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ABSTRACT
This article explores the use of an interactive mnemonic device called a “Map of Memories” to navigate the museum theater production Our Footprints, staged in 2017 in the Bergtheil Museum in Durban, South Africa. The Map is an interactive tool used by audience members to explore the exhibits and the performance through connecting their own memories and understandings to what is seen and experienced. The Map, along with the performance, encourages emotional and personal connections to the factual content of the museum exhibitions, with the aim of promoting stronger opportunities for remembering, learning, and new insight.
Disclosure statement
No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).
Notes
1 The Bergtheil Museum is named after Jonas Bergtheil. It is believed he built and lived in the house in which the museum is currently housed. Bergtheil was a Bavarian man who was influential in bringing German settlers to the area of New Germany in Durban, South Africa, in 1847. The museum exhibits include narratives about German settlers, the missionary influence in KwaZulu-Natal, Durban, traditional Indian weddings.
2 Catherine Hughes, Museum Theatre: Communicating with Visitors through Drama. (Portsmouth: Heinemann, 1998), ii.
3 The dramatic script is now kept in the Bergtheil Museum Archive.
4 Actor-guide refers to the performers who take on multiple roles during the museum theater performance, including those of actor, museum guide, teacher and facilitator.
5 John Sutton, Celia B. Harris & Amanda J. Barnier, “Memory and Cognition” in Memory: Histories, Theories, Debates. Ed. Susannah Radstone & Bill Schwarz, (New York: Fordham University Press, 2010), 12.
6 Sutton, Harris & Barnier, “Memory and Cognition”, 212.
7 Sutton, Harris & Barnier, “Memory and Cognition”, 213.
8 Gaynor Kavanagh ed., Making Histories in Museums. (London & New York: Leicester University Press, 1999), 2.
9 Susan A. Crane, “The Conundrum of Ephemerality: Time Memory and Museums” in A Companion to Museum Studies ed. Sharon MacDonald (Malden, Oxford & Carlton: Blackwell Publishing, 2006), 102.
10 Sheldon Annis, “The museum as a staging ground for symbolic action” in Museum Provision
and Professionalism ed. Gaynor Kavanagh (London & New York: Routledge, 2005).
11 Kavanagh, Making Histories in Museums, 4.
12 Annis, “The museum … symbolic action”, 21.
13 Annis, “The museum … symbolic action”, 20.
14 Gaynor Kavanagh, Dream Spaces: Memory and the Museum. (London & New York: Leister University Press, 2000), 3.
15 Stephanie Jenkins, Our Footprints, Unpublished play (2017), 4.
16 Kavanagh, Making Histories in Museums, 4.
17 Kavanagh, 2.
18 Kavanagh, xiii, (my italics).
19 Elizabeth Tonkin, Narrating our past: The social construction of oral history. (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1992), 67.
20 Indentured Indian laborers arrived in South Africa in 1860 to work mainly in Natal, now KwaZulu-Natal, the province in which the Bergtheil Museum is situated.
21 Stephanie Jenkins, Our Footprints, 12.
22 Jay Naidoo. “Understanding the Indian Caste System”. Jay Naidoo. 31 January 2012. Accessed May 3, 2014. http://www.jaynaidoo.org/understanding-the-indian-caste-system/. The desire to leave the caste system behind in India, in addition to the promise of “a better life”, encouraged Indian laborers to move to Natal to work, mainly on the sugar plantations. The origin of caste comes from the word “casta” a Portuguese word that means “lineage” or “breed.” It is a system that imposes a social status on a family or person from birth, creating divisions between people of different castes.
23 Anthony Jackson, “Engaging the audience: negotiating performance in the museum” in Performing Heritage: Research, Practice and Innovation in Museum Theatre and Live Interpretation ed. Anthony Jackson & Jenny Kidd (Manchester: Manchester University Press, 2011), 17. The performance frame is used by Jackson in exploring the different frames in museum theater. The performance frame highlights the theatrical nature of the event.
24 Kavanagh, Making Histories in Museums, 3.
25 Shawn Rowe, James Wertsch, & Tatyana Kosyaeva, “Linking Little Narratives to Big Ones: Narrative and Public Memory in History Museums”. Culture & Psychology 8, no. 96 (2002): 97.
26 Our Footprints Post-Performance Discussion, Bergtheil Museum (2017).
27 Our Footprints Post-Performance Discussion, 2017.
Additional information
Notes on contributors
Stephanie Jenkins
Stephanie Jenkins ([email protected]) has a PhD from the University of KwaZulu Natal, Durban, South Africa, and is a theater maker, writer, director, and performer with particular interest in museum theater as a means to bring historical settings, narratives, and objects to life.