New Intensive Programme with international student courses in the Frame of the Erasmus Programme of the EU

 

Luckily today there are some craftsmen or workers left that learned their profession before the industrial development changed all fields of production (after the Second World War). Some knowledge of a manufacturing technology can be essential for the positive outcome of the work: a little detail, a trick or a certain movement with a tool that decides upon the result, production secrets only because they are not documented. Therefore the production process can be seen as intangible cultural heritage.

The theme of the proposed IP gives an excellent possibility to document the momentarily still available knowledge. Experimental reconstruction of techniques, together with the last practitioners (where available), will be documented in detail by the video camera and by interviews. The resulting material shall serve as a basis for teaching conservators and can be used by the open-air museum.

Besides the conservation students from the partner institutions this IP is targeting at all professions at museums that deal with objects of everyday life, folk art and proto-industrial home industry: ethnologists and historians of all related fields. For conservators it is important to know about the production process of the objects they have to restore. For museums it is important to have this knowledge to understand function and meaning of an object, so it can be integrated in the didactical concept of the collection or can be researched.

The first IP has been organized by the HAWK in 2011 with the open-air museum Museumshof Rahden. Together has been chosen a group of products of home fabrication, goods from everyday life or home industry, having in common their material or their way of production. In the preparatory phase students and partner institutions gathered all available information concerning the chosen objects. After an introduction to the historic background groups of students have been working on the reconstruction of the manufacturing technique, together with the instructors (the witnesses). Students carried out the work and the techniques by themselves.  The manufacturing process was documented by students at the same time in all necessary details, resulting material has been edited then.

By exchanging knowledge between partners and museums participating we will foster knowledge on the European cultures and our proto-industrial past, both possibly leading to more to more understanding and respect. This will also be indirectly beneficial for the preservation of the collections and the development of the exhibits in the museums. The material produced within the IP can be used as study and teaching material in all partner universities. It may serve for further research and for public information in the open-air-museums.
Two films will be made available via the Internet at the end of the project by the Hornemann Institute of the HAWK. To get an impression of the video from the workshop in Amsterdam and Antwerp, click here. The focus of this international student seminar was on the documentation of the craft of book making from paper manufacture to printing techniques and bookbinding.

Partners:
Helsinki Metropolia University of Applied Sciences
HAWK Hochschule für angewandte Wissenschaft und Kunst Hildesheim/Holzminden/Göttingen
Hungarian University of Fine Arts
University of Amsterdam

Poster for download (pdf 3 mb)

Welcom in the open air museum Rahden by Mrs. Kottenbrink; (c) HAWK

Presentation of flax roasting; (c) HAWK

View into a showroom of the open-air museum Museumshof Rahden, (c) Museumshof Rahden