Seminar: Queering the Memory Institutions
Location: The Finnish Labour Museum Werstas, the Auditorium, Väinö Linnan aukio 8, Tampere
Time: Friday to Saturday 16.-17.8.2013
Organizers: The Finnish Labour Museum Werstas, Culture for All Services, British Council, Pirkanmaan Seta Tampere & University of Tampere
During the past ten to fifteen years museums and archives have started to pay more attention to hidden histories and marginalized groups. One of these hidden histories is the one of sexual and gender minorities. In this new approach focus has been put on power relations, the silenced voices of the archives, and on how certain norms and prejudices have governed way collections of archives and museums have been constructed and described. With the help of queer theory, professionals of memory institutions have begun to question heteronormative approaches to history and arts. They have looked for new ways to order and present knowledge related to arts and cultural and social history - ways that are more sensitive to the diversity of human kind and to the constructiveness of gender and sexuality, i.e. as constructed identities linked to a certain time, culture and place.
In this seminar we will ask how memory institutions in Finland, Sweden and the UK have taken on this task and their best practices for doing so. Which are the stories to be told, what does queering of memory institutions mean, why should it be done, which are the obstacles for including marginalized stories in the national canon and how can they be overcome?
The Auditorium is located on the ground floor, the entrance is accessible and there is a hearing loop.
Please register before 2.8 to the following address: seminaari(a)tyovaenmuseo.fi.
Program
Friday 16.8
I MUSEUMS
10.00-10.15 Opening words. Kalle Kallio, Museum Director, The Finnish Labour Museum
10.15-11.00 Gay sex in the British Museum: an LGBT world history project. Richard Parkinson, Assistant Keeper, British Museum
11.00-11.30 Finnish Labour Museum and the LGBT Collections. Teemu Ahola, Head of Collections, The Finnish Labour Museum
11.30-12.00 The National Gallery goes Queer. Rita Paqvalén, Executive Director, Culture for All Services
12.00-12.15 Discussion
12.15-13.15 Lunch
II ARCHIVES
13.15-14.00 Voices from the archives. Examples from the collections of the National Library of Sweden. Ingrid Svensson, Head of Division, National Library of Sweden
14.00-14.30 Queering Archives in the Context of Professional Categorizations. Jaana Kilkki, Director of Collections, National Archives of Finland
14.30-14.45 Discussion
14.45-15.15 Coffee
15.15-15.45 Queer History Sources in The Finnish Labour Archives. Riikka Taavetti, Ph.D. student, University of Helsinki
15.45-16.15 What Do I See? The Research Potential of The Finnish Labour Museum's LGBT Collections . Tuula Juvonen, Academy Research Fellow, University of Tampere
16.15-17.00 PANELDISCUSSION (in Finnish): Experiencing Museums and Archives. The visitor´s view. Katri Kivilaakso (Archive Researcher, Finnish Literature Society), Veikko Halmetoja (Art Critic), Annika Nieminen (Guide, The Finnish Labour Museum) & Mikko Väisänen (Pirkanmaan Seta)
Panel leader: Tuula Juvonen
17.15-18.15 Exhibition tour (groups in English and in Finnish)
20.00 Evening program (TO BE CONFIRMED)
Saturday 17.8
10.00-12.00 WORKSHOP: How can you queer the collections? (In Finnish and in English). Rita Paqvalén & Ulla Rohunen, Museum Educator, The Finnish Labour Museum
12.00-13.00 Lunch
13.00-15.00 Queering Tampere, walking tour with Tuula Juvonen (In Finnish and English)
