Valencian Museum of Ethnology
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The Valencian Museum of Ethnology (Museu Valencià d'Etnologia) is a museum located in the city of Valencia, mediterranean Spain. The museum mission defines it as cultural institution primarily devoted to collect, research and communicate the tangible and intangible heritage related to traditional and popular Valencian culture. The mission underlines that the museum also aims to permanently question fundamental aspects of the culture, as the dynamics that built it and force it to evolve, as well as its diversity. Although fundamentally devoted to Valencian cultural identity within a Mediterranean context, this museum also works to give visitors the chance to understand the challenges and dynamics of culture as a whole and from a contemporary perspective.
The end of Franco's dictatorship and the political transition of the late 1970s and early 1980s of the 20th century witnessed the re-emergency of culturally distinct identities within the Spanish state. As part of this wave, and somehow revitalizing some other historical attempts, the Valencian Museum of Ethnology was originally impulsed by Joan Francesc Mira a writer and anthropologist deeply interested in the valencian cultural identity. The institution was finally created in 1982 by the regional government called Diputació de València and placed in its current location at the Beneficència Cultural Centre, in the city center of València.
The museum finally opened its doors in 1983 with four staff members. Among its initials goals was to built up an ethnographic collection referring to valencian traditional culture and in particular that part of it related to rural areas and activities, already then, in a clear process of disappearance. In a few years an interesting collection in agrarian technology was gathered constituting the core collection of the museum that has been enlarged in later years.
As an institution rooted within the city of Valencian and the region of Valencia, the museum is constantly engaged in working with different communities along this territorial framework. Traveling exhibitions and workshops are part of its day-to-day activity; museum curators are constantly learning and sharing their knowledge in villages and cities in the area in close collaboration with cultural associations are individuals. The museum has developed a close relationships with many smaller museums across the territory with the aim of helping local communities access to quality cultural events, or else, broadcast their views, knowledge and identities through closely related cultural institutions.
At its site in the Centre Cultural la Beneficència in València city, the museum has a permanent exhibit presented in three sections: La ciutat viscuda. Ciutats valencianes en trànsit, 1800-1940 (The lived town. Valencian towns in transition, 1800–1940), Horta i marjal (Market gardens and marshes) and Secà i muntanya (Drylands and mountains), that show a summary of the many aspects of popular and traditional valencian culture. In this center, the museum offers its programme of temporary exhibitions that revise topics related to the museum mission. Along with temporary and permanent exhibitions, an intense activity of cultural events as educational workshops for children and families, seminars, film sessions, music performances and guided visits by the museum staff, are also part of the museum everyday life. Most of these are activities relate to traditional and popular culture and often bring multicultural perspectives, helping the museum to engage with its surrounding community at the city of València.
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