Reflections on 'Museum and Memory'

Reflections on ‘Museum and Memory’

These several days of listening to the presentations from different people and visiting diversified Vietnamese museums in Hanoi and Da Nang leave me a deep impression on museology. The field school course focused on ‘museum and memory’, which increases my knowledge and understanding related to the museum development, exhibition construction and the memory-work in museums. Undoubtedly, this rare learning experience in Vietnam surprised me a lot. At first, the level of Vietnamese modernization and richness cannot reach a number of developed countries, while the completeness of museums does not fall behind with other relatively mature museums’ in developed countries. Amazingly, Vietnam has built a large number of museums related to different themes such as Vietnam Women’s Museum, Hoa Lo Prison Museum and Vietnam Museum of Ethnology. Besides, most museums are equipped with a number of multimedia interpretation devices such as touch screen, video or TV screen used to assist visitors to comprehend what is the past and historical memory of objects.

Contemporary museums are in the transition from object-centred museums to human-centred museums. During the changing period, a new type of museum called ‘Memorial Museum’ has gradually appeared, which emphasizes on memory and the relationship between museum and memory. Memory in the context of museums is considered as a medium, which may not only narrate history but also reconnect the past and people in contemporary society who do not experience the same events through some objects. Importantly, museums are required to narrate memory in an honest way for audiences. This type of narrating memory may not just present achievement and pride but also show difficulties, trauma and other debated political or cultural points. The purpose of memory narratives is to encourage audiences to face the past and acquire their own perspectives about history. It should be noted that objects kept in museums are a primary approach to deliver memory. Photographs are regarded as the typical one among objects to show memory in an explicit method. It is undeniable that memory can invigorate museum collections. Therefore, realizing the unique role and value of memory and memory-work within museums and exhibitions is indispensable nowadays.

When we visited Vietnam Museum of Ethnology, what I found interesting and impressive is the exhibition arrangement. The exhibition includes internal and external display zones. On the external site, the museum reconstructed several typical living rooms and houses by the local tribe. When I stepped inside the sites looking at the living environment, it seems that I live in the period when ancient tribal people lived. The memory about ancient houses of Vietnamese and the relative stories of their lives can be directly reflected through this active method. On the other hand, small models of ancient houses corresponding to the outside ones in the internal part grant audiences an opportunity to learn ancient Vietnamese lifestyle from different angles. What makes me exciting is that only a few museums possess an external exhibition area for displaying a number of large-scale objects, while the Vietnam Museum of Ethnology has one in which may easily engage audiences with memory of ancient Vietnamese.

Moreover, cultural memory is not just preserved and presented by tangible heritage materials and objects but it also should be discovered from intangible cultural heritage (ICH), which could be knowledge, skills or expressions. The tour in Hoi An Centre for Heritage Preservation provided me a rare experience to get close to different types of ICH and a number of folk artists. During the tour, I observed the process of embroidery and tried practicing Er Ho (an ancient instrument). Obviously, by ‘working’ with the special group instead of only watching, I can learn more about their culture, their working conditions as well as the current situation of the heritage.

Obviously, the significance of text labels for objects cannot be ignored in museums. However, when we visited Vietnam Museum of Revolution, I found that text introductions of some photographs are substituted by shorter titles. Under this circumstance, audiences without same background sometimes get confused about the content of photographs. Also, the caption shortage increases difficulty for visitors to understand the correlative memory behind photos. Aiming to acquire detailed photographs’ introductions, it is necessary to interview related people such as photographers, the man in the photo or scholars in this field. Furthermore, museums’ task is to integrate the most valuable information and then narrate it to audiences in an effective way.

Overall, majorities of Vietnam museums are classified to the traditional ones rather than memorial museums. However, these museums are making efforts to engage with different communities and integrate more memories into museum exhibitions. It should be noted that more works on museums’ development could be done in the future. Many museums should strengthen closely interaction with communities to realize their history, culture and memory. Also, more explanations and introductions for objects, such as captions in main several languages, should be equipped so audience with various cultural backgrounds can get familiar with memory of objects and make their own interpretation.

By --- Yuheng Zhang (Crystal)