National projects
2008
”Open doors to intangible heritage”
This event, promoted by the Italian Ministry of Culture and Heritage, has been carried out with the support of Simbdea. It has been centered on two initiatives :
- January 20th 2008 “National day: Museums for intangible heritage”
Simbdea promoted and organized a day for all museums exhibiting elements of intangible heritage, from traditional music to religious rites, to traditional crafts. During that day all museums who took part (over 370 throughout the whole country) organized a special opening day and initiatives to promote intangible heritage in their area of reference. Simbdea contacted the museums, organized two web spaces, one in its own web site and also two special blogs to promote the initiative (the two blogs alone were visited by over 4000 people during the week prior to the event)
- 1-2-3 February 2008 “Open doors to Italian tradition”
For this three day event in Rome at the Vittoriano Exhibition Centre, Simbdea selected, contacted and led a part of the scientific sessions of the meetings organized as part of this major national event to promote knowledge and understanding of the Unesco Convention for Intangible Heritage and of intangible heritage occurrences in the country.
Local projects
2007-2008
Rural Tuscany and sharecropping culture : “The year of the Mezzadro”
Simbdea, in collaboration with the Region Tuscany and in partnership with local organizations is working on the planning of a whole year with events/exhibitions/meetings dedicated to the promotion of knowledge of the rural heritage of Tuscany tied to the sharecropping system, values and culture. A large digitization project of sound and audiovisual archives containing information on all supports about rural culture in Tuscany, is currently being planned and will be intertwined with all the initiatives in order to promote culture through preservation practices. The list of events and projects will be presented within the end of 2009, and the events will take place through all 2010.
2007 – 2009
“ETNU” Festival - Cagliari, Sardinia
Simbdea has supported and participated in the first Sardinian festival of local heritage, promoted by the Region Sardinia, a 4 day festival putting together ethnographic heritage, museums, ethnologists both national and local. The festival will take place every two years and is due to take place in the summer of 2009
2008
“Cities and markets” – Parma, Emilia Romagna.
Simbdea supported and sponsored the congress “Cities and markets”, on the safeguard of city areas with traditional markets at risk of disappearance due to urban renovation strategies. The congress is part of a general moment of discussion about the issue, and further initiatives are currently being planned in partnership with the IBC (Institute for heritage) of the Region Emilia Romagna.
Museum Exhibitions
Simbdea has acted as consultant for many local administrations for feasibility projects or museum exhibition projects for museums all around the country. The scientific committees that have worked on these projects were always composed of local Simbdea associates in collaboration with the members of the board. They have worked in collaboration with the local administrations to create projects that promote innovative interpretations of local heritage, connecting objects with cultures, material culture to intangible heritage, to provide the visitors with an in depth understanding of the local past and present through the use of both objects and audiovisual, photographic and sound documents.
2005-2007
National Museum of Anthropology of Florence
Consultancy for the renovation of some sections of the permanent exhibition of the National Museum of Anthropology of Florence
2007
Municipality of Tuili (CA) Sardinia
Consultancy for the creation of the permanent exhibition of the Ethnographic Museum at Villa Asquer in Tuili(CA)
2007
Municipality of Mantova (MN)
Feasibility project for the renovation of the Polironiano Ethnographic Museum in San Benedetto Po (MN) : exhibition, mission definition, management, promotion strategies.
Museum professions
Training courses for museum professionals
Simbdea has planned, coordinated and carried out some important training occasions for museum professionals and cultural operators on behalf of local administrations. The courses have been carried out by members of the Organization according to their special areas of competence (i.e. fieldwork research, cataloguing, exhibiting).
Simbdea also periodically organizes seminars and monographic courses in academic contexts to discuss issues about museums and heritage, the concept of heritage, how museums and archives convey interpretations of identity and heritage.
2002 -2004 Region Veneto
Simbdea designed and carried out a training course for ethnographic cultural operators and for ethnographic heritage cataloguing for the Region Veneto.
2004 Region Emilia Romagna
Simbdea designed and carried out a training course for ethnographic object cataloguing in the Region Emilia Romagna.
2007 Municipality of Rieti (RM)
Project for museum professionals and cultural operators training course.
Simbdea has also collaborated during the last two years with ICOM –Italy and 4 other Italian museum organizations to promote a clearer definition of museum professional profiles, in order to create a unified framework on a national level and be able to plan more effective training and assess the skills and areas of competence of qualified museum professionals.
As a result of this collaboration in 2007 an official document was issued by ICOM –Italy that describes the professional profiles of museum staff and defines criteria for training and recruitment.
Museum networking
Another activity carried out by Simbdea has been aimed at connecting museums both on a regional and on a national level by working sometimes also on behalf of regional administrations, as in the project DEMOS, or independently, by organizing annual meetings in different regions to create occasions for museums to meet and discuss common issues and create networks. In some cases this activity has lead to the formation of spontaneous networks, as in the case of the network “Rebel” in Lombardia.
