Exhibiting Absence: The Museumification of (De-)Industrialization and Its Emotional Politics

• In Event: Beyond Nostalgia and Ruin: Mnemonic Emotion Narratives and the Postindustrial Memoryscape of Post-Socialist Europe

Abstract

This paper examines how museums in Poland and Lithuania which exhibit post-1989 transformation translate industrial mnemonic emotion narratives (MEN) into exhibition design, material culture, and public storytelling. Some museums repurpose industrial heritage into broader narratives of political change, such as democracy and resistance, while others erase the working class altogether. Using museum ethnography, we analyze curatorial choices that determine which emotions are sanctioned, which are silenced, and which become spectacle. This paper shows that museums do not just remember industry—they script how we are allowed to feel about it.

Author

• Rimante Jaugaite, U of Warsaw (Poland)