Some Context.
1978 was the year that market the end of the Franco’s dictatorship in Spain. Along with the conclusion of his long lasting control of every aspect of Spanish life, a big wave of social and political changes took over the country. In the museums world that wave had several impacts. One was related to the wish of claim of cultural identities other than the one that had dominated the country during the dictatorship (the Castilian Spanish). Local and regional identities, particularly in those territories that had their own Language other than Castilian, were emerging in many forms, museums were one of them.
It was in this atmosphere of recovered freedom and identity claim, that the local government of the province of València took on a proposal by the anthropologist Joan Francesc Mira to create the Ethnological Museum that would eventually become L’ETNO. It was 1982. As many other of its kind the museum immediately went on collecting what was left of a version of the Valencian traditional society. Most of these materials came from inland rural areas, at the time already depopulated and economically depressed. The museum first exhibition projects reflected openly this perspective. The majority of temporary projects of the museum during the 1980’s and 1990’s responded to the need of describing (remembering) the particular ways those “traditional Valencians” lived social and economically. These projects had to compete with exhibition proposals and cultural programs coming out of other museums in the city. These museums were filled with contemporary art, or with archaeological treasures form the past, or even with interesting collections provided by museums specialized in science or technology. Describing traditional society and broadcasting its material culture struggled to attract visitors. The museum seemed only able to provide a constant dose of nostalgia, and this was clearly not enough to success.
A Brief Story of the Permanents Rooms at L’ETNO.
At the beginning of 2008 political circumstances allowed a change in the Ethnological Museum leadership and a re-assembling of the team. The first proposal was to take on a renovation of the permanent rooms. After almost 25 years of existence the museum had only managed to create a part of its permanent rooms. Although well done, that part of the added little new to the way ethnographic museums had usually represented. The museum was knowledge by Valencian society for its collecting work and had managed through the years to produce some good temporary exhibitions. However, it was still suffering largely from invisibility.
The new proposal relayed on two pillars: first, the storytelling had to take a contemporary perspective to avoid the classical static view on traditional culture; second, the museography had to relay on a modern scenography to bypass the usual perception of ethnography museums as classic and dusty. Keeping these ideas in mind the team started to expand the permanents rooms, first in 2009 and then in 2011, several new parts were opened. Meanwhile, the same approach was applied to temporary exhibition projects, allowing team members to put in place their ideas in a constant exercise of trial and error. It is important to explain that the museum had never enjoyed the financial support for a total renovation project of the permanent rooms. This reality forced the team to adapt to the planning of small advances, creating at times some museographic dissonance, but also adding to the dynamic of rehearsal and correction.
by JuanAlbe
The turning point: “Not Easy to be Valencian”.
The turning point: “Not Easy to be Valencian”. Following this dynamic of opportunity windows for renovation, 2018 brought a fresh opportunity to update the oldest part of the permanent rooms, built in 2003. This time, the proposal become more ambitious. There was an ambition to turn the whole of the permanent rooms into a solid project. Thus, from the mandate of changing only a part, it developed a project to update as much as possible the permanent rooms.
The configuration of the project started with the proposal of a storyline based on the idea of cultural identity. It is well known that museums are institutions closely related to a sense of identity. As a museum of Valencian popular culture, the Ethnological Museum was created to safeguard identity in the form of Valencian popular culture. The museum team had always kept faithful to that idea but felt not comfortable with the standardized version of an idealized past. As ethnologists we knew well the difficulties of defining any identity, a complex, polyhedral concept. Hence, the proposal was to start recognizing just that, the difficulty of defining what is to be culturally a Valencian. From the beginning, the aim of the project, title “Not Easy to be Valencian”, was to help local visitors navigate through their own identity doubts and at the same time, to help other, non-Valencian people, to reflect on their own cultural pre-stablished identity framework.
The project, fully conceived by the team of L’ETNO, reflected on this idea debating from three perspectives: the “Local versus the Global”, “the Stereotypes” and “the Invisibilities”. Part of the project was also the changing of the old name of the museum as “Ethnology Museum” for “L’ETNO”, a more straightforward name. Right from the beginning the team proposed some museographic guidelines:
* Museography matters. The storytelling of the complete exhibition had to be clear, easy to follow and to understand. The exhibition design had well done and represent a unique, modern style. * As much as possible, the exhibition had to be a comfortable space. Texts will not be very long, had good lighting and reasonable font size. * The story had to be explained from a contemporary perspective, making an effort to connect topics related to the traditional society with contemporary matters affecting people today. * As many other museums L’ETNO was perfectly aware of its privileged location as contact zone between publics and the past. Thus, as much as possible, the museum perspective had to be inclusive, progressive and take over the responsibility of offering debate, regardless of the difficulties of the topic. Identity misunderstandings, painful memories or forgotten stories need to be part of the cultural menu offered to our fellow citizens along with the more palatable topics.
* Museography matters. The storytelling of the complete exhibition had to be clear, easy to follow and to understand. The exhibition design had well done and represent a unique, modern style.
* As much as possible, the exhibition had to be a comfortable space. Texts will not be very long, had good lighting and reasonable font size.
* The story had to be explained from a contemporary perspective, making an effort to connect topics related to the traditional society with contemporary matters affecting people today.
* As many other museums L’ETNO was perfectly aware of its privileged location as contact zone between publics and the past. Thus, as much as possible, the museum perspective had to be inclusive, progressive and take over the responsibility of offering debate, regardless of the difficulties of the topic. Identity misunderstandings, painful memories or forgotten stories need to be part of the cultural menu offered to our fellow citizens along with the more palatable topics.
The production of the permanent exhibition took more than two years of work. This was a process of team creation and collaboration that had to overcome several difficulties. First it was the budget, L’ETNO has never had a full scale budget to develop the permanent rooms, financial constraints have always been a problem. Second were discussions among the team about the orientation of the project, in particular about the centrality of the “identity” concept due to its political resonances. Finally, it was the COVID 19, the exhibition was due to open in March 2020. It finally managed to open in July that year.
Some Final Reflections
The experience gained with the project of the permanent rooms of L'ETNO has triggered some reflections:
* Time and experience, the possibility of having enough time to experience, was essential. As museum devoted to self-producing exhibitions, we had the change to rehearsal once and again ideas and confront failures as well as successes. "Not easy to be Valencian" benefited from all that * The reinsurance that a museum of ethnography like L'ETNO needs to talk from absolute contemporary perspectives, regardless of what it is attempted to be explained: either gentrification or the traditional ways of cultivating rice in Valencia * Desing helps. Good design it is not the objective of the museum, but it has proved a good path to reach the interest of groups of people that would have never put their attention in a museum of traditional culture * A creative team is a key factor. L'ETNO is the workplace of curators, cultural managers, librarians, restoration technicians, personnel of administration and so on. All are potentially the source of a good idea. Sense of collaboration is essential.
* Time and experience, the possibility of having enough time to experience, was essential. As museum devoted to self-producing exhibitions, we had the change to rehearsal once and again ideas and confront failures as well as successes. "Not easy to be Valencian" benefited from all that
* The reinsurance that a museum of ethnography like L'ETNO needs to talk from absolute contemporary perspectives, regardless of what it is attempted to be explained: either gentrification or the traditional ways of cultivating rice in Valencia
* Desing helps. Good design it is not the objective of the museum, but it has proved a good path to reach the interest of groups of people that would have never put their attention in a museum of traditional culture
* A creative team is a key factor. L'ETNO is the workplace of curators, cultural managers, librarians, restoration technicians, personnel of administration and so on. All are potentially the source of a good idea. Sense of collaboration is essential.