On a national level the work of Simbdea has been to create during the events organized, and through its web site, a community of museums, in order to share knowledge, have opportunities to discuss ideas and plan common initiatives.
2006 - 2007
Region LAZIO : DEMOS project
Simbdea has gathered information on all ethnographic museums of the region in order to assess the situation of public and private museums and collections and implement an effective network. The web site of the DEMOS project will be on-line soon, the network was presented officially in Rome in 2007.
Annual regional museums meetings
2005 – 2006 - LOMBARDIA
Simbdea has organized two annual meetings with all ethnographic museum professionals of the region Lombardia. Following the 2005 meeting the regional network “Rebel” was formed and presented the following year.
Other annual meetings have been organized in the following regions and others are currently being planned for 2009.
2005 – 2006 -2008 FRIULI VENEZIA GIULIA
2006 – LAZIO
2006 - TOSCANA
2005 - 2006 CALABRIA
2006 – TRENTINO ALTO ADIGE
Congresses/Meetings/Seminars
Simbdea has sponsored/promoted and taken part in a wide number of meetings, conferences, and single lessons or series of seminars on various issues related to intangible heritage, its definition, its safeguard, and its promotion through museums of material culture. In the list below we have included only the last years of activity, and the most relevant occasions where Simbdea has been organizer or partner or has given its patronage.
2008
Congress: Museinforma. Conoscere, costruire, gestire il nostro patrimonio culturale – Naples
Conference: Forma, Azione. Museo/Scuola/Territorio/Impresa – Codroipo (UD)
Seminar: La poesia bene immateriale: problemi di archiviazione, catalogazione e tutela - Grosseto
Cycle of seminars : La costruzione del patrimonio culturale. Discussioni critiche tra antropologia ed altri territori - Rome
Conference: I tesori della vita quotidiana. La storia a memoria: voci testimonianze e memorie del territorio e della gente - Rimini
2007
Conference: Trasformazioni storico sociali e mondo rurale: il pensiero forte di Emilio Sereni – Perugia
Conference: Inaugurazione del Centro Informativo del Sistema Museale Demoetnoantropologico del Lazio – DEMOS, Roma
Conference: Firenze 1908. Primo Museo di Etnografia Italiana. Un bilancio 100 anni dopo - Florence
Conference : Santi Diavoli e Draghi nella cultura popolare. Giornata di Studi – San Benedetto Po (MN)
Conference: Mezzadri. Le radici della Toscana tra presente e futuro – Borgo San Lorenzo (FI)
Conference: Collezionisti. Costruzione del soggetto, tracce dell’infanzia, presenze familiari – Rome
Conference: Le nuove convenzioni Unesco: il coinvolgimento delle regioni e degli enti locali nella loro attuazione e promozione - Rome
Seminar : Dal pomeriggio alla notte del giorno dopo e sempre in museo. Comunicare AM - Simbdea incontrarsi, parlare, fare esperienze – Santarcangelo di Romagna (RN)
Conference: Il Museo, la Città e gli uomini. La ricerca antropologica al servizio dell’educazione museale – Ravenna
Conference: Museologica. Modelli istituzionali e percorsi normativi per i musei etnografici – Pallazzolo Acreide (SR)
Conference: I musei e la società civile in Sicilia: I musei etnografici come agenti per lo sviluppo sociale, culturale ed economico locale – Ragusa –Scicli
2006
Conference: Simbdea, i musei DEA in Lombardia e la carta nazionale delle professioni museali – Milan
Short-film and documentaries national award - Collecchio (PR)
Conference: Convegno nazionale sulla cultura Contadina e sui beni demoetnoantropologici a Bomba - Bomba(CH)
Conference : Verso una qualità condivisa: la missione nei musei dea e la sensibilità etnoantropologica nel Lazio - Rome
Conference: Virtuale o reale? Ruoli e funzioni dell’immagine e della comunicazione multimediale nei musei etnografici e della cultura materiale – Maniago (PN)
Festival : Balla coi libri…Primo festival dell’antropologia e della musica popolare- Matera
Conference: Musei etnografici nel senese – Milan
Conference: Musei etnografici, esperienze e proposte di allestimento – Cesiomaggiore (BL)
Seminar : Carbonia laboratorio antropologico – Carbonia (SS)
2005
Conference : Voci e gesti della tradizione. I beni ‘volatili’ nel museo etnografico (Galbiate –LC)
Conference : Giornata Internazionale dei Musei – Matera
Conference: Il museo è….mobile – Maniago (PN)
2004
Conference: Antropologia museale nel Salento, incontro di studio – Lecce
Workshop: Presente e futuro dell’ecomuseo, strumenti per la comunità: ecomuseo e musei etnografici – Omega (VB)
Conference: Presentation of Antropologia Museale - Messina
2003
Conference : Comunicare le memorie. Itinerari della conoscenza – Rome- Viterbo