AIMA MISSION STATEMENT

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The AIMA will soon be able to celebrate half a century of existence (1966-2016). It is not too early to begin thinking about this past, which is already appreciably long, and to endeavour to explore what we have learned. What was the AIMA’s mission in the past and what can it be in the future, most especially, what do we want it to be? These are the questions for which some elements of response are outlined here.

 

Our heritage : the Congress, the journal Acta Museorum Agriculturae.

 

Let us begin by recalling the rule that the AIMA congress is held every three years, each time in a different country, because this rule is fundamental. It did happen occasionally that this three-year interval was not perfectly respected but, by and large, the congresses did take place without important interruptions from the founding of the AIMA on, and we can all regard that as a real success. The congresses were and must remain an essential tradition in the life and the activity of the AIMA. A living and strong tradition to which we must remain faithful.

The only innovation that can be envisioned in this regard is to widen the circle of countries participating. Up to now, all the congresses have been held in European countries, and there were good reasons for that. From a practical standpoint, it was long the only solution possible, and we might note that it is still a very good one. However, this should not prevent us from asking whether the AIMA must remain European or whether it should become a truly international association. In the first case, common sense would dictate that we change its name and statutes. If, on the contrary, we believe that the AIMA should become truly international, a goal that is clearly stated in the present statutes, then some of its congresses must be held outside of Europe. This is a point that the Presidium should take up and decide upon.

Furthermore, certain modifications should be introduced in the way the congresses themselves are organized. It is the AIMA tradition for the theme of each congress to be determined by the host country, an excellent tradition that there is no reason to change. Nonetheless, the congress represents an opportunity to meet and exchange with other members over all sorts of questions outside the main theme. It would thus be appropriate for time to be set aside for open workshops on other subjects than the congress theme, on the condition, obviously, that a workshop theme be put forward prior to the congress by a sufficient number of participants.

This is current practice in most international scientific congresses, for that matter, where the existence of a principal theme in no way excludes holding open workshops. Diversity is quite an important factor in success, to the extent that it enables specialists to come together in areas beyond the main subject. It is highly probable that the AIMA congresses would be more appreciated and better attended, if this diversity of expression had a recognized place and was officially adopted. Here again, it is up to the Presidium to decide whether having open workshops should be explicitly included as part of the congress organization.

 

After the congresses, the other AIMA activity was long represented by the journal Acta Museorum Agriculturae (AMA), in which the congress proceedings were published. Initially published in Prague by the Museum of Agriculture of Czechoslovakia, the journal ceased to appear after Volume 22 which contained the proceedings of the 1989 Randers (Denmark) congress, published in 1991. Subsequently, the congress proceedings were brought out by the organizing countries. Should we consider the disappearance of the AMA as unavoidable? Or, on the contrary, should we do our utmost to see that the journal comes out again in another form or with another title?

This is a complex issue and poses many questions, namely the legal one (who is to be the owner of the title?) and technical (would it not be wiser to rely on an electronic publication?). It also supposes broader insight into the future of national as well as international journals devoted to the history of agriculture. This would entail very considerable groundwork research, since there have been many such journals.¹ Do we in the AIMA have the resources necessary to undertake such a task? Here again, this is a question that only the Presidium can decided upon.

 

 

The themes that fall within the AIMA’s ambit of competence. 1 – Museology

 

It might seem rather contradictory, after having pleaded the cause of open workshops, to propose a list of subject that could be included in such workshops. This might in fact run the risk of too narrowly limiting our thinking and it is not an easy task. If I propose to do so anyway, it is to stimulate this thinking, which should remain as open as possible. To put it in other words, what follows here is not some definitive catalogue of themes, but a simple list of possible examples to be completed or corrected as deemed appropriate.

I think it is convenient to break these examples down into two categories, according to whether they relate to the internal functioning of museums – that is museology – or rather to their contribution to the history, geography, archaeology, etc., of agriculture, that is, to research, given that there is not some hard and fast line between the two categories.

 

Here are a few subjects related to museology as such:

 

- documentation, conservation and security of objects (“objects” taken in the broadest sense, including archives, films, sound archives, electronic documents, etc.);

- organising permanent and temporary exhibits;

- the status of museums and their collections; conditions for acquiring and letting go of objects; insurance issues and security norms for the areas of museums open to the public, etc.

