Verso un “museo partecipato”: arti e tradizioni popolari a Roma

This article refers to the museum conception proposed by the contemporary museum sociology, according to which the relationship between production and reception constructs the meanings that museums aim to transmit. It presents the results of a longitudinal ethnographic research on the Museum of Arts and Popular Traditions in Rome, mapping its transition from storage of memories, traditions and cultural objects coming from different Italian regions to an “open and participatory museum”, with a strong connection to the surrounding area. On the one hand, the model of participatory museum refers to the experience of the Chinatown dialogical museum in New York and, on the other, to some aspects of the “eco-museum” experience, in keeping up with the surrounding area and enhancing the neighbouring community. This analysis investigates the potential gap between the meanings and the exhibition purposes inscribed in the exhibition by the curators and the actual receptive experiences of the audience. In many cases the collected data show that there is a deep divergence. This study also deals with the main changes of the museum political identity. Actually, the most important challenge that, over the decades, the museum had to face concerned the necessity of deconstructing these fascist values, on which it was originally founded, separating them from their fascist matrix. This process of redefinition was made possible by valorizing the regional localism of artifacts and cultural traditions and by reloading them with different political meanings, despite the architectural style of the museum building, which was and is still very fascist. This political and symbolic deconstruction has succeeded, but with some unintended consequences: for example, the exclusion - or at least the marginalization – of the potential international public from the museum target which remains mainly focused on the Italian visitors. The research has dealt with several central issues for the contemporary museum sociology, including: a) the problem of the multiple definitions of the museum identity; b) the relationship between museum and community and its ability to intervene in the conservation / redefinition and transmission of cultural values; c) the enhancement of the relationship with the public and the institution's ability to transform itself into an “open and participatory” museum, with a specific focus on the Viewer and User Models and their correspondence with the receptive experiences of the visitors; d) the problems related to the mise en scène of both the intangible and tangible cultural heritages with their shifting boundaries and mutual overlapping.