Nicole Deufel's Blog

You know that you’ve been to a fantastic conference when it stays with you for some time afterwards. That is the case with me and the recently ended Interpret Europe conference on ‘Engaging with diversity’. I would like to share some impressions, ranging from the conference location to papers to a General Assembly that has made me proud to be a member.

Sarajevo, Bosnia and Herzegovina: A place I won’t forget

It was an absolute masterstroke to hold a conference on diversity in Sarajevo. Coming from Germany, where some still think it necessary to discuss whether or not Islam is part of our nation, it was amazing to see so many mosques right alongside synagogues and churches – the European Jerusalem indeed. The war was also ever present, not only in the bullet holes in the buildings, but also in what our Bosnian hosts shared with us. It seemed to me an example of where diversity had ceased to exist comfortably together, not because of people, as we were told, but because of politics. It raised questions about dealing with national trauma and achieving reconciliation, not the least in places like the Museum of Crimes Against Humanity and Genocide, where it turned out one of the founders and our tour guide had been a prisoner of war himself. Sarajevo was perfect for this conference precisely because it isn’t a perfect example of diversity in harmony. It provided, however, a perfect opportunity to discuss what interpretation at heritage sites and in museums should be and what it should strive to achieve in this context.

To our hosts, I would like to extend another heartfelt ‘Thank you!’

Four truths as the foundation of interpretation

Anne and Rachel Ketz of the US American 106 Group ltd reported on their application to interpretation of the four truths that the Truth and Reconciliation Commission of South Africa used. It was one of those instances when you wonder why you’d not thought of this yourself before. I have since scanned the relevant report and can only recommend it to. The four truths are factual or forensic truth, that is the classic Western idea of objective facts, which are established through forensic checks and cross-checks. Then there is personal and narrative truth, which is not about ‘arguments or claims in a court of law’ (report, p. 112), but about giving voice to those who have been silenced before. Social or ‘dialogue’ truth is almost quintessentially agonistic: it is about making ‘a conscious effort to provide an environment in which all possible views could be considered and weighed, one against the other’ (ibid, p. 113). It is, in essence, about listening. The final truth is healing and restorative truth. This is centrally about acknowledgement, for ‘often the basic facts about what happened are already known, at least by those who were affected. What is critical is that these facts be fully and publicly acknowledged’ (ibid, p. 114). Importantly, healing and restorative truth also looks forward into the future, seaking to establish a foundation from which a society can truly move forward.

Anne and Rachel’s presentation has made it abundantly clear that these four truths are a perfect tool in interpretive planning processes.

Checking values to make visible difference and commonalities

I will confess that I’ve been dubious about Interpret Europe’s focus on European values for the past few years. However, a workshop led by Patrick Lehnes and Peter Seccombe has persuaded me that there is more to it than I allowed. An exercise which had us check our values in a group, and imagine a group different from us doing the same, convinced me that here was a tool that could be usefully employed to establish both difference and commonality between two groups, and a starting point for discussion. This struck me as particularly helpful when considering feedback as part of The Promised Land project, where language tutors reported discussions on values such as family between them and new arrivals. What is family to us? How do we express our values in this regard? This exercise might give structure to such shared cultural explorations.

A General Assembly to inspire

Unfortunately, there had been some friction between Interpret Europe’s management and the previous Supervisory Committee prior to this conference. Tempers ran high, and there was every chance that the General Assembly might descend into a fiasco. No such thing happened. Instead what I was privileged to witness was a mature organisation handle itself admirably. We had an excellent chair in Peter Seccombe from the UK, who guided us through the sometimes uncomfortable points of the agenda with a steady hand. In fellow founding member Michael Glen from Scotland we had someone who, when things might have gone astray, immediately set us on the right course by suggesting a way forward rather than a harmful look back. As another fellow founding member of Interpret Europe said, perhaps because we were – I was – there when it all began for the organisation, we/I deeply care about this organisation today. After this conference, and having seen a management under shameful attack carry itself with such inspiring integrity, I am not only convinced of Interpret Europe’s continued growth. I am once again persuaded that Interpret Europe is in fact at the forefront of developing our discipline of interpretation and exploring issues that are relevant to it today. I am honoured to be a member, and if you are not a member already, you really should consider becoming one. Things are happening. Be a part of it.

Members of staff have recently returned from the last of the training weeks that are part of The Promised Land project on inclusion of refugees and migrants through cultural practice. One of them reported on a method of facilitation that was used throughout the week, which she called ‘Deep Democracy’. She described it as a powerful tool to bring awareness to the project group and increase their sense of unity. I was intrigued.

