BALKAN
CULTURAL
CO-OPERATION
CULTURAL
CO-OPERATION
On 25 November 2011, the National Museum in Zaječar, in coordination with the Ministry of Culture, Information and Information Society, organized a round-table on the topic of Integral Rehabilitation of Heritage. On behalf of the BalkanKult project, this meeting was attended by Dimitrije Vujadinovic, project researcher and Aleksandar Pedović, an associate, designer and long-standing President of the Association of Applied Artists of Vojvodina. Majority of participants were ethnologists by profession employed in museums. The statements as well as discussions mostly focused on making a list of non-material cultural heritage (UNESCO program NKN), but without a clear and beforehand defined selection methodology, i.e. goals, priorities and instruments to support the rehabilitation of heritage. It may be concluded that the ethnologists approached the NKN phenomenon (folk culture) in an “antiquated” and mostly formal fashion, i.e. that these issues were treated in the framework of passive museum protection. None of the present ethnologists, including the Ministry representative, viewed cultural heritage (folk culture) in the context of social development, contemporary cultural policy, art production or development of creative sector. This meeting demonstrated that the program of integral rehabilitation of heritage, as was its topic, surpasses the capabilities of a single profession especially particularly that of museum ethnologists, who failed to develop intensive contacts with contemporary cultural production or lack knowledge on the place and true possibilities of folk culture within the context of cultural policies i.e. private business initiatives.
Published: 2011-12-01
Updated: 2019-06-14
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