Urban History Exhibited

Thomas Bloch Ravn, Director of Den Gamle By and Aarhus City Museum,
Annekel Appel Laursen and Martin Brandt Djupdræt, Curators at Den Gamle By

In September 2010, the City Council of Aarhus decided that Den Gamle By should take on the responsibilities of the local city museum. This museum has now been closed down, and the buildings are about to be sold. In the beginning Den Gamle By was skeptical of the idea, but now we envision new possibilities. In my presentation I will discuss the following questions: How to combine local and national history in one museum? How to rethink and incorporate city museum activities within the framework of an open air museum? How to use the city museum activities to strengthen the national museum presence in the local community? And how reach out to new and museum-estranged visitor groups?

See the presentation

See the slides

Søren Bitsch Christensen, City Archivist of Aarhus and former Director of the Danish Centre for Urban History at Aarhus University and Den Gamle By
Urban historians are many; but are too often too isolated from each others in museums and archives, at universities and other institutions. Although they share the same interest in the urban community as a central frame for modern life, they are likely to conceptualize the city differently, to think in different ways of communicating their work, and too give priority to different narratives. Looking back on the first ten years of the Danish Centre for Urban History, the papers asks, if it is not possible to cross some of these boundaries?

See the presentation

See the slides

Rainey Tisdale, Community Fellow at John Nicholas Brown Center for Public Humanities and Cultural Heritage, Brown University
I spent 2010 surveying city museums in Europe and the United States as part of a Fulbright-sponsored research project. Since then I have continued to closely follow developments in this field in order to determine what we are doing poorly, what we are doing well, and what the 21st-century city museum should look like. Drawing from this work, my paper will explore recent trends in urban public history, particularly those taking place outside the walls of the physical museum, including geo-tagging, pop-up museums, user-generated content, and hyper-local history projects. I will also discuss what these trends mean for city museums and for our audiences. I will end with my personal vision for the 21st-century city museum.

See the presentation

See the slides

Christine De Weerdt, Museum Director STAM – stadsmuseum gent
In 2010, STAM – stadsmuseum gent re-opened after a radical reconstruction of both buildings and permanent exhibitions. The exhibitions make use of digital media on a much larger scale than seen at most other city museums (entire walls covered with screens, 3D-models, and digitally enriched photographs on floors and walls) next to more traditionally curated rooms. What were the intentions, the processes, and the reactions?

See the presentation

See the slides

Jette Sandahl, Director of Museum of Copenhagen
As nations decrease in importance and as the power of big cities increases, city museums become potentially more interesting.
The scale and tempo, the richness, the contradictions and conflicts, the diversity and dilemmas of contemporary urban cultures are forcing many city museum realize that they are lagging behind, barely keeping up with their cities, and they have to examine their mission and purpose, their strategies and core values.
The Museum of Copenhagen is one such museum trying to find methods of permanent change to keep up with the rapid and dynamic changes of our city; trying to find ways of anticipating, responding to and interpreting the sometimes intangible qualities of life; trying to develop platforms which support mediation, living with complexity, with disagreement, and which encourage participation, and invite users to engage with and challenge each other.

See the presentation

See the slides

Paul van der Laar, Director of Collections/Professor of Urban History at Historical Museum, Rotterdam/Erasmus University Rotterdam
Nowadays, many city museum curators realize that in order to present urban narratives, considerations of authenticity are becoming less important than representations and should develop new urban story telling and imaginative strategies. New heritage models and concepts are needed as well, together with new professional qualifications for urban curators. They should expand their expertise beyond the classical driven collection based scholarship. Recent developments in urban history will be beneficial in enlarging the professional standards of city curators. They could benefit from new developments in urban history, in particular academic and museum historians are challenged by the concept of the transnational city and developments in urban visual history.

See the presentation

See the slides