- operating costs of museums, their resources, opportunities for public and private financing, collectors’ items market;

- collaboration among museums and with collectors; exchange of information or objects, organisation and travel of exhibits, etc.

- museums’ relations with administrations, agricultural and professional organisations, private enterprises…

- relations with universities and research institutions;

- relations with the public or publics; identifying targeted publics (schoolchildlren, professionals, “general public”, etc.); analysis and evaluation of operations carried out (temporary exhibits, publications, etc.) targeting various publics.

 

 

I shall come back to some of these points later on. To make up for the slightly dry and too abstract aspect of this list, a concrete example will be useful – the example of agricultural vehicles has the merit of raising the issue of especially difficult conservation problems. These are wooden objects (except for wheel hoops, etc.) and of large size. Being made of wood means that they deteriorate quickly when left in the open air. Their large size means that keeping them requires quite large covered areas, which many museums simply do not have at their disposal. Furthermore, we must recognize that these vehicles do not seem to interest enough collectors, on the contrary of tractors, harvesting machines and machines more generally. The result is that, in a country like France, the situation these vehicles are in is particularly disastrous. Is it any better in other countries? That is possible, even probable, hence the interest of having an international group working on the subject, where various solutions found for the problem can be identified and brought to the attention of everyone concerned.

 

Subjects related to the AIMA’s fields of competence. 2- Research

 

Themes relating to research are obviously too numerous to count. Those that most closely interest the AIMA are the ones connected with the interpretation of collections. Here again, the subject of agricultural vehicles would be a good example. Beyond museological issues, they bring up so many questions of history and geography that call for as broad international comparisons as possible. Wherever it may have been in the world, in the past and today, transport has always been among the most important and challenging tasks of agriculture, and the diversity of means utilized (including their absence) is among the essential factors enabling us to interpret the diversity of agricultures themselves.

 

To provide other examples, here are two other subjects that directly concern the interpretation of objects and most notably agricultural tools.

 

Firstly, there are the gestures involved in work, in activities as diverse as sowing or harvesting (for example, how sickles or scythes are handled, etc.), grain processing (millstones, mortars), bread-kneading, how animals are handled, and so many others. What is more, working gestures are often accompanied by chants or songs, etc. We all know that precise knowledge of gestures is indispensable for interpreting objects. Gestures, chants and songs, etc., often have their own geographical area, again implying the necessity of broad international comparisons. Furthermore, many of these gestures have already disappeared and are known to us only through sources that pose problems of conservation and specific documentation (iconography, films, sound recordings, etc.)

 

Another example is represented by the makers of agricultural tools. Of course, one thinks of village craftspeople, especially blacksmiths, but we should not overlook more specialized trades, the existence of which, in some cases, has been attested over several centuries. Some of these tradespeople had customers on vast, even international scales. This was typical in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries of the Austrian scythe-makers, whose products were marketed over nearly all of Europe. But we would also have to look into the tools made manually and especially for colonial countries (machetes, among others). The production of agricultural vehicles, tilling implements, and later on, agricultural machines, is also a theme on which international comparisons can shed great light. The fact that the history of agriculture converges with the history of industry at this point can provide the opportunity for fruitful collaborations with other institutions.

 

These examples are given only to stimulate discussion. What might make the originality and strength of the AIMA would be to propose research on the basis of these objects. Classical university research all too often ignores the interest of objects and the questions they raise to us. This is an unoccupied niche that the AIMA might enable us to fill.

 

 

Relations of the AIMA with other organisations

 

Since its creation, the AIMA has been an ‘organisaion affiliated with the ICOM’. However, this relationship has remained somewhat a dead letter and should be given more substance. Contacts have been made with the ICOM central office in Paris. One of the problems that arises, be it with the ICOM or other organizations, is the fact that the AIMA does not have a real legal existence. This is a complex problem, to which the Secretary and the French Alternate have already devoted considerable time and effort.

 

Although it is necessary to reinforce the links between the AIMA and museum institutions like the ICOM, it is just as necessary to approach agricultural institutions, beginning with the FAO. This is no easy matter, since the FAO has so far not demonstrated any interest in questions relating to heritage and the history of agriculture. The contacts made in recent months with one of its leaders, Luc Guyau, have not as yet led to any concrete decisions, but they represent a beginning. It might be possible to envision a Presidium meeting in the future at the FAO headquarters in Rome, with the objective of thus enhancing progress in the matter.

