The Romano Museum: an Immersive Touch from Virtual Reality to Experienced Reality and Multimedia Imagery

REPARATORY MEMORY AND TRANSITIONAL JUSTICE FROM A POST-POSTMODERN PERSPECTIVE

 

This essay is an introduction to extended research. It aims to reflect upon what a contemporary Romano Museum should hold as its mission and how it should look in order to meet the requirements and the demands of the 21st-century visitor and society in general, in order to be useful both to Roma and to non-Roma visitors.

The Romano Museum should not only be a path towards the knowledge of society and history, and towards self-knowledge and self-understanding of the Roma, but also a tool for reshaping Roma collective memory, for rebuilding ethnic self-esteem, and for creating new narratives around the Roma self-image. This is in response to the fact that the Roma were historically deprived of the very right to preserve their memory in an institutional form, and of the right to recollect what was significant for them. Roma history has been written by the non-Roma, extremely belatedly and incorrectly, in a stereotypical and prejudiced way, interpreted from outside, without any effort to know and to understand from inside, including by using the pejorative exonyms such as ‘Tzigane’, ‘Gypsy’, ‘Zigeuner’, ‘Cigány’, ‘Zingaro’, ‘Athinganos’, instead of the scientifically and morally correct endonym ‘Rom’, and by building negative narratives about the Roma.

As for the non-Roma, the Romano Museum should provide knowledge that is sourced not only from historical written documents, because these may be marked by prejudice and stereotypes, but also knowledge deriving from both written and oral Roma sources. Furthermore, through knowledge provision, and also through cultivating empathy for Roma history and culture, using both the mind and the soul, rationality and emotion, the Romano Museum should challenge and transform non-Roma false narratives about the Roma, and build new narratives, which are based not only on an immutable absolute reality seen from one external so-called “objective” perspective, but on different realities and perceptions of these realities, assuming the subjectivity of looking into history, as a human science, i.e., a subjective science par excellence. The Romano Museum should include multiple perspectives, offering a generous space for Roma oral history, considered highly important, in this way providing a path towards Roma perception of their own history and culture, and on their relationship to otherness.

Alongside the lack of political will to establish public Romane Museums in most countries, one of the main challenges faced in attempting to create a Romano Museum is linked to the lack or paucity of documents issued by Roma themselves. The vast majority of written documents are issued by non-Roma, thus manifesting the “white” perspective, that, in the context of a tragic history of anti-Roma racism, actually means the perspective of the perpetrator of persecution, abuse and extermination of the Roma. The Romano Museum should rather focus on documents issued by the Roma themselves.

Another primary challenge is linked to the lack or paucity of objects deriving from the Roma communities and seen as representative by them. The majority of existing objects represent the obedient services and crafts Roma have provided to non-Roma in order to survive, and far less represent intracommunity Roma culture. The Romano Museum should focus on objects representing Roma culture from inside.

Museums are places of memory, meaning that, on the one hand, they are rooted in the memory of a people, and, on the other hand, they create the memory of that people and of society in general. That is why the Romano Museum should be rooted in the Roma memory of the past, and develop the Roma view of the present and for the future. While the non-Roma memory tends to be contaminated by labelling the Roma under stereotypes and prejudice, the Roma memory, even if subjective, is the only one able to fulfil the other part of the museum’s mission: creating or developing the memory of the Roma. This newly built memory repairs the historical injustice of depriving the Roma from building their memory within an institutional form open to the general public, in order for society to know, to understand and to correctly relate to the Roma; thus, it is a reparatory memory.

Taking into account all these reasons and the definition of the transitional justice, “Transitional justice is a process which responds to human rights violations through judicial redress, political reforms and cultural healing efforts in a region or country, and other measures in order to prevent the recurrence of human rights abuse. Transitional justice consists of judicial and non-judicial measures implemented in order to redress legacies of human rights abuses. Such mechanisms ‘include criminal prosecutions, truth commissions, reparations programs, and various kinds of institutional reforms’, as well as memorials, apologies, and various art forms”.[1] Created only from the Roma perspective, the Romano Museum can be a part of this type of reparatory and compensatory justice.

All of this is from the point of view of the mission the Romano Museum should play within the Roma community and in the general society, and from the point of view of the sources to be used for its content.

On the other hand, in order to increase its efficiency and impact, the question is how the mission and the types of sources this paper recommends for the Romano Museum can harmonize with the post- postmodern theories of museums; thus, one should use the best and the newest methods of reconstituting the past, of representing the present, and of envisaging the future, i.e.: selecting the exhibits, deciding on the way they are presented and the way they are placed into contemporary contexts, that are appealing for the visitors, directly involving them, prompting them to react, participate, and play different roles, and to immerse in everything the museum presents and describes.

