Towards the Night of Museums - Kaštela City Museum
One more day separates us from the beginning of this year's Night of the Museum event. Preparations are slowly coming to an end so that everything will be ready for tomorrow. We spoke with the director, Ivan Šuta, about the Museum of the City of Kaštela, the Night of the Museum, the challenges and opportunities the museum faces.
Ivan Šuta is a graduate archaeologist and history professor who has been working at the Kaštela City Museum since 2002, as a curator, and took over the position of director in 2014, replacing Ankica Babin after her retirement.
About the Museum
What was your vision and what were your plans after assuming the position?
- 11 years have passed since 2014. At that time, director Ankica Babin retired, and the City accepted that someone from the company, who knows the situation in the museum, the organization and the profession, should continue the work. I had the ambition and the opportunity to take on that duty. The basic idea was to continue what Ms. Ankica started and improve some other things.
Vitturi Castle is not the only space in which the Museum operates, and there were also different plans for it.
- Since 2011, the museum has also started using the Archbishop's Palace in Kaštel Sućurac, where the Kaštel Sućurac local history collection and the archaeological department are located. However, property and legal relations in that space have not been resolved. The second location where the Museum operates, which is the central part of the Museum, is the Vitturi Castle. The plan was to build a permanent exhibition there, which took place in 2018 - 2019. We created a project for the entire Vitturi Castle, which would allow visitors to tour the entire castle, and for the existing users and offices of the Museum, GKK, Biranj Society and Tourist Board to move out. We planned to charge an entrance fee so that tourists could tour the entire cultural monument. Plans were made, but it was one EU fund divided into two phases. Phase A was the preparation of documentation, and phase B was the implementation and execution of works. However, the ministry never announced phase B, so the investment estimate was around 20 million kuna, but we never had the opportunity to invest. We also had the problem of not having alternative spaces for other users of the castle, except for the Tourist Board, which moved to Villa Nika. There we realized part of the permanent exhibition relating to the collection of modern and contemporary art. On the second floor, we reduced the office space and expanded the archaeological exhibition, as far as exhibition activities are concerned.
How important is cooperation with the local community, associations, and schools for the Museum?
- Of course, the Museum is not there just for itself, the Museum is there for the community, to present its work to the wider public. We have a pedagogical department that works intensively with schools, we cooperate with associations of various profiles, and of course with the Bijaći society. The idea of forming the Museum came from Bijaći. We are also working on maintaining the old olive tree and joint activities regarding the preservation of individual cultural monuments. This is the proper way for the Museum to be involved in activities that are part of the museum's work.
We mentioned schools, how interested are schools in group visits?
- We have a pedagogical department, one person is employed, and schools come to us on a daily basis. We have prepared workshops and expert guides for certain temporary exhibitions. However, I am not satisfied because I think that schools should go out more and develop models of permanent cooperation so that visits to the museum become part of the school curriculum. We have five elementary schools in Kaštela and I think that every student should visit the Museum because we are physically close to the schools and this should be intensified.
When we talk about the structure of visitors, who are the most frequent visitors?
- In general, seasonality is pronounced here because the Kaštela has become a tourist destination. During the winter, the most frequent visitors are schoolchildren, children from primary schools, and in the summer they are mainly tourists. However, the problem with the number of visitors is that when tourists enter the castle, they mostly take pictures and leave, while only every fifth or sixth visitor enters the Museum. We hope that, when the Rušinac castle is completed, it will be possible to relocate some of the facilities from Vitturi there, so that, according to the project, an entrance fee can be charged upon entering Vitturi, which would significantly increase the number of visitors.
How difficult is it to maintain the exhibits?
- It depends on the material, paper and fabric are quite sensitive and require certain microclimatic conditions, humidity and must not have temperature oscillations. However, this is very difficult to achieve in a facility like a 500-year-old castle. We have some display cases that are better equipped, so we try to store archaeological objects there. Ceramics are an eternal material, so we have no problems there. However, some objects of organic origin are subject to decay. We have two restorers, one for archaeological heritage and the other for the cultural and historical collection, who continuously monitor and carry out the necessary actions to prevent the deterioration of individual exhibits.
Apart from space, what is the biggest challenge the Museum faces?
- The Museum takes on a fairly large role in protecting heritage outside the Museum. In the sense that Kaštela has been intensely exposed to spatial changes over the past half century. Kaštela has quadrupled in size, a large number of immigrants are arriving, space is being consumed, cultural heritage sites and archaeological sites are being destroyed. I would like to highlight the uncontrolled construction in the Kaštela field, where many sites have simply disappeared. We have large infrastructure projects that also consume space, the picture is changing, and we are trying to research and try to protect them. In addition to material heritage, intangible heritage is also being lost due to changes in lifestyle, some traditional customs are being lost. When an old house is sold, the inventory is emptied, colleagues go and look, if something needs to be taken or bought, people donate things to us, so we are trying to preserve them. In the last five years, we decided to collect wooden ships. We had offers for donation and purchase, so we managed to put four wooden ships in the holdings.