A brief search on the internet brought me across this definition of Deep Democracy by the Deep Democracy Institute: ‘Deep Democracy is the experience of a process of flow in which all actors on the stage are needed to create the play that is being watched.’

If you’ve been reading this blog for a while, you will know that I belong to the school of thought that understands heritage as fluid and in a constant process of change negotiated between different actors and environmental and contextual factors. You may see, then, why this definition of Deep Democracy immediately struck a chord with me.

The Institute’s website continues to explain that, ‘Deep Democracy [fosters] a deeper level of dialogue and inclusiveness that makes space for all people … as well as all various and competing views, tensions, feelings, and styles of communication – in a way that supports awareness of relative rank, power, and privilege, and the potential of these forces to marginalize other views, individuals, and groups.’

In other words, Deep Democracy as described here is an agonistic practice. You will remember my review on this blog of Chantal Mouffe’s concept of ‘agonistic public spaces’, where views that are generally obscured by the dominant consensus are made visible, and conflicting views presented and given room. I have suggested that interpretation should be agonistic in this sense, and that it should aim to make visible the wider representational dynamics in society and history. Agonistics provides the philosophical foundation for such an interpretive approach. Since writing that first blog post about agonistic heritage interpretation, I have thought about different methods to turn the theory into practice.

Deep Democracy seems just one such method that is perfectly suited to agonistic interpretive practice. In an article on Bringing Deep Democracy to Life, Amy Mindell, whose husband Arnold coined the concept of Deep Democracy, explains that Deep Democracy is rooted in process-oriented psychology. She suggests that each process has an inherent wisdom. This wisdom, however, can only manifest itself when all experiences brought into the process are allowed to unfold and become visible. A group also has a process, and this is at the heart of the idea of worldwork. It applies process-oriented psychology to a group, effectively trying to make visible all group members’ experiences in the process. This avoids that feelings and experiences remain active in a hidden field, which nonetheless will have considerable influence over the outcome of the group process.

The central aspect here is awareness. From what I understand, this is often an awareness of body signals as a key to underlying feelings, but also an awareness of languge and content. Much as in Bhabha’s idea of the ‘Third Space’, in which the progress of modernity is halted and shown as staged, in Deep Democracy as a method of facilitation the process is stopped to further explore these signals and make visible what they stand for.

In so doing, Deep Democracy also examines the different roles that people inhabit, often unconsciously. Mindell points out that people don’t necessarily always stay in one role even during a conversation, but that they can change roles also. This gives fluidity to a process which, if consciously employed, can unlock its creativity, for example toward moving an issue forward. However, like agonism, Deep Democracy does not believe that conflict can or should always be resolved in order for people to live together successfully. Rather, it accepts conflict as natural and finds a way to move on constructively in mutual respect and with empathy nonetheless.

The application of Deep Democracy to personal interpretation is obvious. Whenever we as interpreters are in a room with other people, we can use Deep Democracy to facilitate the shared creation of heritage, while tackling issues of power and hegemony. What I am not so sure about yet is how Deep Democracy can be used in non-personal interpretation beyond working with heritage communities at the beginning. I wonder if there is something in Deep Democracy that we can use in a dynamic and transformative way for people also as an infrastructure on site. Let me mediate on that some more.

A few days ago, the German Museum Association published guidelines on visitor research, which I was honoured to contribute to. This experience of thinking specifically about the aims and advantages of doing visitor research then combined with another recent experience to further sharpen a thought that’s been with me for some time about what museums are and what they are for.

At the beginning of March, we hosted ‘The Promised Land’ project partners for the training week in Germany. We are the only museums participating in the project, and it quickly became clear that we needed a session on establishing what defined a museum in the partners’ minds. Their responses covered the whole range, from the classic (‘a place to learn/see things from the past’) to the more contemporary (‘a place to meet/discuss with others our present and future’) and the highly discourse-driven (‘a place where Western hegemonies still dominate and must be challenged!’).

I could not dismiss any of the definitions the partners gave, and not just because I know them to be highly educated and experienced culture experts. I realised in my subsequent conversations with them that I was qualifying my responses, noting that in such and such a case, yes, a museum may be that, but in another case, it may be this.

