Parco della Terramara di Montale: a place for intercultural dialogue
Within the five years project OpenArch the Archaeological Park of Terramara Montale increased its dialogue with special kind of audience: migrants. Following the experiences developed since 2008, and still on going, of the Archaeological Ethnological City Museum of Modena (the Terramara Park is an open-air sector of it) in the intercultural dialogue, the Park organizes special visits for students of the Modena’s local centre for adult education and training (CTP). This Centre, favoured by the Municipality, organises Italian language lessons for people, often young and adults migrants, coming from countries all around the world and now living in the city as new citizens.
The Terramara Park and the Archaeological Museum of Modena, in close collaboration with the teachers of the CTP, organize visits with different goals:
• to develop the museum’s potential as a place for intercultural dialogue
• to awaken “new citizens” to Modena’s cultural heritage
• to urge the autochthonous community to become an active player in the integration process
• to develop the intercultural competencies of museum staff
• through debate and exchange, to share the knowledge of a cultural heritage that is enriched by multiple visions and perspectives (rather than simply transmitting historical-archaeological knowledge and skills)
The visits, conducted by the archaeologists of the museum, took place first of all in the Archaeological Museum where the findings are displayed and where the visitors had the possibility to know for the first time the origins of the city where they were now living, with a particular explanation of the bronze age period and the terramare settlements. At the end of the visits, the tea break time gave the possibility to share, all together in a informal way, about personal experiences of cultural heritage, questions, doubts,…
In an other day, the second part of the visits took place in the open-air sector of the Musuem: the Terramara Park of Montale (11 Km from the City centre of Modena). Here, the evocative visit inside the excavation area and in the reconstructed houses gave to the visitors a more tangible impression and stimulated the dialogue between different cultures: the furniture realized in true scale, for example, made the visitors awake about similarities and differences between this and their cultural heritage.
One of the unexpected outcome of the entire experience, was the demand of some participants to become volunteer for the museum and we have been of course glad to involve them. Others became part of our "usula" audinece, others participate to further intercultural projects of the museum.