Living-Museum

 
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The traveler who arrives at Gibb’s Farm 
walks into a “living museum.”  
The Living Museum at Gibb’s Farm is:

a place where the traveler is no longer transient.   The traveler becomes a resident and lives amongst the farmers, the healers and artists,
a place where the traveler can be a participant in, and not just an observer of, the daily life on the farm. Participation is optional and carefully considered as a bridge maker.  It is approached not to for its perfect authenticity but for cross cultural communications.

INTRODUCING THE LIVING-MUSEUM

The traveler who arrives at Gibb’s Farm walks into a “living museum.”  The Living Museum at Gibb’s Farm is a place where the traveler is “no longer transient.”  The traveler becomes a resident and lives amongst the farmers, the healers and artists, a place where the traveler can be a participant in, and not just an observer of, the daily life on the farm. Participation is optional and carefully considered as a bridge maker.  It is approached not for its perfect authenticity but for cross cultural communications.


  1. The Experience: A genuine cultural safari experience occurs when context to the resident, farmer, healer or artisan’s industry is given. It occurs when the traveler is no longer transient but a resident. Living amongst the farmers is the ideal way to achieve a more complete cultural experience. The tourist accommodations make up the cottages. To preserve such activity the Farm is an economic service to the community. The Farm takes the form of a residential estate for the traveller to delve deep within the farmer’s traditional habitat, with its citizenry engaged in traditional activity, including artistry. This is the Living-Museum. The artisan carves for the purpose of contributing to the on-going Farm’s construction and furnishing, with the opportunity to inform.  The painter, tanner, weaver, carpenter, and others are all engaged; each contributing to the Farm’s economic community. Individual studios actively create the nuance of their craft. Legends are again acted and shared. Interpretation is offered giving context to support the tourist’s experience, photo and video. This Farm is not a recreation, nor Disneyesque. It has existed for 80 years. It is alive. Daily rhythms revolve around every day life. It is not from ancient times, nor a “period re-creation” where time stands still. It is not a cultural preservation project. It is forever adapting and non-static. It is African. This Farm is not the prevailing example of a mass-tourism form of Living- Museum, such as Colonial Williamsburg or Greenfield Village in the USA, or Hostenbaush, Japan,  were actors are paid to simply stroll around in period consumes to perform never-changing scripted and ancient tasks or create souvenir trinkets.


We are not a “cultural boma” were the guide pays a fee to the village group schedule to occupy the space for the day – withdrawing at night. This version represents the Living Museum – a destination limited to very low travel volumes. With the tourist’s residence physically within the Farm itself, made up of such farmers and artisans listed above, a daily cultural journey or safari occurs with or without Naturalists or Guides. It can be either spontaneous or scheduled with interpretation. Strolling down a farm pathway, stopping to witness the roasting of coffee, milking of a cow, creation of the woodcarving. The thriving farm daily life is filled with rhythm and drama. Living within this same habitat ensures a rewarding cultural safari experience.


•  A Living-Museum & Eco-Museum:  The Living-Museum should not be confused with the Eco-Museum. The table, below right, summarizes both in relation to museums. Eco- Museum stems from the recent 30 year need to incorporate an interpretative and preserving response to a community’s symbiotic biodiversity (e.g., flora, fauna and
human culture). A Living-Museum typically is an interpretive and preserving response to a culture’s visual and performing arts (incorporating occasionally its customs or zoological exhibits). World example summaries are offered to portray these trends, in singular or in cross-over forms. Gibb’s Farm is an example of a cross-over Eco-Museum and Living-Museum.


The Living-Museum should not be confused with the Eco-Museum.  The table summarizes both in relation to museums.  Eco-Museum stems from the recent 30 year need to incorporate an interpretative and preserving response to a community’s symbiotic biodiversity (e.g., flora, fauna and human culture).  A Living-Museum typically is an interpretive and preserv-ing response to a culture’s visual and performing arts (incorporating occasionally its customs or zoological exhibits).   World example summar-ies are offered to portray these trends, in singular or in cross-over forms. Gibb’s Farm is an example of a cross-over Eco-Museum and Living-Museum.


