MET: history, peculiarity and mission
"Santarcangelo is a city with a historical, cultural, human and traditional heritage that is remarkable and in some ways unique in terms of originality and creativity. The Ethnographic Museum represents a cultural presence now historical in and of the city. In order to underline the link between the museum and the community, it should be pointed out that the authoritativeness and value that the Museum has been able to gain over time, has meant that there have been many who have made donations and legacies. To the question of why a museum with these characteristics in Santarcangelo: the answer can only be found in the fact that here traditions are an essential and characteristic element of daily life. So there was, and there is, a fertile context to grow and consolidate an experience of this kind."
(Mauro Vannoni, Ex Mayor of Santarcangelo di Romagna)
Short history of the Museum
The Ethnographic Museum of Santarcangelo, inaugurated in 1981, was born from the patient and passionate work of a group of volunteers who had been working since the end of the 1960s to safeguard the data of rural memory. Since the 1970s, studies and research have been promoted, with the aim of laying the foundations for the construction of a museum, by organizing a "Scientific Committee", under the direction of Giuseppe Šebesta, curator of Museo degli Usi e Costumi della Gente Trentina. In parallel with the field research, the project for the recovery of the municipal slaughterhouse (built in 1924) was promoted in the same years. The Ethnographic Centre for Research and Documentation (C.E.R.D.) was opened in 1985, and the research and documentary production campaigns were launched and systematically organised.The museum is thus equipped with archives and tools for scientific dissemination by setting up research laboratories to promote the study of folk traditions, the production of audiovisual documentation, temporary exhibitions, study days and educational initiatives. In 1989, the year of the inauguration of the second exhibition, the Museum defined and further strengthened its organizational structure. In 1996, the City Council approved the transformation of the Museum into an Institution, giving it managerial and budgetary autonomy, management bodies, additional personnel and specific regulations. A president and a board of directors are appointed by adopting the acronym MET (for Museo ETnografico) in its logo. In May 2005, the new museum exhibition itinerary was inaugurated, enriched with new objects, testimonies of individual and collective life. The history of the museum is one of experimentation, projects that have been carried out, rekindled to a continuous tension of development and improvement, with new acquisitions, a renewed exhibition itinerary, and the opening of new museum spaces in the territory and in the city.
Territory
Santarcangelo rises on a hill, called Monte Giove, situated between the rivers Uso (which flows to the north) and Marecchia (which flows to the south east), which is the last slope of the Apennines overlooking the extreme southern part of the Po Valley. The city is developed on the important route of the Via Emilia a few kilometers from the sea. The economy of the country has always been mainly agricultural, and trade has developed around the exchange of products of the earth, leading to the development of markets and seasonal fairs.
The mission
The Ethnographic Museum has the task of collecting, preserving and enhancing the demo-ethno-anthropological evidence of the territory it represents, creating a centre of culture and research. The Museum of the Uses and Customs of the People of Romagna wants to be defined as a living moment for research and knowledge of the culture of a people and has as its main interest to grasp the various aspects that form popular traditions (symbolism, sociality, work, rituals, art) of that area called southern Romagna. Its aims are to collect, order and study the materials that refer to history, economy, dialects, folklore, in short to the customs and customs of the people of Romagna, promote and publish studies and research of an ethnographic-ergological nature, especially related to the material experience, seeking dialogue with schools and the collaboration of universities, and finally promote the dissemination and knowledge of the uses, customs and technologies that are part of the heritage of Romagna through cultural events, courses, workshops. A museum of finds and testimonies has the task not only of exhibiting objects and images, but also of communicating ideas. A museum of ideas consists of an exhibition that illustrates a series of realities, relationships, scientific problems solved and not solved. The Museum of the Uses and Customs of the People of Romagna is addressed to all citizens alike in order to:
- contribute to the development of the local community and its territory; to participate, within its competence, in the events and projects of civil and cultural growth of its social reality.
- contribute to that reflection on the quality of life that springs from the awareness of the essential relationship between memory and historical-cultural identity.
Note
All information is taken from: Turci M., Storia di un museo, Imola: Editrice La Mandragora, 2005 Turci M., Foschi F., MET Museo degli Usi e Costumi della Gente di Romagna, Verucchio: Pazzini Stampatore Editore, 2007. MET website, http://www.museisantarcangelo.it/met/