 

More generally, the question arises of relations between agricultural museums and professional agricultural organisations, but this is an issue that can only be resolved country-by-country. The role of the AIMA in this area might be to acquaint its members with the most interesting solutions found in various countries.

 

Finally, there is the question of the relations between agricultural museums and teaching institutions. The stakes here are particularly high and will be still greater, as time goes by, because, in modern societies, agriculture is no longer an integral part of ordinary citizens’ lives. This leaves room for every imaginable and possible idea, including the most misleading. To what extent might the teaching of agricultural history, promoted by museums among others, enable us to remediate this situation? What should be the place of the history of agriculture? Firstly, in general education, at all levels, but most especially in agricultural and agronomic education, where history is often considered with the disdain and wariness that touch on anything considered to be nostalgia for the past. Here again, the role of the AIMA might be to make known the situations in various countries, with their advantages and disadvantages.

 

Activities addressing the public : exhibits, festivals, publications, etc.

 

Although the question of exhibits is obviously central to the preoccupations of AIMA members, we shall not come back to it here, except to recall that the success of exhibits depends greatly on the interest they arouse in this or that ‘public’. Analysis of publics is an essential question in the work of any museum policy.

 

The issue of exhibits leads on immediately to that of ‘old-time work’, threshing festivals and demonstrations of all kinds that have come to be so important since the 1970s. Some of these festivals are organised by museums, but not all. In any case, it is often local associations that take the initiative and who have gone on successfully organizing such events over the last thirty to forty years. Most countries have fairly similar and, if also different, experiences in the matter. It would be appropriate for the AIMA to call for comparative international studies on the organization of such festivals, their success and development over time. Obviously, one of the essential issues is to find out what happens when the first demonstrators, who were “authentic” skillsholders, reproducing for a public the gestures that were once part of their everyday lives, disappear, and are replaced by “actors” who reproduce the same gestures without having had the living experience of them. This is nearly the same problem as in experimental archaeology…

 

Publications put out by museums are also meant for the general public, but only in part, since many of them (such as catalogues, for example) are primarily for internal use, even if museum staff rightly attempt to make them accessible to a broader public. These publications for internal use are usually meant for museum professionals themselves,² as well as researchers, collectors, amateurs or connoisseurs interested in this or that category of objects. These publications have often remained little known and not widely shared. What might the AIMA do to improve this situation? This is another question that could be taken up by the Presidium. It is clear that, if the AIMA manages to set up a website as planned, this could be the essential instrument in setting up a truly international bibliography of publications produced by agricultural museums.

 

A last example, that might appear a bit anecdotal at first sight, is that of scale models and toys. Every civilisation has always had toys. Even today, we can find “agricultural” toys in specialized shops (tractors with trailers, harvester-threshers…) that attest to the importance of such items in our modern societies. In addition to toys as such, there are also scale models, made with highly serious educational or publicity objectives. These “serious” models probably saw their heyday in the nineteenth century, as a means to spread knowledge about machines and precision instruments for students and farmers to whom descriptions and drawings were not as eloquent as three-dimensional objects.³ Many of these models have disappeared, but collections of them can still be found here and there, which deserve far more of our attention.

In regard to activities addressing the public, we should not underestimate the importance of scale models, be they toys or “serious” objects. Toys and old models are the object of collections just like others and must be treated as such. However, we might ask whether museums could not favour or themselves organize the making of such models, with the double objective of making certain objects in their collections better known and assuring revenues from their sale (or by selling the rights to their reproduction). Some museums have probably already done this, and it would be interesting to compare their experiences. Here is yet another subject that the AIMA could fruitfully propose as a focus for exchanges among its members.

 

 

Final remarks

 

The AIMA is an association that does not possess great financial means. It obviously would be counter-productive to launch into too many or too ambitious projects, that would only lead to failure and discouragement. However, nothing is keeping us from thinking about what we could do, be it only reacting in a timely way to the opportunities that may present themselves. This thinking will have to be done with all the members involved. All ideas are welcome and must be allowed to circulate freely, with the understanding that the Association should not be committed to concrete action unless a minimum of favourable conditions are present. Still, it is the very circulation of ideas that often creates the conditions favourable to pursuing them. And this task is at the heart of the AIMA’s responsibilities.

 

François Sigaut
8 April 2012