Welcoming note
Udo Gößwald
President of ICOM Europe
Opening of the Conference of Hands On Europe
Scientific research in the development of the embryo has recently revealed the astonishing fact that the sense of touching develops already in the eighth week. The human being is then just about two and a half centimetres big. Smelling, hearing and tasting develop only in the last third of pregnancy. The baby opens its eyes only after birth. Through the sense of touching the human being experiences for the first time something about himself, his body-ego and he feels that he is not alone. Touching is our first language. Through touching we make our first experiences. And by touching we are nourished and calmed down: our first emotional affections are being created. The sense of touching is our first bridge to another person.
Later in the child’s development, very roughly speaking, its independence from the mother is being established by so called transitional objects, as we know from Donald Winnicott. A piece of cloth, a soft gadget eventually grows to become a substitute in case of the mother’s absence. Objects of this kind turn up in later phases of human life and are part of how we construct the world. When exploring the world around him the child defines borders and barriers with objects. It learns from their size and shape and eventually attaches meaning to them. The selection of an object that a child puts aside on a shelf is nothing else but the selection that we as museums do. We choose and select objects and record their given meaning or attach meaning to them.
The selection of objects children use to get orientation are unconscious processes which are stored in its memory. They are there to be revealed in a much later phase of life. Let me quote a wonderful passage about a wooden stick from Rainer Maria Rilke in his prose work on Auguste Rodin. Here in the Academy of Arts I shall quote the original German text:
»Dieser kleine vergessene Gegenstand, der alles zu bedeuten bereit war, machte Sie mit Tausenden vertraut, indem er tausend Rollen spielte, Tier war und Baum und König und Kind, – und als er zurücktrat war das alles da. Dieses Etwas, so wertlos es war, hat Ihre Beziehung zur Welt vorbereitet, es hat Sie ins Geschehen und unter die Menschen geführt, und mehr noch: Sie haben an ihm, an seinem Dasein, an seinem Irgendwie-Aussehn, an seinem endlichen Zerbrechen oder seinem rätselhaften Entgleiten alles Menschliche erlebt bis tief in den Tod hinein. Sie erinnern sich dessen kaum mehr, und es wird Ihnen selten bewusst, dass Sie auch jetzt noch Dinge nötig haben, die, ähnlich wie jene Dinge aus der Kindheit, auf Ihr Vertrauen warten, auf Ihre Liebe, auf Ihre Hingabe.«
(Rainer Maria Rilke, Das dichterische Werk, Frankfurt a.M. 2005, S. 184)
And now my vague translation into English for which I apologize in advance:
»This little lost object, that was ready to mean anything, made you acquaintant with thousands by playing a thousand roles, being an animal and a tree and king and child – and when he vanished all this was still there. This something, because it was so worthless, has developed your relationship to the world, it has lead you into life and amongst the human kind, and even more: You have experienced in its being and its looking as such with its final breaking and mysterious slipping away all of what is human up to its mortal destination. You only vaguely remember all of this and seldomly you gain consciousness of the fact that still today we need things similar to those of our our childhood, awaiting your confidence, your love and your passion.«
To me children museums are those types of museums that can especially deal with these processes of active selection towards objects of affection and interest that help a child find its way through life. Therefore I believe that all of you who are working in such museums participate in a genuine way to raise consciousness for these essential human forms of behaviour.
ICOM underlines in its code of ethics the commitment of our profession to the universal care for cultural heritage. In children’s museums we can best teach and practice this care for objects that are so important for the construction of each individual’s identity. Therefore ICOM Europe, the European regional organisation of ICOM that links activities between the National Committees and the International Committees in Europe, has decided to put the support of children’s museum’s on its agenda in order promote their importance. This is why I am here and I hope to be able to contribute to your discussions. I want to thank the organizers for their splendid effort to bring this conference to Berlin and encourage you to use this unique possibility in order to profile and develop the professional standards of your institutions.
