THE EMEE TOOLKIT MANUALS AND EXEMPLARY COP-UNITS
The primary task of the EMEE Toolkits, that were developed in the first phase of the project, was to bridge the gap between theory and its application in a practical context. The five EMEE Toolkits serve as handy tools for practical implementation and provide suggestions, methods, experiences and best practice examples of how to apply the EMEE concept to a practical context, with every Toolkit dealing with a different key issue of current museum discourse.
The COP Exemplary Units, which the project partners developed during the second phase of the project, bring together the five EMEE-Toolkits and their take on the different key issues in order to demonstrate how the concept of Change of Perspective can be applied to respective museum objects (or object groups). Ten of these EMEE COP Units are presented in Toolkit 6: ‘European Perspectives on Museum Objects. Selected Examples on the Change of Perspective‘.
Toolkit 1: Making Europe visible. Re-Interpretation of museum objects and topics. A manual
Toolkit 1 is dedicated to the COP 1, i.e. the Change of Perspective referring to the re-interpretation of a museum’s existing object collection. At its very heart lie the development of European and trans-national perspectives and the demonstration of the close links between local, regional, national and European levels of meanings of objects by using multi-perspective forms of presentation. However, the intention is not to replace regional and national perspectives on cultural heritage by ‘European’ perspectives. Rather, the goal is to deconstruct unilinear interpretations for the benefit of ‘multilayered meanings’ that can enrich the understanding of the cultural heritage.
Toolkit 2: Integrating multicultural Europe. Museums as Social Arenas
The Toolkit provides an idea of the museum as a public, noncommercial space that offers possibilities for people to meet, to discuss and to get in touch with the cultural heritage. It shows how these enhanced functions of museums can be used for presenting and discussing trans-regional and European topics especially regarding current issues and present-day problems. In that way, it contributes to integrating multicultural Europe.
Toolkit 3: Bridging the gap. Activation, participation and role modification
The Toolkit deals with the development of different levels of the participation and activation of the visitor (for example hands-on, minds-on, user-generated exhibitions, guided tours conceptualized in the form of a dialogue, participation of different focus groups in the museum work, etc.). It develops programmes to encourage non-visitor groups to get to know the museum’s world. It also provides best practice examples with a focus on trans-regional/European topics.
Toolkit 4: Synaesthetic translation of perspectives. Scenography - A Sketchbook
The Toolkit offers ideas how to present different perspectives not only as text but by means of designing the space, including ideas how to use music, light or even scent. It translates perspectives into other ‘languages’ and allows visitor participation.
Toolkit 5: Social Web and Interaction. Social media technologies for European national and regional museums
The Toolkit shows that the social web can be used not only for public relations but also for interaction (museum with visitors, museum with non-visitors, visitors among themselves, museum with other institutions). With this Toolkit, visitors and other interested persons will be given a possibility to get involved with the museum’s topics, to discuss, to exchange ideas, to reflect on exhibitions, etc. It offers ideas how to integrate the possibilities of web 2.0 in exhibitions in order to promote more visitor participation.
Toolkit 6: European perspectives on museum objects. Selected examples on the Change of Perspective
The goal of the EMEE project is to uncover the implicit and often hidden European dimension of local museum objects and to visualize the intertwined character of local, regional, national, European, and trans-European layers of historical meanings of museum objects. This approach requires the practice of the Change of Perspective in all areas covered by the five EMEE toolkits. Furthermore, it demands the combination and linking of these five facets. As an illustration of the practical implementation of the work with the toolkits the EMEE partners developed so called ‘exemplary units’ to test the concept of Change of Perspective on single museum objects (or object groups). Ten of them are presented in this volume.