ISS 25 (1995).pdf - The International Council of Museums

enthusiasm of those who find out a reason for pride and satisfaction in
taking their heritage with their own hands, with their own hearts, with
their own capacities and good will, and who made of this process and this
achievement a tool for self-assurance, for the defence of their own rights,
for the realisation of their dreams. For this people, a "museum" IS no
mystery anymore, it is actually a simple thing, a good thing to do.
2. The "IDENTITY PROJECT" of the 4th Colony
This project started in the far west of the region, high upon the hills, in
an area encompassing 9 municipalities, or "neighbourhoods", today
defined as one of the "Reserves of the Biosphere" by UNESCO. A place
where there are no museums, no theatres, no libraries, no shopping
centres, but only potato fields and forests, and a working system very
similar to those of medieval times. The project started very modestly, by
the initiative of the local cultural officer of one of the poorest villages in
the area, named Silveira Martins (in honour of a famous political leader
who interfered in the settlement of Italian immigrants in the 19th c.). The
village was going into an irreversible process of death ... no resources for
development in the economical, political or social sense, the youngsters
escaping from the fields in search of the great urban centres and a better
quality of life. The parents growing old, and fighting to survive. What to
do to recover the pace of development, when people did not wanted to
remember the shadows of their difficult past and the failure of their
settlements, when comparing their own history with those of more
successful communities, becoming rich with commerce and the industry
of wine. When I first came to the area, as a consultant for the Heritage
Office, I was impressed by the helpless situation of these people, and by
the syndrome of "identity amnesia" they were suffering from, by their lack
of self-esteem and of hope. This was surely a case for a social psychologist,
I have thought. Together with the local officer, who had already started a
program of annual "forums", getting together all the rural districts of the
region, we started a systematic program of what we call "heritage
education", a sort of "heritage literacy" program. All the work was based
on children and teachers, who could more directly involve the parents
and the whole community. The strategy was to work with their own
reality, objects and working tools, in a process of observation, of
questioning the function and meaning of each element or thing, starting
with their own houses, linking these elements to the history and the
cultural traditions of people, "rediscovering" their memories, their
tragedies, and the values of their lives. We could only work between
seasons, since children, teachers and parents are on the fields in
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