Exhibition
Research
Workshop

[
#rethinkHGM ]

wars should be archived

Date

5. June 2022
Partner

Textfeld Südost
Location

Museum of Military History (HGM) Vienna, AT

March against a war museum! Following the scandal in managing the history as well as the future of one of Europe's biggest military museums, the Heeresgeschichtliche Museum in Vienna, together with committed artists, we have provided impulses for reflecting thoughts as well as new ideas dealing with war and society with a guerrilla exhibition on the grounds of HGM.

With #rethinkHGM, the existing criticisms of the HGM were addressed and expanded to include artistic and historical-museological perspectives. This opened up the discussion about a contemporary museum in which historical military objects are critically rethought and embedded in a democratic culture of remembrance.

March against a war museum!

The Museum of Military History in Vienna (HGM) has many problems: structural, personnel, content and historical ones. Is it really still appropriate to put war on display? Who curates such a war museum, what content is communicated to whom? And what position does the museum give us in Europe? We have had enough of the long-standing inability of those politically responsible and, together with Textfeld Südost, developed the artistic AR intervention [#rethinkHGM].

Together with Austrian and international artists, we transformed the public area of the museum into a virtual space for a de-musealized, dynamic and democratic examination and processing of war. We also offered artistic support for decision-making in democratic systems and staged an explosive art-media critique of institutions.
The magnificent building designed by Ringstrasse architect Theophil Hansen was opened in 1869 as the Imperial Royal Court Weapons Museum. To this day, the HGM continues the legacy of the monarchy both architecturally and in terms of content. Since 2019, the direction of the museum has been the subject of public debate, not for the first time, but far more intensely than before. This important public debate not only calls the criticized conditions of Austria's largest history museum into question, but also deals with the thematic of how it should be positioned towards the European context in the future and who should be involved in the process alongside the official bodies.

But even after years of academic and civil society criticism, the Ministry of Defense was unable to keep its promise to fundamentally reform the Museum of Military History (HGM). We no longer wanted to stand by and were delighted when Textfeld Südost invited us to intervene with a campaign on the Artificial Museum. Together with the artists, we worked on a modernization strategy that takes the respective historical, artistic and scientific responsibilities towards the public seriously. The results are anchored as a permanent exhibition in the public area of the HGM.
But we also had a lot of fun taking over the museum space for an artistic intervention with digital art in order to demonstrate the theoretical possibilities of a rethought HGM. We were also able to teach artists in a workshop to realize and clearly vocalize their own visions and creations that question the decision-making processes of our democracy. While creating these explosive media works, we gained significant ideas and data for our own research regarding the Artificial Museum. This showed us the potential of a living and breathing museum.

For the time being, the discussion has now come to an end with the appointment of historian Georg Hoffmann as the new director of HGM (February 2023). For the time being, because many questions remain unanswered and the inherited issues have hardly been dealt with.

Textfeld Suedost
- Curation:
- Textfeld Südost
- Curation & Development:
- SystemKollektiv
- Photos:
- © Succhart Wannaset