The point is, I have always argued that with regards to understanding heritage (values), and planning and implementing interpretation, we must start with visitor research. What I have always thought, but until now never really considered important enough to add to my arguments, is that visitor research also establishes what purpose a specific museum serves. These purposes can be very different depending on the type of heritage the museum deals with and the reasons for which that heritage is valued.

This by no means is to suggest that we now need new discourses for each individual type of museum, on the contrary. Where there are parallels these are unlikely to follow the distinctions between local history museums, national heritage sites, and art museums – at least, that is what the visitor studies I have done or read seem to suggest. Rather, the equivalences probably revolve around people’s existing relationships with the heritage in question, in other words, the values they attach to it.

Such a definition of a museum’s purpose based on visitor research and not its institutional organisation and structure necessarily also has an impact on wider topics that are currently being debated within the sector, such as inclusion and visitor focus. Inclusion, for example, will take on a different quality, and require a different approach, in a context where the subject-matter of a museum is related to (local or national) identity than in a context where it is valued for aesthetic reasons. Acknowledging this on the discursive level may help prevent the ‘one size fits all’ approach to some of these topics, and their all-encompassing rejection by those who – rightly or wrongly – feel these approaches would not be appropriate to their heritage or museum.

Either way, when I was recently asked to present a short talk at the spring conference of the Museum Association of Mecklenburg-West Pomerania on the topic of visitor research, I decided to explore this connection to the purposes of museums further. The conference takes place next week; I shall report back on comments.

At work, we have just completed an architectural design competition. What makes a good design for a museum building has consequently been on my mind for quite some time.

Of course, to a large degree, the answer depends on the case in question. There are certain requirements that are unique to each project, stemming for example from spatial or financial circumstances. In our case, we are dealing with a seriously constrained building plot set right beside a busy road. The plot is further compromised by an underground car park which poses considerable challenges for the structural engineer. In addition, there are existing buildings that any new built needs to connect with in a seemless way, supporting also their respective function. In our case, therefore, there are certain pre-conditions that the building must meet before it can be considered good in any more abstract sense.

This isn’t very flashy. It is a question of deliverability and dry functionality that extends further to matters of toilets, storage rooms, delivery access and the ability to regulate light and temperature conditions in exhibition galleries. And yet, as anyone will tell you who has ever worked in a museum building whose architecture was not driven by functionality but architectural vanity instead: this matters. A lot. Before we can even begin thinking about anything else, we must absolutely ensure that the museum can function properly within its architectural frame [1].

I have, however, been thinking as well about what, in my opinion and not based on any scientific study, makes a good museum building once its functionality has been secured. Personally, I do enjoy buildings that in their own right turn a visit into an experience. For me, that means grand, elaborate structures. For example, I love the Naturhistorisches Museum Wien with its extended façade and the fantastically impressive grand staircase. The café is simply spectacular in a high-ceilinged, ornately decorated circular space. The building itself is a piece of architectural art that has an impact on my senses: much like a good exhibition itself.

On the other hand, I am well aware that to many people such grandeur feels intimidating. Rather than promise an exciting experience, they feel threatened and put-off. And it is true: most of these museums, built mostly in the 19^th century, offer nothing in the way of transparency. They are fairly closed-off temples that more often than not require you to climb steep stairs to arrive at a narrow set of doors that reveals nothing about what is inside. You have to pluck up the courage and often quite literally enter into the dark unknown. This is decidedly not ideal when we are seeking to diversify audiences – at least not without additional effort.

So, despite my personal preference, I have become an advocate for museum buildings that open out into their environments: glass foyers on the ground floor, clear lines of sight from the outside in, an open view (or announcement) of what can be seen and done inside. This takes down the first barrier.

Inside, I still like spectacular spaces, based on my belief that people of all walks of life, once they feel that this is their space as well, do enjoy what is grand and stunning – much like people enjoy the Grand Canyon. It is all about the atmosphere that is being created: grand and stunning does not necessitate an exclusive, elitist feel.

