding birds collected during the Baudin expedition to Australia and Timor (1800–1804): specimens still present, and their importance to Australian ornithology

Abstract This paper is a follow-up to Jansen 2014 and Jansen 2016b. There are 228 Australian bird specimens preserved in European museums today, collected in 1801–1803 during the expedition commanded by Nicolas Baudin to Australia and Timor. No less than 397 specimens accumulated during the Baudin expedition still survive. The Australian bird collection made during and preserved from the Baudin expedition was the most significant up to that time, though subsequently surpassed by the collecting activities of John Gilbert (1838–1845), John Gould (1838–1840) and Jules Verreaux (1842–1852). The Baudin Timor (Moluccas) collection is likewise notable in size, with 117 bird specimens still preserved; it was the first collecting executed by Westerners and subsequently brought back to Europe, later surpassed by the collecting activities of Salomon Müller (1828–1829), Alfred Wallace (1858–1861) and Heinrich Bernstein (1860–1864). In this article, I present data on Baudin specimens in Europe’s oldest museum collections. I also traced other birds collected in Australia from the second half of the 18th century and first decade of the 19th century. I furthermore comment on the possible sources of some material, whether the specimens are still in existence, and finally, the importance of the Baudin expedition for Australian ornithology.

Caribbean Collections in European Museums and the Question of Returns

Abstract:Since 2014, when the Caribbean Community officially launched its claim against former European colonial powers for reparations for slavery and native genocide, there has been a renewed interest in the question of cultural reparations and, more specifically, Caribbean cultural objects located in European museums. Yet information about such material remains scarce; there have been no formal claims for returns, and the legal status of Caribbean collections in European museums is anything but clear. This article aims to address these issues. First, we sketch the profile of Caribbean archaeological collections located in European museums to shed light on their nature and provenance. On this basis, we then move on to analyzing the legal status of such collections in light of international law, before discussing the broader political and ethical framework of returns and the role of cultural cooperation in reparatory justice for the Caribbean more generally.

The birth of the memory of Communism: memorial museums in Europe

This article argues that the memory of Communism emerged in Europe not due to the public recognition of pre-given historical experiences of peoples previously under Communist regimes, but to the particularities of the post-Cold War transnational political context. As a reaction to the uniqueness claim of the Holocaust in the power field structured by the European enlargement process, Communism memory was reclaimed according to the European normative and value system prescribed by the memory of the Holocaust. Since in the political context of European enlargement refusing to cultivate the memory of the Holocaust was highly illegitimate, the memory of Communism was born as the “twin brother” of Holocaust memory. The Europeanized memory of Communism produced a legitimatedifferentia specificaof the newcomers in relation to old member states. It has been publicly reclaimed as an Eastern European experience in relation to universal Holocaust memory perceived as Western. By the analysis of memorial museums of Communism, the article provides a transnational, historical, and sociological account on Communism memory. It argues that the main elements of the discursive repertoire applied in post-accession political debates about the definition of Europe were elaborated before 2004 in a pan-European way.

The Foreign in the Familiar, or The Other in the Own. Africa and Images of the Other in the Dresden State Art Collection

Many European museums hold unusual, «hybrid» objects from various periods and areas of the world that reflect images of the Other. The collections of both European and non-Western art belonging to the Staatliche Kunstsammlungen Dresden, Germany, include very early evidence of perception of the Other going back as far as the 16th century. Using a number of examples from Dresden ranging in date from this early period down to the 20thcentury, and by adopting a different vantage point and hence a change in perspective, this paper attempts to consider and re-evaluate social and cultural foreignness and Otherness and to elucidate its ambivalent and ambiguous relationship with the Own and the Self. The multiple layers of meaning inherent in the museum-held cultural objects which are influenced by or related to the «foreign», or have a hybrid appearance, can, when viewed from a different historical and locational perspective, contribute to our understanding of intracultural and also intercultural distance and connection, identities and intentions, realities and constructions, and thus provide a better understanding of transcultural processes.

How can European museums reach sustainability?

PurposeThis research aims to provide evidence of the impacts of market orientation, customer value approach (through prestige, value for money and reputation for quality) and innovation on museum sustainability.Design/methodology/approachThe model is analysed through partial least squares (PLS-SEM), using a sample of 549 European museums.FindingsThe results reveal that reputation for quality, prestige, innovation and value for money positively and significantly influence museum sustainability. Interestingly, the most meaningful linkage is between market orientation and innovation.Practical implicationsThis research helps museums that need to increase their customer value and innovativeness so as to ensure museum sustainability. It proves that museum managers have to increase employees’ involvement in decision-making processes.Originality/valueBy using a wide sample of European museums, this study suggests that museum managers need to consider the impact of marketing strategies and customer value perceptions on the economic and social sustainability of museums.

Modern directions of development of external scientific communication of natural historical museums

Based on the study of the experience of the leading natural historical museums in Europe and the analysis of publications, directions for the development of external scientific communication of contemporary museums of this profile are generalized. The main forms of communication are main and temporary exhibitions, Internet (social networks, blogs, websites), access to collections and cooperation with a specialized museum audience (scientists, students), events for children and adults, seminars, lectures, workshops, excursions to nature аnd lessons.

Mobile science museums and centres and their history in the public communication of science

In this paper, we identify some milestones in the construction process for mobile science museums and centres in Brazil. As background for presenting the Brazilian context, we initially address the records found on the earliest travelling museum exhibitions and mobile museums in Europe and North America. We then introduce the role of UNESCO in the promotion and implementation of travelling science exhibitions and museums in several countries. Finally, we document important events in the history of mobile science museum and centres in Brazil and outline three general and inter-related challenges currently faced by them.