![]() ![]() The museum had the rather rare opportunity to create a new building, and early in this process decided to make use of its biggest resource: its collections. Hervor Wester collection, Sörmlands Museums Narrative Storages © Sörmlands museumĪs a second step to revive interest in its collections, Sörmlands museum placed the storages at the heart of the museum and named them “Narrative Storages”. Sometimes even basic ethnographic fieldwork is included. A very helpful device in this process of analysing, finding and re-organizing objects that originally belonged together but had physically been separated one, 10 or 50 years ago, was the museum’s digital database, which kept record of the links between objects.Ī premise for this to work is a thorough process of collecting and documenting, when receiving objects, the museum not only asks questions about the objects themselves, but makes – if possible – biographical interviews with the previous owners or users, and asks for more objects (often photographs) that could add to the narrative. In an effort to restore a common narrative, the museum created several sub-collections. By this process, the common narrative that held these objects together disappeared, or at least was no longer visible. Whenever there was a donation, objects were separated by material, category or size. – as it is typical for most museum storages. What was shown were rows of objects sorted by type or material: cupboards in one section, paintings in another, clothes in a third, metals and irons in one room, wooden objects in another etc. ![]() The museum regularly opened the storage for smaller groups of visitors. In November 2018, Sörmlands museum, a regional museum of Cultural history, opened a new museum building which houses exhibitions, offices and storages for their entire collection – which comprise around 80000 objects, 1 million photos and 400 shelf meters of archival material.īefore moving to a new building, the museum kept its three-dimensional objects in an underground storage facility and its archive material within the office building. What good are these collections if people cannot come in touch with their cultural heritage? It is necessary for museums to have a holistic approach and to think of “collecting” and “making use of the collections” as one. However, if museums want to make better use of their collections and allow the public to engage with them, new ways to improve accessibility must be found. The vast majority of museum collections is usually kept in storages that are neither in the vicinity of the museum itself, nor easily accessible to the public, for both practical and economic reasons. ![]() I will use the “Narrative Storages” of Sörmlands museum in Nyköping, Sweden, as an example of a new possible format for museum collections. In this article I will argue that museum collections can be made more accessible, useable and, above all, more comprehendible for the public. We thus need to widen access to collections, instead of “hiding” them. However, regarding the accessibility to, and usage of museum collections, I would argue the opposite is true. The play with secrecy can be an important factor in drawing the public’s attention to museums and exhibitions. Museum Collections in “Narrative Storages” – New Ways of Connecting with Cultural Heritage. Keywords: innovation, accessibility, new approaches, collections ![]()
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