Holistički pristup u evaluaciji projekta Novi Stari Muzej ili kako učiti na sopstvenim uspesima i greškama
Holistic approach in the evaluation of project The New Old Museum or how to learn on successes and mistakes

Summary/Abstract: Bringing the story of Yugoslavia into a set of data, objects and documents, should provide us with a distanced and objective picture of what it meant to live in Yugoslavia, ignoring the fact that for entire generations of citizens in the territory of former Yugoslavia this is part of the lived experience. The generations of the former Yugoslavs become objects of the past.” (Petrović 2012: 187) This text is the result of many years of experience in the project The New Old Museum by Museum of Yugoslav History (MIJ), launched in 2009, and exhibition Yugoslavia: from the beginning to the end as its most compelling result. The Project was a radical turnaround in the program concept of the Museum, a controversial project that was supposed to strengthen the institution, inspire curators, bring new ideas and initiatives for innovative regional projects, encouraging intercultural and interethnic cooperation. It is thought that the results of this project will be visible and beneficial to the society, because public and shared remembrance of events from the recent, traumatic past, reinforce and change the way of understanding the past. Joint reflection on the new concept of MIJ’s constant setup was to expand the horizons, provide new perspectives and help curators MIJ through organized workshops and informal talks to look differently at the Museum’s fund and its interpretative potentials in the context of the Yugoslav heritage and the history of Yugoslavia. Was everything developing according to plans? Was the Museum prepared for such radical changes, for opening to the outside, for criticism, for autoreflection, for participation in controversial issues or for everything else? Given that the author of the text participated in the process of writing, and at the same time was the commissioner of the exhibition Yugoslavia: from the beginning to the end, the author was many times in a position to “defend” the project, critically analyze and present within the institution, and also within various international conferences. Written in this ambivalent position, this work is the fruit of practical experience and attempts of introspection, description and analysis of the problems and resistance, as well as analysis of the results of a whole series of evaluation processes that were run during and after the project, with the intention of opening critical issues of critical museum and museum-forum, organizational structures, openness of the institution and its functioning. The reason for such an analysis, which is indispensable at this point, is the fact that MIJ starts a strategic long-term project about 100 years after the establishment of Yugoslav state that will explain the circumstances and the reasons for the emergence of the first Yugoslav state through new statuses, thematic exhibitions, scientific conferences and popular publications – with the aim to open discussion and to create a platform for dialogue and reconciliation in the region, not just by illustrating facts, but by explaining the mechanisms of scientific and museological interpretations and the creation of the heritage.

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