Research, Use, Networks

Museums are social spaces where people and groups withdiffering interests and needs encounter one another. TheMuseum of Folk Life and Folk Art has also always been aplace of work and somewhere where administrative proce-dures, expert discussions and cultural practices are carried out.

This installation brings together the key actors, who hada variety of relationships to the museum and to each other.They all feature in the exhibition.

5| Objects: Use& Meaning

Trester Mania

Among the first objects to arrive at the Museum of Folk Lifeand Folk Art were costumes worn by the Tresterer dancers.The costume from the Pinzgau region, acquired by one of themuseum's two founders, the orientalist Glossar ::: zum Glossareintrag  orientalist Wilhelm Hein, in1895 is still considered one of the highlights of the collection.

In 1893, Hein set off on a commission for the AnthropologicalSociety in Vienna to research the masks used in folk pageantry.However, his actual findings soon became integrated intothe contemporary narrative that linked masks to primitivismand folk- cultural nativeness. Over the course of the twentiethcentury this meaning changed, altering too the' value' at-tributed to these kinds of masks and costumes by the museumand by society.