Worklab

With the failure of WORKLAB's bid to become a group within ICOM, there seems to be a good point to review the situation. With several directors coming to the end of their museum careers, it is important to engage the new generation of directors of museums of work and labour in WORKLAB. But WORKLAB must be of relevance to our work for us to invest time and resources in its continuance. This is especially so given the general economic situation, which has resulted in damaging cuts in all museums' grants. In the past we all found it very useful to engage in international work, especially for junior staff and it gave us all a real sense of shared objectives and comradeship.

For WORKLAB to thrive it needs new members who are prepared to be active in the organisation, it needs a project which is of concern to the members and it needs some international grant aid to pay for basic costs. In the past we have managed this.

WORKLAB is not an organisation that works on its own but it is a network which is just as active and powerful as the members make it. In the short run, this will mean that we put more into the organisation than we take out, just like in all voluntary networks. But in the longer term, it can have a very good impact in defining our distinctive role our sector. Our chairman Kalle Kallio is currently making an evaluation of Finnish special museums and many of these museums have some kind of international network on their special field (eg railway, design and maritime museums). But there are museums which do not have such networks or stay passive and alone for other reasons and he finds that this adversely affects their work and their image - at least in the eyes of visitors and funders who like to see international co-operation. We have found in the past that international contacts are very fruitful and we hope that WORKLAB can rediscover these positive outcomes.

Our secretary Nick Mansfield has been looking for partners in two possible joint projects on Co-operative architecture and working class temperance (not drinking alcohol). Both funding suggestions are geared to university sector, envisaging that WORKLAB members would be allied to a local university. These suggestions are not limited and he would be grateful if members could seriously consider the issue and come up with other projects which they think might have a wide appeal. For example, the forthcoming centenary of the outbreak of the First World War in 2014 is creating a lot of interest in British museums. Whilst this is currently focussing on military museums – of which there are many in the UK – there is no reason why we should not look at the workers' reactions to the conflict in an international way. In Finland for example it was the wartime situation which gave birth to the whole nation. Nick Mansfield has worked since August 2010 for the University of Central Lancashire (UCLan) in Preston, so for him any project would need to involve universities as well as museums.

1. Temperance, campaigns to restrict or abolish alcoloholic drinks.

Preston (the town where University of Central Lancashire (UCLan) is located , about 30 miles north of Manchester) was the UK of the Temperance movement in the 19thc. The campaign to discourage and in some cases abolish alcohol was led by Joseph Livesey, a Preston man whose large and interesting collection is held by UCLan's Library. In the UK most temperance supporters were working class, especially women and usually radical in politics. After the defeat of the Chartist political reform movement in 1848, many Chartist turned to temperance. From July 2012 to February 2013 UCLan and the People's History Museum are holding an exhibition, with associated events, on the movement.

There is a wide interest in this theme in UCLan. We don't know the extent of academic interest in temperance in the rest of Europe. For instance, Finnish temperance movement was very active and (as in the USA) succeeded in banning it between 1919 and 1932. We do not know how much interest or knowledge there would be amongst our WORKLAB friends, nor potentials for exhibitions. But Nick and his UCLan colleagues are quite excited about the possibilities of putting a future bid together involving post graduates, conferences, publications etc. It would be feasible to add a museum dimension to this, perhaps on a smaller scale than Migration, Work and Identity. Funding could be possibly arranged from the EU's HERA program.

2. Co-operative architecture

This comes out of Worklab's interest in labour movement buildings. Nick Mansfield has been thinking of applying for PhD studentships in conjunction with the People's History Museum and the Co-operative College and Archive. But this theme could be enhanced by HERA as above or with a European Scientific Fund FPVII Seminar for which funding is available - www.esf.org/workshops. Although this is initially only a three day event involving 15-30 scholars, it could be a pilot for a bigger project to ESF or HERA for exhibitions etc. WORKLAB with its track record and co-operative contacts might be a suitable vehicle for doing something in a pan european way, though it would need close collaboration with academic allies.

Please do come back with your own ideas or let us know if either of the projects might be of interest to you.

 

Best Wishes

Nick Mansfield
Secretary WORKLAB
nick ( at) nickmansfield.plus.com

Kalle Kallio
Chairman WORKLAB
kalle.kallio (at) tyovaenmuseo.fi

 

Worklab's General Meeting was held in Tampere 13 August 2010. The Minutes will be online soon. Peter Ludvigsen resigned the board after being the Chairman of Worklab since 1997. The new chairman is Kalle Kallio who works as a museum director at the Finnish Labour Museum.  The new members of the board are Morten Bo Alstrup from Denmark and Dagmar Kift from Germany.

 

Here is the picture of the new board and former chair taken after the meeting. From the left, Morten Bo Alstrup (Treasurer, Workers' Museum, Denmark), Kalle Kallio (Chairman, The Finnish Labour Museum), Udo Wiesinger (Vice Chairman, Museum Arbeitswelt Steyr, Austria), Peter Ludvigsen (former Chairman, Workers' Museum, Denmark), Dagmar Kift (LWL-Industriemuseum, Germany), Nicholas Mansfield (Secretary, The People's History Museum, UK), Torsten Nilsson (Museum of Work, Sweden). José Gameiro (Museu de Portimão, Portugal) is missing from the picture.