Posts tagged austria

Angelo Soliman: An African in Vienna The latest temporary exhibition at the Vienna City Museum addresses the life of Angelo Soliman, former child slave, chamberlain, freemason and acquaintance of Mozart, tutor to the prince’s children and whose body after his death was stuffed and displayed in the Natural history museum as a “half-naked savage”, decorated with ostrich feathers and shells.  I haven’t yet seen the exhibition, but I have good reason to be excited. The Vienna City Museum has had temporary exhibitions before that deal with the immigrant presence in Vienna (for example: Gastarbejteri), but the permanent exhibition has at last count (roughly 4 months ago) one depiction of an African person in full feather regalia from an ‘exotic goods’ shop sign which also features the only appearance of an Asian person, representation of the significant Turkish community on Vienna is limited to paintings of the antagonists of the Battle of Vienna 1683 alongside instruments of battle and siege - a major disservice to the 70, 445 people of Turkish descent in this city - Jewish people are only mentioned in relation to their persecution (pre-Holocaust, the permanent exhibition stops around the outbreak of WWI with Klimt and Schiele) and are neither depicted nor objects displayed to demonstrate their presence… the list goes on.  Whilst this is again a temporary exhibition, the museum is currently in the process of redesigning the permanent exhibition and I sincerely hope that the research and reaction to the Soliman exhibition and Gastarbejteri will become permanent elements. Also exciting about the new exhibition is the challenging special events that are taking place as part of the events programme (pdf). My calendar is already marked with events ranging from museological discussion of the ethics of displaying human remains, to tours of the city highlighting the African presence in Vienna over centuries, and discussions about the changing attitudes towards the African community held together with African groups. And I intend to go and take part in lots of these events, so expect to be hearing more about this exhibition and the accompanying programme in the future!

Angelo Soliman: An African in Vienna

The latest temporary exhibition at the Vienna City Museum addresses the life of Angelo Soliman, former child slave, chamberlain, freemason and acquaintance of Mozart, tutor to the prince’s children and whose body after his death was stuffed and displayed in the Natural history museum as a “half-naked savage”, decorated with ostrich feathers and shells. 

I haven’t yet seen the exhibition, but I have good reason to be excited. The Vienna City Museum has had temporary exhibitions before that deal with the immigrant presence in Vienna (for example: Gastarbejteri), but the permanent exhibition has at last count (roughly 4 months ago) one depiction of an African person in full feather regalia from an ‘exotic goods’ shop sign which also features the only appearance of an Asian person, representation of the significant Turkish community on Vienna is limited to paintings of the antagonists of the Battle of Vienna 1683 alongside instruments of battle and siege - a major disservice to the 70, 445 people of Turkish descent in this city - Jewish people are only mentioned in relation to their persecution (pre-Holocaust, the permanent exhibition stops around the outbreak of WWI with Klimt and Schiele) and are neither depicted nor objects displayed to demonstrate their presence… the list goes on. 

Whilst this is again a temporary exhibition, the museum is currently in the process of redesigning the permanent exhibition and I sincerely hope that the research and reaction to the Soliman exhibition and Gastarbejteri will become permanent elements. Also exciting about the new exhibition is the challenging special events that are taking place as part of the events programme (pdf). My calendar is already marked with events ranging from museological discussion of the ethics of displaying human remains, to tours of the city highlighting the African presence in Vienna over centuries, and discussions about the changing attitudes towards the African community held together with African groups. And I intend to go and take part in lots of these events, so expect to be hearing more about this exhibition and the accompanying programme in the future!

Googles NGrams

Since 2004, Google has digitized more than 15 million books, mostly to build its Google Books service. But yesterday Google Labs released a nice little spinoff product, the Ngram Viewer, that provides a window into how we have historically used words, and what these usages say about our culture.

This new visualization tool lets you map out the usage of a given word, or series of words, over a 200 year period (1800 – 2008). For example, the Ngram Viewer shows us that we think less about  “war” these days, as compared to the 1940s and 1960s, and more about “terrorism.” (Click the links to “war” and “terrorism” and you will see what I mean.) Similarly, the English speaking world has recently renewed its love affair with the dog vis-a-vis cats. And if you invested in salsa and bailed on ketchup in 1980, you would be a pretty wealthy person right now.

Overall, the Ngram database contains roughly 5.2 million books (a subset of the larger Google Books database), with some 500 billion words, and it features texts in Chinese, English, French, German, Russian, and Spanish. Get more details here.

via @webacion and @eugenephoto

openculture.com

From the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum:

The Story of Helen and Ross Baker

Helen and Ross Baker were Americans living in Vienna when the Nazis annexed Austria in March 1938. With a diary and a Kodak movie camera, they recorded a stirring firsthand account of their experiences during this tumultuous time.

Museum staff compiled some of this material into a short video. Please take a moment to watch and share it with your friends and family.

In other news, I have applied to at least 150 jobs over the past 6 months, leading to 1 interview and 0 serious prospects.

nerdgasms:

ETA: “Only” 150ish jobs because I’m not just applying for any old job. Also sorry potential employers, I know I BREAK ALL THE RULES when I show you negative qualities about me like:

  1. I am not a hot market commodity, which you could have probably figured out the moment you saw “M.A. Museum Studies” on my resume.
  2. I have a blog.
  3. I have another blog about how I think jobs should pay money in return for work. This means I must be either greedy or a socialist, and possibly both!

This is a very familiar story - have applied for multiple jobs (problems compounded by the fact that museum jobs in Austria don’t seem to be advertised in the same way as the UK, lots of word of mouth and through - subscription payable - professional organisations). I sent out C.V.s anyway, got two interviews, neither actually had any jobs going but found my C.V. interesting (nice, but no good to me).

My problems seem to be:

  1. Austrians don’t seem to believe that an English person can speak German (despite it being written on my CV, both expressed surprise when I interviewed in German)
  2. Museum Studies MA doesn’t really exist here in the same way and the closest things are still quite young. There isn’t the same route into the museums profession (if only I had know that I would end up here when I carefully planned my career-orientated qualifications!)
  3. Jobs aren’t really advertised. Sometimes something will come up on the museum homepage but more often than not they get sent out over listservs for professional organisations (universally expensive) or through friends. It’s a hard circle to break into the get the networking opportunities.

If anyone can think of any ways to get around this or turn it to my favour, please let me know!

nerd-gasms