Recently, I have come to think of another architectural element that to me makes a good museum building: spaces, even rooms, where people can meet. We talk a lot about museums being meeting places for diverse people, where they can exchange views and create their futures together. And yet, what is often missing are inviting spaces where people can do just that. We tend to think only of the exhibition infrastructure to which all other spaces are subordinate, and so at best, we offer opportunities for people to sit. Increasingly, however, museum buildings go beyond that. One version of this are spaces for reflection, like the Hall of Remembrance at the Holocaust Memorial Museum or the Contemplative Court at the National Museum of African American History and Culture, both Washington D.C.. These spaces invite you to spend time and reflect on what you have seen and experienced, which I think is fantastic. What is missing for me, however, is an invitation to actually talk to other visitors: these spaces are made for whispers, and whispers do not lend themselves to conversations. Furthermore, I don’t like that these rooms are generally separate from the exhibition galleries, although given their aim of reflection this does of course make sense. A space integrated into the exhibition itself is what I have in mind. At Culloden Visitor Centre in Scotland there is a central performance area that offers benches on either side, which comes closer to what I would like to see. In an exhibition that I did last year, a group I was working with integrated a living room into their space which did invite people to just sit and chat. Many did take up that opportunity, although I have no data on how many conversations went across groups, as it were. Nevertheless, something similar should, in my view, be a permanent feature of any exhibition.

There are many factors in making a building a good museum building. Let’s see how this works out as our project progresses. So far, I have a really food feeling. I shall report back.

Notes

[1] It is a well-known truth among museum professionals that the architecture should always come secondary to the requirements of the museum itself, with all its purposes and aims concerning audiences. What is less often talked about openly is how much this can become a fight with the architects’ desire to fulfil their own ambition outside functionality. (Too) Often, this fight is lost on the museum side. So forgive me for ‘stating the obvious’ here.

Last December, I finally took the opportunity to travel to Washington, DC with the specific purpose of visiting its museums. I was particularly looking forward to seeing the National Museum of African American History and Culture (NMAAHC) which opened in 2016. Here are some thoughts and observations that I’ve had during and since my visit.

There is something immensely powerful to have such an architecturally impressive building dedicated exclusively to a story that in my time in the United States almost 15 years ago felt largely absent from the public narrative. Its position on the National Mall, right across from the Washington Monument with open space all around that increases the building’s visiblity, gives the museum further prominence. I was really struck by how much this combination – the location, the architecture, the thematic focus – seemed to signal the importance of the African American perspective.

It goes without saying that simply opening a museum does not change anything about the on-going racism and discrimination experienced by black Americans today. And quite possibly there are issues too with how the story of African American history and culture is told within the museum.

Nevertheless, to me – and I write here purely as a white, foreign visitor with only limited prior knowledge – the sheer existence of the NMAAHC felt like an important acknowledgment in and of itself. Personally, I did feel the interpretation went far beyond a simplistic reduction of African American history and culture to slavery. The sheer fact that the exhibition begins with a look at African society beyond its relationship to Europe raises the story above a narrative of European  exploitation and African pain, of master and slave. The exhibition for me gave a deep sense of black dignity and power while not ever shying away from showing the inhumane treatment black Americans have faced and are still facing, from lynchings to segregation to police violence.

I do not see how any white European or white American can walk through the NMAAHC without having their own identity and heritage narratives challenged. And that, too, is a powerful outcome of having an entire museum dedicated to a story that lies outside the dominant hegemony. Going through the NMAAHC forces you to compare what you see with what you may have been thinking about your people, your country and your history for your entire life. You cannot help but realize that here, you are the other, and an other who is (the descendent of) a perpetrator whose actions reverberate into your present.

That, too, was a humbling experience. Not the perpetrator part – as a German, sadly, I’ve had that experience several times before. I mean the experience of being ‘the other’. How sobering to feel so acutely that this wasn’t my space. From the history and culture on the wall to the truly noticeable increase in the number of black people within the museum: that I as a white person should be so aware of that just shows how much black history and experience, even black presence is usually absent from my life, both personally and professionally. That’s truly shocking to me.

One of the messages of the NMAAHC as I perceived it was that the history of black Americans in all its complexity is an intrinsic part of wider American history. Slaves built much of the United States. Black soldiers fought in the country’s wars. This message is now clearly part if not of the official discourse of the United States – I don’t know – but certainly of the narrative given in the (Smithsonian) museums, be it in the National Museum of American History or even the American Art Museum. I wasn’t too sure what to make of the other aspect of this message, that of course slavery was a contradiction to the claim in the Declaration of Independence that ‘all men are created equal’ and that this contradiction is still an element and representation of the nation’s complicated and faulty endeavour to live up to the ideals of its founding fathers today. This is true, no doubt, and yet it felt too much like an excuse rather than the call for change that is needed.

All in all, my visit to the NMAAHC has once again convinced me that museums have a significant role to play in increasing awareness and acknowledgement of those groups within society whose stories and experiences are suppressed or muted. Every museum has that task, including those who are not exclusively dedicated to the topic.