One potential theory that can be applied is the post-postmodern theory of the transformative museum, that states the following: “Change in the use of technology, requirements of direct visitor participation and the need for changing display designs seem to be moving museums in the direction of future thinking, flexibility and transformation”.[2]

Taking into account the specificity of Roma culture – world-wide, transnational, nonterritorial, crossing borders, united in diversity – the theory of the transformative museum seems the most appropriate for the Romano Museum.

	Modern	Postmodern	Transformational
1.	Instructive Learning	Visitor Interaction	Visitor Influence
2.	National Focus	Global Focus	World-Wide (Web)
3.	Chronology	Storytelling	Participation
4.	Objectivity	Subjectivity	Flexibility

 

1. First, the more or less instructive learning style of the modern museum has transformed into a strong focus on visitor interaction in the postmodern understanding. And yet, we see signs that it is no longer enough for visitors to only interact. They seek a direct influence on the learning process, the social and the personal experience of a museum visit.
2. Where the modern museum tended to focus on national history and a community’s own origin, the postmodern museum became a quite global museum, whereby even smaller local museums had to define their purpose in global settings. Transformational breadth is even wider than global: it has become worldwide and especially all-knowing, as all types of information are always accessible through digital media. People join social websites like Twitter, Facebook and YouTube, e.g., because they can participate, make contributions and gain information quickly according to their own interests and choices. These types of communication shape how people gain new knowledge and how they want to participate and socialise. Visitors expect all kinds of information to be accessible either as part of an exhibition, event or via social media.
3. Many modern museum models presented their exhibitions through a certain chronology, order or classification. Archaeological and historical objects were often defined through age, dimensions, material and use. The postmodern museum tends to focus on the stories behind the objects and often centres on historic themes. Transformation acknowledges this part of telling stories by adding participation to a very distinct degree. It is not just a question of letting visitors interact with objects or through activities, but all these things now have to be open to the influence of visitors by letting the visitors shape them. Visitors have to be given opportunities to form their own stories, to find the information they themselves find interesting, and to shape activities and exhibitions by sharing and adding their own knowledge and experience. They want to participate, and they want their influence to be visible and useful.
4. The modern museum primarily presented collections in a so-called objective manner. This meant that there were only one or a few answers to questions regarding a nation’s history, and these answers were accepted as truth. The truth was taken as a given within museums. The postmodern museum made it possible for museums (and sometimes visitors) to add their own voice in an exhibition. The transformative museum will open up to even more flexibility, as visitors seek their own ways around knowledge interests. This means that sometimes visitors will seek expert knowledge, sometimes social participation, and sometimes digital interaction, etc. Presentation, interaction and interpretation will become more flexible and in constant transformation as requests become broader and have to be aimed at all kinds of visitors”.[3]

So far, there exists one best practice for a postmodern and partially transformative Romano Museum, the Rroma Culture Virtual Museum, the only one of its kind in the world, launched, in 2022, by the Association Rroma Center “Amare Rromentza” in Romania. It has some features linked to visitor participation, uses storytelling and oral history, is subjective, flexible, worldwide and ensures the immersive touch through its use of Virtual Reality.

Before describing all of these in more detail, we need to introduce the other Romane museums.

There are very few Romane museums in Europe and in the world, and nearly all of them are private initiatives, which have generally remained private, with some private initiatives becoming public.

In fact, the only public Romano museum in the world, a modern museum, is the Museum of Romani Culture in Brno, Czech Republic, “founded in 1991 as a non-profit organisation at the initiative of Roma intellectuals. Since 2005, the Museum of Romani Culture has become a state contributory organization of Ministry of Culture. It is a unique institution worldwide. Since the beginning, the Museum has primarily sought to build collection funds (approximately 28 000 collection items) documenting the Romani culture and history. Today it administers the funds of traditional crafts and professions, types of dwellings, interior furnishings, clothing and jewellery, fine arts, written materials, posters and invitations, audio, photo and video documentation, library, echoes of the Romani culture in the culture of the major society and the auto-documentation fund of the Museum”.[4]

Another Romano museum, also modern, is the Gordon Boswell Romany Museum, a private family-owned museum, opened on 25 February 1995, by Gordon and Margaret Boswell, in Spalding, Lincolnshire, England, United Kingdom, the “largest collection of Romany wagons and carts in the UK”.[5]

The world’s first permanent exhibition on the Nazi genocide of the Sinti and Roma was opened in 1997 in the Documentation and Cultural Centre of German Sinti and Roma in Heidelberg, Germany.[6]

The Virtual Museum of the Roma Holocaust “Ion Cioabă”, launched in 2022, created and established by the Social Cultural Foundation of the Roma “Ion Cioabă”, is an impressive collection of Roma Holocaust survivors’ testimonies and objects, as well as interviews with, or testimonies of, non-Roma historians, such as Radu Ioanid, Jean Ancel and Viorel Achim.[7]

