A-CEP Budapest 2015

Budapest, Hungary
August 30 – Sep 3, 2015

The second 2015 edition of the Advanced Curatorial Education Programme took place in Budapest from 30 August to 3 September. The programme was hosted by the Hungarian Jewish Museum and Archives. An international group of 16 curators from 12 different European countries participated in an intensive five-day programme with hands-on workshops, lectures, and excursions. The programme focused on the collections of the host institution and was developed by programme director Dr Felicitas Heimann-Jelinek, assisted by Dr Michaela Feurstein-Prasser, and in close cooperation with the AEJM and a curatorial team based in Budapest.

Director Zsuzsanna Toronyi offered a theoretical starting point for this seminar with her lecture on the history of the Hungarian Jewish Museum & Archives. Participants then visited the permanent exhibition and the archives and analysed the presentation of Judaica.

Further lectures and workshops focused on the collection, use and presentation of Judaica objects, archival materials and manuscripts at the Hungarian Jewish Museum and archives. These sessions were led by Cilly Kugelmann (Jewish Museum Berlin), Felicitas Heimann-Jelinek, Michaela Feurstein-Prasser, Zsuzsanna Toronyi and Anna Gabor (Hungarian Jewish Museum).

At the Hungarian National Museum, participants were able to explore and analyse Judaica objects . They were welcomed by Erika Kiss, curator of the Modern Goldsmith Collection. William Gross gave a lecture and workshop on 18th/19th Century Viennese silversmith Turinsky and his works in the collection of the Hungarian Jewish Museum. Rabbi Istvan Darvas discussed the depiction of Moses and Aaron on Judaica objects.

The group was welcomed at the Hungarian Academy of Sciences by Kinga Devenyi, Chief Librarian and Curator of the Arab Manuscripts, the Goldziher Collection and the Kaufmann Collection. Together they took a closer look at several manuscripts in the oriental library.

Together with the Deputy Director of the Museum of Ethnography, Zsuzsa Szarvast, the participants visited the temporary exhibition Picking up the Pieces: Fragments of Rural Hungarian Jewish Culture. Rudolf Klein, Professor of Architectural History of the Szent Istvan University, introduced the participants to the history of the Jewish Quarter in Budapest while visiting several synagogues, streets and other buildings in this area.

‘[…] the day was dedicated to a workshop, dealing with analyzing the Judaica items from the collections of the Hungarian Jewish Museum and Archives. For me it was the first experience of close work with Judaica silverware, and I found this workshop to be not only interesting, but also useful and applicable in my everyday work.’  

– Ilya Lensky, Director of the Museum ,,Jews in Latvia”.