Muzeum, przedmiot, doświadczenie. Ewa Klekot rozmawia z Barbarą Kirshenblatt-Gimblett

Abstract

Objects in a museum is the main subject of both Barbara Kirshenblatt-Gimblett’s article on “Objects of Ethnography” and the interview with her carried out by Ewa Klekot. According to Kirshenblatt-Gimblett, ethnographic objects have the status of fragments, and ethnographic museums have been trying hard to change it. At the same time, however, they are fragments of real worlds, and it is exactly this status that gives them the value of authenticity. On the other hand, the POLIN Museum of the History of Polish Jews in Warsaw, Poland, has virtually no collection. As a curator of its core exhibition, Kirsheblatt-Gimblett ponders over the role of objects in a narrative museum, pointing at their role in making the visitor live the story being told by the exhibition. What counts here more is the authenticity of the visitor’s experience rather than the material authenticity of an object.