Museums Outside the Museum 2019
Museums Outside the Museum 2019
10 – 17 May
Opening on 10 May 2019 at 17:00 at Ban Josip Jelačić Square.
FREE ADMISSION to all events
The Croatian Natural History Museum and the Zagreb Tourist Board are opening the Museums Outside the Museum event for the second time. The event will take place from 10 to 17 May 2019 at Ban Jelačić Square.
In its premiere edition last year, Museums Outside the Museum attracted great public interest with its innovative approach and original concept, drawing more than 20,000 visitors.
This year, as many as seven Zagreb museums will present themselves in the so-called “MIM Pavilion” – an impressive and attractive installation built from an airy wooden structure in the shape of a large nest, in whose “wing” the participating museums are located: the Croatian Natural History Museum, the Archaeological Museum in Zagreb, the Museum of Arts and Crafts, the Museum of Contemporary Art, the Nikola Tesla Technical Museum, the Croatian History Museum, the Ethnographic Museum, as well as the Museum Documentation Centre and the guest Museum Radboa from Radoboj.
Each participating museum will present itself with a carefully designed occasional exhibition and will also take part in numerous workshops and lectures.
This year’s biggest attraction will be a replica of a dinosaur from the Theropoda group, believed to have once walked through today’s Istria.
Croatian Natural History Museum
The exhibition of the Croatian Natural History Museum at Museums Outside the Museum_MIM_2019 is dedicated to the presentation of natural history in the new museum, which is planned to open at the end of 2022, following the positive example of using EU funds in partnership with the City of Zagreb.
In its vertical structure, the HPM module brings together three recent natural history exhibitions that can be seen in Amadeo Palace in Demetrova Street and that represent the idea of the new integral permanent display of HPM.
The exhibition Towards the New HPM presents only a small part of the museum’s holdings that have not yet been presented.
As a special attraction of the entire event, a reconstruction of the Brijuni theropod dinosaur that “walked” through Istria 125 million years ago, during the Cretaceous period, has also been created. It will be accompanied by exhibits of models of Cretaceous fish and lizards from the Cretaceous sea.
The exhibition Coral Retrieved from the Sea represents the biological and palaeontological coral holdings, a link to art inspired by nature, as well as a warning about the endangered status of particular world ecosystems.
The exhibition The Deadliest Animals on Earth / Mosquitoes presents an intriguing group of insects, vectors of the deadliest diseases of today, methods of controlling anthropogenically harmful components of nature, and recent holographic presentation methods for interesting natural history morphological specificities.
These are not visible to the naked eye, but they point to the fascinating beauty and power of nature.
By presenting all of the above in the MIM Pavilion, as well as at Demetrova 1, visitors are given only a “flash” view of the material, themes and presentation methods of the new permanent display and the new museum in the City of Zagreb in 2022.
Ethnographic Museum
At the Museums Outside the Museum event, the Ethnographic Museum presents a selection of different head coverings, which can be viewed at the exhibition Hats Off!, as well as archival photographs of head coverings from different regions.
In addition, the museum presents selected photographs of previous permanent displays and the appearance of the renovated façade of the museum building, a protected cultural monument.
At the workshops, we will encourage participants’ creativity by connecting traditional ornaments and contemporary textile design.
Archaeological Museum in Zagreb
On this occasion, visitors will be able to see replicas of some of the most important monuments from prehistory to the Middle Ages preserved in the Archaeological Museum in Zagreb, such as the cult vessel in the form of a stylized bird, the so-called “Vučedol Dove”, the Lumbarda Psephisma, a monumental stone inscription documenting the founding of a Greek colony on the island of Korčula, the famous head of a girl, “Solinjanka”, probably a portrait of Empress Plautilla, considered by many to be the most beautiful female portrait in Roman art, or a stone monument with the carved name of Croatian Duke Branimir and the year 888, as well as some objects of Egyptian provenance.
Some of these monuments can also be seen on the website of the Archaeological Museum in Zagreb through their 3D presentation, while in the Museum itself visitors can receive a 3D print of the “Vučedol Dove” and join the #DoveTales campaign – take the Vučedol Dove on a journey.
Croatian History Museum
The Museum preserves several hundred diverse objects from the extremely rich and valuable Jelačić family legacy, some of which will be exhibited on this occasion.
Replicas of objects representing Ban Jelačić himself will be exhibited – such as the installation Ban’s uniform and magnate jewellery, as well as objects testifying to the value and making of the monument to the Ban, which from 1866 until today has almost continuously adorned Zagreb’s main square, and objects showing the appearance of the square in 1866, when the monument was ceremonially placed there.
Through a video work, citizens will be reminded of the fate of the monument, from its installation, hiding and removal in 1947, to its return on the Ban’s birthday in 1990, with the new democratic changes.
In this way, all visitors and citizens of Zagreb will be reminded that the Croatian History Museum is the institution that preserves the extremely valuable Legacy of Ban Jelačić, but also that the Croatian capital itself, and therefore its main square, is in a way a museum outside the museum or an open-air museum.
MDC
Posters by Boris Ljubičić created for International Museum Day and published by the Museum Documentation Centre have shaped the visual identity of the event for many years.