Museum night
What are you preparing for Museum Night this year?
- This year we are preparing a program at three locations. The first location is Vila Nika. My colleague, museum advisor, Sanja Acalija, decided that the first exhibition would deal with cuisine and objects from the mid-20th century. This exhibition is currently being set up, and it is important to emphasize that we have a collaboration with the Academy of Arts in Split, with professors Zanchi and Brajnov Botić, and design students who participated in the design of the exhibition, posters and leaflets.
There is also an art workshop led by student Tihana Butković, adapted for primary school age. We also have the Zagreb City Museum visiting for the first time with the archaeological exhibition "Zagreb in spe: Small objects / Big stories", by Aleksandra Bugar. For the first time, we will have a visiting exhibition that is adapted for people with special needs. Here at Vitturi Castle, we cannot be a facility that is 100% accessible to people with special needs because it is a cultural monument, but with this exhibition we will try to facilitate access and show how exhibitions can be done in a different way.
In the permanent exhibition, we removed the permanent archaeology exhibition and installed a new exhibition "Kaštela at the Turn of the Century - the Story of Pave Ergovac", authored by Iva Prolić and Ana Marija Bralić.
In Sućurac, in the Archbishop's Castle, my colleague Ada Danek prepared an exhibition that opened at the end of last year, "Dalmatia Cement Factory dd". As every year, the library is also involved, organizing an Evening of Board Games.
How much do such events contribute to the visibility of the Museum?
- Certainly significant, because these are events on a national level, and we also have stronger marketing from the Croatian Museum Association. It is important to prepare something new every year, so that it is not just a permanent exhibition but also to offer new content.
How long does it take to prepare the program for Museum Night?
- We usually start working on programs at the end of the eighth, beginning of the ninth month. Then we determine the contents that would be interesting to us for the Night of the Museum. We already have the skeleton of the program in the ninth month, and when we get the topic, we adjust additional programs to fit into the framework of the topic published by the Croatian Museum Society. There is no set theme this year, so we have the freedom to do what we want.
What are the Museum's plans and projects for 2026?
- As for projects and plans for this year, we really have a lot going on. It is important to mention the reprint of Vjeko Omašić's book. We are also preparing a new Kaštela Anthology. As for the department of modern and contemporary art, we are planning several new exhibitions. In the archaeological department, we have archaeological research on Barbarinac. Last year, we had excellent results, because we discovered a causeway that connected the coast with an islet. We are continuing research on Trstenik, also in cooperation with the University of Zadar. The Trstenik site was chosen because it is a unique site where three Roman ships were sunk in shallow water. This was a challenge for us, but also an opportunity to present the site without removing the ships from the sea. We decided to make digital models and ship reconstructions. We will also have a projector that will react to touch, enabling a digital tour of the site. As part of this project, we plan to create a large interactive touch screen, over two meters long, which will contain a map of Kaštela at the entrance to the permanent exhibition with important sites from Kaštela's past. Visitors will be able to open the story about each location by touching the screen, and within that story we will also create 3D reconstructions.
Another important thing for the history of Kaštela, and it relates to the Battle of Ostrog, where the local Croatian nobility fought against the people of Split and Trogir. Now we will digitally reconstruct it for the first time. I think it will be a great thing for the permanent exhibition. We are also planning guest visits to the Czech Republic, Tuzla, Sarajevo, and here the exhibition "The Age of Ice and Fire" from the Museum of Brodsko Posavlje and Slavonski Brod will be hosted, as well as the exhibition of Tisja Kljaković Braić.
It is important to note that the Museum is also actively participating in archaeological research at the Rušinac Castle, which is currently being renovated with funds from the Ministry of Culture. The announcement of the discovery of three bread ovens on the ground floor of the building and in the tavern attracted a lot of public attention. We also found an olive oil press. This project will last until the beginning of 2027 and will significantly contribute to the restoration of cultural heritage in Kaštela. I hope that it will serve as an example to other locations on how castles should be restored.
Za kraj, Šuta je pozvao sve građane Kaštela i susjednih gradova da u svoj plan obilazaka u Noći muzeja uključe i Muzej grada Kaštela koji će djelovati na 3 lokacije, kaštel Vitturi, Vila Nika i Nadbiskupski kaštel u Sućurcu.
Photo: Ivana Topic