To return to the Rroma Culture Virtual Museum[8], the only one of its kind in the world, it was co-funded with EEA Grants, launched in 2022 and created by the Association Rroma Centre “Amare Rromentza”, together with its nongovernmental Roma partners (“Împreună” Community Development Agency, Botoșani Marginalized Communities Association, Făgăraș Roma Association, DANROM Făurei Association, Community Development Agency of Buzău Community, Ursari Roma Association from Dagâța) and its public specialised partners (Romano Kher National Roma Culture Centre, National Museum of the Romanian Peasant, National Museum of Agriculture from Slobozia, National History Museum of Romania, Bucharest City Museum, ASTRA National Museum Complex), and it remains in the private property of the Association Rroma Centre “Amare Rromentza”.

The virtual museum has postmodern and transformative characteristics, and it aims to offer its visitors not only knowledge, but also empathy with the identity of the Roma, through emotional immersion in images, film, sound and thematic animations, all of which are brought together within the realm of virtual reality, the keystone of the museum’s creation. The museum is, at once, a library, a cinema, and an art gallery, but above all an invitation to relive history through the perspective and context of Roma culture.

For additional in-depth documentation, through its interactive approach, each virtual space sends the visitor to a secret room where, if s/he answers a simple question by ticking the correct answer, s/he will be able to find additional historical documents, photos, etc.

The virtual museum can be projected in 2D on any computer, with the visitor using Virtual Reality headsets and/or 3D glasses and/or in the Planetarium system and/or through a system of interconnected LED monitors. Its virtual spaces are not classical museum halls, but are located in the open air, in different landscapes, adapted to the content of each topic addressed, with the name/message of each inscribed on a gate. In each space, the visitor participates in the virtual reality created by means of thematic animation, with objects and documentary films related to the period and/or theme of the respective virtual space. The visitor is accompanied by the voice of the museum guide, who provides information about the topics covered in each virtual space. The museum guide is available in three languages: Romanian, Romani and English, which can be chosen as desired.

In the year 2023, the Romanian Parliament issued Law no. 238/2023 for the establishment of the National Museum of Roma History and Culture, that, if established, will be the second public Romano Museum in the world. Its detailed concept was created in 2022 by a working group of Roma and non-Roma specialists ­– historians, museologists, sociologists and anthropologists – for the National Agency for Roma, a Romanian governmental body.

The concept includes, alongside authentic representative objects and photos of documents, landscapes, characters and objects, reconstitutions of objects or characters made following descriptions from literature or Roma oral history, which may apply multimedia imagery, hologram-type video projections, 360-degree photographs, wax statues or life-size sculptural objects and totems, accompanied by written descriptions. These descriptions may also be heard on headphones through an audio system, and audio may also include music, where relevant.

All permanent exhibition halls aim to not only inform visitors, but also to provide them with an immersive, deeply empathetic emotional experience, and accordingly, the exhibits will comprise not only objects, artworks and photographs, including images with archival documents, but also audio and video recordings, documentary film, 3D animation, holograms, wax statues, as well as thematic background music. The museum will also include open-air museum components (including crafts workshops) and multi-purpose halls for temporary exhibitions, workshops, classes, conferences, scientific sessions, performance halls, and a restaurant of Roma gastronomy.

In conclusion, both virtual and physical, the postmodern and the transformative Romano Museum should comprise not only a collection of artefacts, but an immersive multimedia experience.

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[1] https://www.ictj.org/about/transitional-justice

[2] Jane K Nielsen, “Transformations in the Postmodern Museum”, in: Museological Review, University of Leicester, School of Museum Studies, 2014, Issue 18, p.26.

[3] Ibid, pp.27-28.

[4] https://www.rommuz.cz/en/

[5] https://gordonboswellromanymuseum.com/

[6] https://www.roma-sinti-holocaust-memorial-day.eu/recognition/the-worlds-first-permanent-exhibition-on-the-nazi-genocide-of-the-sinti-and-roma/

[7] https://xn--muzeuholocaust-ion-cioab-jyc.ro/

[8] https://romanomuseum.com/

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Dr. Delia Grigore is a Roma writer, researcher, and activist from Romania with a Ph.D. in visual arts from the Institute of Ethnography and Folklore of the Romanian Academy. She serves as president of the association Rroma Centre “Amare Rromentza” and has been working in the Roma movement for more than two decades. An author of three books and numerous articles and studies on Romani culture and literature, she edited Rromane Dikhimata (Rromane Perspectives): Anthology of Rromani Literary Creation in 2018. A poet and writer, Grigore is a lecturer at the University of Bucharest, Faculty of Foreign Languages and Literatures, Rromani Language and Literature Section, and also a member of the Writers Society “Costache Negri” in Romania.