Author? Curator? Consultant? Reflections of a Museum Professional Prompted by the Development and Implementation of the New Permanent Exhibition Scenario at the MissionaryEthnographic Museum of the Verbist Fathers in Pieniężno

Abstract

The author dedicates her text to the new permanent exhibition currently being developed at the Missionary and Ethnographic Museum in Pieniężno. As the creator of the exhibition’s concept and script, she was, for objective reasons, unable to participate in its implementation. A group of young museologists, working in consultation with the author, undertook the task of visualizing the exhibition’s assumptions. Over the seven years of the exhibition’s development, the script underwent numerous, jointly discussed modifications for various reasons, and its final version differs from the initial plans and guidelines. The problems encountered by the exhibition’s creators became a starting point for theoretical considerations regarding the consequences of separating the exhibition’s author from the possibility of directly supervising its execution, as well as the problems arising when a museum undertakes to implement an exhibition designed by an author who is not a museum employee.