Muzeul Civilizatiei Populare Traditionale ASTRA (Romania)
"Loc ideal pentru păstrarea spiritului românesc autentic, Muzeul în aer liber din Dumbrava Sibiului este aşezat într-un adevărat paradis, în rezervaţia naturală "Dumbrava Sibiului". Dispunând de un lac şi de peste zece kilometri de alei, muzeul prilejuieşte plimbări de tot felul, de la clasicul mers pe jos, până la un scurt tur cu trăsura, cu sania sau cu barca. ...
Povestea Muzeului ASTRA începe în urmă cu mai bine de un secol, odată cu primele manifestări ale unui vis al românilor din Transilvania de a organiza la Sibiu, sub egida Asociaţiunii pentru Literatura Română şi Cultura Poporului Român, o colecţie etnografică. Aceasta avea rolul de a pune în valoare cele mai reprezentative mărturii despre specificul românesc, despre ceea ce ne diferenţia în comparaţie cu alte popoare, lucruri şi fenomene care puteau explica tuturor cine suntem. „Productele” măiestriei românilor trebuia să reprezinte dovada creativităţii tehnice şi ale hărniciei acestui neam. Prima expoziţie a Muzeului Asociaţiunii, instituţie de la care provine numele ASTRA, a avut loc în 1905."
(Complexul Naţional Muzeal ASTRA)
[This stunning open-air folk museum is located in a nature reserve on the outskirts of Sibiu in România.]
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Simon PerkinsSHARE
Babakiueria: the colonialisation of European Australians by Indigenous Australians
"Presenter Duranga Manika (Michelle Torres) describes her fascination with white people and their customs and explains how she spent six months living with a 'typical white family' (Tony Barry, Cecily Polson, Kelan Angel, Margeurita Haynes). She also asks members of the general public for their opinions on white people and speaks to the Minister for White Affairs (Bob Maza).
[Geoffrey] Atherden's script takes stereotypes of Australian culture and, with tongue-in-cheek humour, views them as though for the first time, as mysterious, alien and strange. Here, the barbecue is singled out. Elsewhere Manika describes the football match as ritualised violence and betting at the TAB as a religion, while a police commissioner calls the Anzac Day March a ritual where white people 'honour their warrior ancestors' but wonders why it can't be done at home.
Presenter Duranga Manika's ethnographic study of white people simplifies, patronises and mystifies her subjects. Every mundane detail of this one family's everyday life is invested with serious cultural significance. Bob Maza's Minister for White Affairs compresses a history of government treatment of Indigenous Australians into one self-satisfied, authoritative figure. It is interesting that while these characters treat 'white' culture with such fascination, they treat 'black' culture as such a given that the audience does not find out much about it."
(Kate Matthews, Australian Screen)
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Simon PerkinsSHARE
The Norsk Folkemuseum living history museum in Norway
"The Norsk Folkemuseum is Norway's largest museum of cultural history. With collections from around the country, the museum shows how people lived in Norway from 1500 to the present.
The more than 150 buildings in the Open-Air Museum represent different regions in Norway, different time periods, as well as differences between town and country, and social classes. The Gol Stave Church dating from 1200 is one of five medieval buildings at the museum. The contemporary history is presented through exhibitions and documentation projects focusing especially on children, youth and the multicultural population. Permanent indoor exhibitions include folk art, folk costumes, toys and Sami culture."
(Astrid Santa, Norsk Folkemuseum)
[Actors are located in some of the buildings to provide visitors with a sense of the life of the original inhabitants.]
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Simon PerkinsSHARE
Ideas Expo: building a new Creative Christchurch through precincts
"Fifteen urban designers, business leaders, arts and tourism representatives, geo-tech experts, architects, environmentalists, students and a Central City resident for 57 years will share their ideas for Christchurch's Central City in the Speakers' Corner at this weekend's (14 and 15 May) community expo."
(Rebuild Christchurch, 14 and 15 May 2011)
[It's not very often that whole cities are re-designed as is the case with Christchurch in Aotearoa New Zealand. While earthquakes continue to shake the region Christchurch residents are making plans for the future. The Christchurch City Council invited key stakeholders to present their perspectives as part of their public consultation process. In doing so Christchurch Polytechnic Institute of Technology (CPIT) Dean Dr. Jane Gregg and Creative Industries Faculty Stakeholder Manager Martin Trusttum explain their vision for a "Creative Christchurch" based on the concept of precincts.]
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Simon PerkinsSHARE
American Progress: expansion as a spiritualised feminine figure
"George Crofutt, publisher of a fashionable western travel guide series, commissioned the creation of 'American Progress' by the Brooklyn resident, painter, and lithographer, John Gast. Crofutt reproduced the petite painting, done in 1872, as a color lithograph poster and also engraved the image in the guidebooks he published widely circulating the image. The painting depicts a sense of technological development’s advancement upon the untamed land like the coming of an impenetrable, inevitable militia with one uncharacteristic exception--the company is led by a feminine figure.
In the wake of four years of Civil War, the creation of the promotional material of 'American Progress' portrays a spiritualized feminine that provides nurturing, protective guidance and fortitude for the extension of civilization over wilderness and the 'uncivilized,' the enigmatic, and the primal. Disembodied, the idealized feminine portrays the evolution of the split of spirit from daily life as well as the sanctified superiority of the immigrants above human beings who lived in harmony with the spirit of the land.
The dominating and centralized angelic being’s paradoxical innocence and sensually alluring presence has the effect of distracting and softening the reality and the violence of this movement to 'win the west' where Native Americans depart the frame as non- natives stake claims in the form of prospectors, as settlers: farmers, homesteaders, and travelers. One of the popular artists of the times, Maynard Dixon speaks of the untruth of the romanticized representation of facts as he complained he was being paid to lie in his artwork and portrayals of life on the wild prairie (Dixon).
Fueled by an underlying desire to be free from tyrannical government and the prospect of a new life and livelihood in a world new to them, Euro-Americans manifested suffering and persecution similar to the very situation they sought to escape."
(Archive for Research in Archetypal Symbolism)
Fig.1 John Gast (1872). "American Progress", painting: oil
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Simon PerkinsSHARE