A departure from the traditional concept of museums was made in 1971, where collections are kept in a building waiting for experts to study and visitors to view the exhibits.  The French Eco-Museums developed into two movements. 


1.The first is the type where an industrial environment is maintained within the Eco-Museum, like the museum "Le Creusot/Montceau les Mines" (similar to Danish Lake District Eco-Museum Bergslagen, Sweden)


2.The second movement is a park museum where the existing environment is preserved, but natural and cultural history are presented by the Eco-Museum.  Residents retain the lifestyle which was prevalent in villages of a traditional agricultural society.  They volunteer to do so as they believe their traditions are precious, and they keep records of their environment, ancestors and families in a local information centre. 

    Today, there are more than 300 Eco-Museums in the world, mostly in Europe, Latin America and North America.


At Gibb’s Farm "Eco-Museum" refers to ecological activities aimed to develop the Farm as a “Living-Museum.” It embodies three elements: (1) the preservation of various kinds of heritage, including nature and cultural and industrial traditions, in a given region, (2) the management and operation of these with the participation of local residents for the sake of their own futures, and (3) the function of the preserved nature and traditions as a museum.  Ideally, as shown in the diagram at right, the three elements of "heritage," "participation" and "museum" should be well balanced and constitute a closely integrated whole. 



EAST AFRICA’S FIRST ECO-MUSEUM AS A LIVING-MUSEUM

Gibb’s Farm is recognized for out-standing heritage values, natural features and complex interactions between them and the climatic, hydrological and human influences.  The approach of integrated heritage with a holistic socio-economic development is by means of an 'Eco-Museum centre’.  An 'Eco-Museum' is not a building or a ‘living museum’.  It is rather a strategic approach to heritage management.  Eight thematic project components have been identified to strengthen the management of human, cultural, natural and economic sub-systems and their complex interactions. 


  1. 1)Dairy Farming

  2. 2)Crop Farming

  3. 3)Sustainable tourist lodge operation

  4. 4)Indigenous wellness traditions

  5. 5)Adventure recreation

  6. 6)Sustainable forestry

  7. 7)Community self-help

  8. 8)Indigenous community visual & performing art preservation

  9. 9)Resident artists, writers and scholars

  10. 10) Commissioned art and interpretive displays in each room of the lodge


Instead of a patchwork made up of discrete elements managed in isolation (the eco-museum model), the Gibb’s Farm Living-Museum adopts a holistic approach to simultaneously conserve and sustainably develop the tangible and intangible heritage of the Tanzanian farm.  The people of Karatu are a repository of both tangible and intangible heritage that will be interpreted through the Living-Museum model.


Concept: Gibb’s Farm is a Living Museum because it employs an 'interpretive' approach to its management.  An important feature of this approach is that it views human activity, past and present, as fundamental components of the total environmental resource.  The culture, history, traditions and activities of the human community are as much a part of the heritage as the Ngorongoro highland flora and fauna and are in continuous interaction with it.  The video on the right, highlights this experience at Gibb’s Farm today.


Assumptions: all human and natural eco-systems are living, developing organisms that cannot be 'preserved' in a particular isolated state: human and natural ecosystems are interdependent, the ultimate goal of conservation is the sustainable development of the resource, to sustainable use and develop the resource it is necessary to understand it, to understand the resource it is necessary to interpret its nature and processes, effective interpretation must be based upon a holistic view of the resource which recognizes the interdependence of its elements, systems and processes.  In practice the Living-Museum means different things for different stakeholder and participant groups as follows:


  1.     For the visitor: At the heart of the Living-Museum is the daily interpretive demonstration.  Self and guided tours assist with this endeavor. 


  1.     For the local community: Household income will accrue from the visitors and sale of the Farm produce and material.  Those working directly in traditional ways is the living resource opportunity.


 

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The Ecology of Gibb’s Farm Living-Museum:

➀ A Living Museum
➁ A Cultural Safari
➂ An Ecological DestinationLiving_Museum.htmlA_Cultural_Safari.htmlAn_Eco-Destination.htmlshapeimage_11_link_0shapeimage_11_link_1shapeimage_11_link_2shapeimage_11_link_3