Interview: CALL IT MUSEUM, Swedish National Heritage Board

Fredrik Emdén did an interview with co-directors Isabelle Tjäder and Marti Manen about CALL IT MUSEUM for the Swedish National Heritage Board. Below is an excerpt:

“Index has been showing the exhibition “CALL IT MUSEUM” since January, which explores the museum’s changing image of its role in society. Isabella Tjäder and Marti Manen wanted to examine what they see as a threat to the free art scene, and to get museums to take a critical look at themselves and ask themselves what has caused the word “museum” to be used in contexts other than those that are purely museum-related.

“It would have been very easy for us to do an exhibition where we proclaimed how terrible it is when commercial actors borrow the concept of museum. But that’s not enough. We must do something more. We must look at ourselves and see what it is in the concept of museum that we think is worth defending. What have we done over the last 200 years?” says Isabella Tjäder.”

“Marti Manen notes that many institutions have their identities on both sides, but that Moderna Museet is called “museum”, not “kunsthalle”, even though it also has that function.

“For us, it is an extremely exciting dialogue. Are there boundaries or not? And then comes an actor like Fotografiska, which admittedly does not call itself a museum in Sweden, but calls all its activities in other cities museums. But do they have a collection? Do they have a public function for the public or not?”, he asks.

He has several questions. Do private museums have ethics? Can a person open a museum and close it three months later?”

Read the full interview here