On Museums in Baia Mare (Update 27.12.2022)
by Jasmine
Museums. A place of cultural education. A place filled with inspiration. A place built with passion. To be 100% honest with you, I didn’t know that much about museums and the work that is done there. I always enjoyed visiting them, but I never understood the work that is behind it.
In this article I will focus on the side of the museums, where they see the problems and what they wish to happen. For this I talked with an employee from Bastion Museum.
To give you a little overview on the people working there:
- We have the curator. Archeology and History specialists.
- We have a conservator, who is taking care of the collection.
- We have people for rastaurations, who are taking care of and repairing old historical pieces.
- Of course, we need accounting and administration that take care of the organizations and finances.
- We also have people in the exhibition rooms that are presenting the exhibition.
- And we have volunteers, local and international young people supporting the museum.
”Although this is a very good basis, we still have some problems. A very big problem is the official structure of the financing process. Applying for a project and waiting for an answer if it is approved or not takes so much time that you can not really start a project in the first half of the year. One solution could be to have the possibility to apply earlier (the end of the Year before) or/and to receive an answer after a shorter period.”
Another problem that I personally see and understand is the youth. Not the youth itself, but a lot related to it.
First of all, interesting cultural education. It is something I experienced myself in my hometown and here I get the same impression. Young people seem to be less connected to cultural institutions and their compilations.
Second: many educated young people go abroad, so for cultural institutions it’s very difficult to find young people who want to work in a museum. But this would show other young people that museums are not only for “old people”.
I personally think that young people need a space to express themselves in a cultural way. I believe they don’t know there is a possibility. Some people might think: “Why especially the youth?” or “The youth doesn’t even seem to have a glimpse of interest in culture!” and I completely understand that these thoughts come up, but we have to keep in mind that the youth of today has so many differences from the youth from generations before. We experience things differently, we have different fears and different chances. And we are a part of culture. We are influenced by so many things like art, history, music, other cultures, and a lot more; there is a lot and that definitely is a good thing. It helps us in the process of finding ourselves.
But because of these differences between the youth of today and former generations, we don’t feel represented in cultural institutions. We didn’t have the chance yet to show our potential. For these reasons it’s so important that young people communicate their needs and that museums and other cultural institutions go to them and ask them what they want; museums need to work with the youth and try to be open minded.
A big problem that I see: time planning of the museums.
Many museums close in the afternoon around 4:00pm and aren’t even open for visitors on weekends. This makes it basically impossible for young adults, students, and working parents with or without their children to go to these institutions. I personally think that events/activities in the evenings and the weekends may have a positive influence on the interest of the people who are, at this point, left out.
To cut this all short: We all need to communicate. Museums have to show the youth that they want and need them and they have to tell what are their needs. The public needs to include the youth actively and talk with the museums. And the youth have to learn how to express their needs and cultural individuality.
So if YOU, as a young person, feel like you want to show something to the public, if you feel passion in any cultural way, if it feels like a vocation and dedication to you to create anything, talk to people who can make the connection. Propose your ideas, don’t hold them back.