HERITAGE AND MUSEUM ARTEFACTS AS CULTURAL RESOURCE FOR CREATIVE PRACTICE IN SOCIAL TRANSFORMATION / Second International Conference on Best Practices in World Heritage: People and Communities (29 April – 2 May 2015), Menorca, 2015. – P.156-165 (original) (raw)

This paper focuses on the problem of using the objects of heritage as artifacts of a culture of peace in museum and educational practice and as a creative resource for cross-cultural communication and social reconciliation. The author challenges the view at the exhibits of a museum only as stiffened trace of time, memory index and memorial objects. It is proposed to consider museum artifacts as actual participants of current events from two angles of vision. Historical artifacts as museum exhibits and bygone experiences (samples of the past) acquire their meaning and significance only in contact with the present, joining the dialogue on the latest challenges humankind faces here and now. At the same time, objects as samples of peacemaking convey experiences of a culture of non-violence and reconciliation, and therefore become the most in demand in urgent and dramatic situations of the present day. Unlike standard interpretations, we argue that the objects exhibited at a peace museum can be useful to the society only when we manage to relate and update them to the current life experience. Keeping and exposing the artifacts of peacemaking only as exhibits of the past, we mothball and even trivialize them, depriving them of vital communion with modernity. First of all, it is necessary to distinguish between heritage, as 1) a memorative repository of stories and values from heritage, and 2) a vital substrate through upon which one can reflect on conditions in the modern world. The heritage is considered as sort of resource-consulting centers for transformation of culture, visualizing alternatives for development and encouraging people to creative actions and communicative practice. However, the first of these missions still dominates modern museum policy. This explains the separation of the sacredly protected world of museum treasures from the urgent imperatives of today. This paper is based on published materials, projects and collections of the Samarkand Museum of Peace and Solidarity (Uzbekistan) and creative practices of the Samara Society for Cultural Studies "Artifact - Cultural Diversity" (Russia).