In Kaštela, as in many cities across Croatia, last night was marked by the Night of Museums, an event that has been popularizing and bringing museum activities closer for years. In the eventful program prepared by the Kaštela City Museum, visitors could enjoy exhibitions, while an art workshop was organized for the youngest visitors in collaboration with UMAS.
In the Museum area of Vitturi Castle, an exhibition could be viewed "Kaštela at the turn of the century - the story of Pave Ergovac" as well as a guest exhibition "Zagreb in spe: Small objects / Big stories" Zagreb City Museum, authored by Aleksandra Bugar.
The exhibition consists of 6 archaeological objects that portray the life of "proto-Zagreb", Zagreb before the founding charter. Some of the small objects with a big story included in the exhibition are a bronze spear from the St. Mark's Square site, a cup with a face from the Gradići site, a fibula from the MGZ site - Poor Clares monastery, and others.
It is important to point out that this is an exhibition that is extremely inclusive for people with disabilities, in a way that takes into account the height of the exhibition cases, there are also touch replicas, texts in Braille and Croatian sign language.
After the first exhibition at the Zagreb City Museum, in early 2022, the exhibition continued its journey in Vukovar, at the Museum of Vučedol Culture, and then at the "Sergej Mašera" Maritime Museum in Piran and at the Public Institution Museums and Galleries of Podgorica.
- I am very pleased to be at the Kaštela City Museum, as two city museums that are starting a slightly, hopefully, more intensive cooperation. We want to show how we create specific exhibitions, which are intended for all visitors, and are also adapted for people with disabilities. We have conceptualized the exhibition in museological terms to present the archaeological past of Zagreb. That is why we called it "Zagreb in spe", which would mean Zagreb in the making, Zagreb in hope, Zagreb that is yet to become. This exhibition deals with Zagreb before those years of traditional founding that we know about, which are the end of the 11th century, the Zagreb Diocese, and the middle of the 13th century, the founding of the Free Royal City, which was given to us by King Bela the Fourth. So, this is Zagreb before written history - the author of the exhibition and museum advisor at the Zagreb City Museum, Aleksandra Bugar, told us.
Aleksandra explains how they decided which 6 objects would be in the exhibition:
- We chose only six objects. They are interesting because they evoke the potential to experience the story of the periods in which they were found. They were found at a few sites, five of which are in the city center, namely Kaptol and Gradec, while one site is in the Zagreb Plain, more precisely Turopolje, south of the Sava River. The age of the objects is approximately six thousand years. The six objects could be some other, but these were small and interesting enough to tell their own story about the location, time and Zagreb.
The main criteria for selection were that the object be interesting and that it be small enough to fit in the hand so that a replica could be made that would be easy enough to touch, Bugar explains. Also, the display cases in which the objects are located are made with slopes for Braille and the replica standing next to it, and are relatively low so that people in wheelchairs can see their contents.
The exhibition is adapted for people with disabilities:
- We didn't want to cram the display cases with a lot of objects, but we gave each period just one small object that has its own display case, adapted to it, in order to give it dignity. Each object carries its own story, and we also made a replica. People who are blind or visually impaired can touch the replica. That's the only information they get about the object. Through the object and the sensitivity of their hands, they can read or feel what the object looks like, what it feels like, and what its textures and shape are. Using Braille, they can read the basic information, because of course they need to get additional information.
In addition to the above adaptations, embossed strips were glued to the floor next to each object so that people who use a white cane know that there is something for them. It is also possible to watch a short film in sign language with subtitles and speech in the room. There is intensive cooperation with various associations and unions, such as the Croatian Association of the Blind, the Croatian Association of the Deaf-Blind “Dodir” and the Theater for the Blind and Visually Impaired “Novi život”. They were also joined at the exhibition by members of the Association of the Blind from Split.
He cites adaptation as the most challenging part of organizing the exhibition:
- The most challenging part was the adaptation, how to approach it. We consulted a lot and I worked with my colleague Vesna Leiner, who has been working for a long time and started this collaboration. We worked intensively on several exhibitions like this, thinking, reading, reducing and questioning whether we had properly understood and grasped what the real users, which are people in wheelchairs, blind, visually impaired, deaf and deaf-blind people, would actually need. We thought about the typeface, readability, height, thickness, amount of text. Everything else is a classic exhibition, and this exhibition can function without these adaptations. However, why not adapt as much as we can. This makes the process more expensive, but in the end we have a product that is good, high-quality and meaningful, and in this way we communicate with all our visitors, thinking about all categories of users. We became a member of the international museum community “COME-IN!” which promotes inclusivity and accessibility of museums. That should be our way as a human race, to try to give everyone equal opportunities to enjoy culture without distinction. Accessibility should be physical, not just conceptual, and it should become our standard - said Bugar.
One of the goals of the exhibition, which is inclusive in this way, is to encourage the building of a society where everyone is equal because culture belongs to everyone.
The Museum did not forget about the children who enjoyed an art workshop in Vitturi inspired by the permanent exhibition of the art collections of the Kaštela City Museum. The workshop was led by Tihana Butković, a graduate student at the Department of Fine Arts and Visual Arts of the Academy of Arts in Split, in the exhibition of the Department of Modern and Contemporary Art on the first floor of the Kaštela City Museum. Inspired by Duje Botteri's work entitled Journey to Hidden Regions, the children created their own works using a combined technique.
Photos: Ivana Topic/ Andrej Valentic
