Carmen LOEW
(Kuratorium Pfahlbauten, Vienna, Austria)
Keywords: Cultural mediation, pile dwellings, exhibition,
Abstract:
As a small entity with a big mission, the Kuratorium Pfahlbauten is breaking new ground in cultural mediation in Austria. Funded for the management, communication and mediation of the UNESCO World Heritage “Prehistoric Pile Dwellings around the Alps”, the organization finds itself confronted with the obligation to integrate an invisible world heritage into people’s daily lives. The UNESCO World Heritage Convention requires an active participation of the broad public in the World Heritage, which can not be achieved with the classical affirmative mediation approach, which seeks confirmation only. In considering theories of contemporary cultural mediation the Kuratorium explores new ways, for example, in showing exhibitions in the sense of a reproductive discourse specifically in public places where they are not necessarily expected or in streaming live from an underwater excavation in the internet. Public is involved in choosing the topics of exhibition topics and supplements and to prepare the content of the exhibitions for mediation, but is also asked to give an immediate feedback and share positive as well as negative experiences with the topic of pile dwellings. The presentation will discuss two of the current exhibitions. It will investigate the question for which mediation goals digital or analog tools have been chosen and why. I will also discuss in what cases digital or analogue tools have been expected by the public as well as the answering the question what advantages and disadvantages in the use of the exhibition resulted from the chosen tools.