This exceptionally successful series has received multiple awards, and the poster from 2000 on the theme “Museums for Peace and Harmony in Life” received one of the most prestigious awards, Red Dot – Best of the Best, and was declared the best poster in the world in those years.
Alongside their promotional role for this international museum event, Ljubičić’s posters creatively illustrate the theme and promote various aspects of Croatian cultural heritage.
Museum of Contemporary Art
This year, the Museum of Contemporary Art Zagreb marks the 10th anniversary of moving into its new building in Novi Zagreb.
Before moving to the new building, the Museum operated in the Upper Town in Kulmer Palace at Katarinski trg 2 and in Habdelićeva Street 2, while the collections were stored in several locations throughout the city.
In December 2009, the new building in Novi Zagreb was opened, designed by Igor Franić. With around 15,000 square metres, MSU became the largest museum facility in Croatia and one of the few purpose-built museums in Zagreb.
The Museum presents its collections and works by contemporary artists in the permanent display, while in the temporary exhibition space it presents exhibitions of the most important authors and phenomena on the Croatian and international contemporary scene.
A special feature of the MSU building is the 90-metre-long LED screen on which artistic video works are projected.
After almost ten years in the new building, MSU has become one of the symbols of Novi Zagreb, a lively and recognizable place of creation and interaction, gathering and socializing for all generations, with various daily programmes ranging from theatre and dance performances, film screenings, meetings with artists, critics and curators, children’s birthday programmes, guided tours and concerts to educational and creative workshops for children, parents, secondary school students, university students, persons with disabilities and retirees.
Franić’s restrained architectural expression has provided an ideal framework for the Museum’s activities in the spirit of the times, while its openness and non-dogmatic approach has allowed enough freedom to accept new museological imperatives.
Museum of Arts and Crafts
At the Museums Outside the Museum_MIM_2019 event, the Museum of Arts and Crafts presents itself with the exhibition How to Feel Good in the Museum of Arts and Crafts, based on the publication A Guide for Young People, or How to Feel Good in the Museum of Arts and Crafts by Malina Zuccon Martić, Head of the Educational Department of MUO and museum pedagogue advisor.
The guide was illustrated by the world-famous artist Milan Trenc, author of the book Night at the Museum, on which the famous Hollywood film was based.
In addition to the Guide itself, the exhibition also presents the permanent display of the Museum, as well as the general idea that every person can and should feel good in museums. The ultimate goal of this programme is to demystify the museum institution and attract new museum audiences.
The exhibition is cheerful, witty, chaotic… In short, we want visitors to feel as if they have entered Malina and Milan’s book!
Interesting stories about museum objects will also be explored in the workshops Dollhouse and Prints. The workshops were designed by Malina Zuccon Martić and will be led by Iva Novak and Marta Kuliš Aralica.
RADBOA
Radoboj is one of the richest sites in the world for fossil flora, as well as fossil insects, fish and bivalves, which confirm that the Pannonian Sea once existed here.
A fossilized vine leaf between 12 and 14 million years old was found in Radoboj, making it the oldest fossil of this type in Europe, and it is kept at the Croatian Natural History Museum in Zagreb.
The Radboa Museum uses interactive multimedia content, in line with the times, and follows and applies new technologies to present the sights of local heritage.
Nikola Tesla Technical Museum
The programme I Am Writing You a Letter… by the Nikola Tesla Technical Museum was designed with the aim of contributing to the culture of writing, in the month of May when World Letter Writing Day is also marked.
The programme consists of a presentation of objects from the Writing and Text Reproduction Techniques Collection of the Nikola Tesla Technical Museum.
A large part of these museum objects is stored in the museum storage area and is only occasionally available to the wider public, such as the automatic mechanical pencil, an invention of Croatian inventor Slavoljub Penkala from the beginning of the 20th century.
An integral part of the programme are workshops whose aim is to encourage the public to think about the skill of handwriting, especially letter writing, in the modern age of digital dementia, characterized almost exclusively by digital or virtual communication, where even conversation is increasingly becoming a communication method from past times, replaced by typing.
The advantages of life in the digital age are unquestionable. Still, by forgetting how to write by hand, in a certain way we also forget how to think.
Electronic media and constant internet connectivity make us increasingly dependent on technology.
Since the use of digital content, both in life in general and in education, is constantly increasing, so too is the importance of questioning the future of writing and the value of written communication.
Research by neuroscientists points to the numerous contributions of handwriting to the development of our brain and our entire being.
It has been proven that taking notes by hand is much more effective for long-term memory than typing on a keyboard or screen.
In the case of handwritten letters, their special quality is that they are material and tangible, and through them we can sense and experience some characteristics of the person who sent them, which is not possible through electronically mediated communication.
Research on five-year-olds also indicates that handwriting is directly connected to reading and that it facilitates the acquisition of reading in children of that age.
The aim of the programme is not to criticize digital media, but to point out the importance of handwriting as a mental-motor skill, because handwriting is one of the noblest human skills and a cultural treasure that we are obliged to pass on to future generations.
It is enough to remember how happy every child is when they finally learn to write their own name!
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